Remembering Stephen Curry's 54 points at Madison Square Garden
Given that the 21-37 Knicks were just handed a beatdown in Miami last night and that the 35-23 Warriors, one of the better road teams in the Association this season, had the night off, there may not be much reason to watch tonight's matchup at Madison Square Garden on the surface.
But then you look at the date, look at the matchup again and realize that maybe, just maybe, there will be some magic in the air at the 'World's Most Famous Arena' again this evening. And that's because almost one year ago to the day, February 27, 2013, the last time the Warriors were in Manhattan, Stephen Curry put on a performance for the ages, dropping 54 points and 11 three-pointers on the Knicks in front of the MSG faithful.
The one-year (plus a day) anniversary, with Curry back at The Garden, seems like as good a time as ever to relive that performance.
The first thing to remember is that the night before in Indiana, Curry had just dropped 38 points on 14-of-20 shooting and 7-of-10 three-point shooting against the Pacers, so he should have been spent. Instead, the 24-year-old (at the time) played the game of his life on the second night of a road back-to-back, logging all 48 minutes for the Warriors against the Knicks.
Golden State may have lost both games, but Curry provided us (and the Nuggets) with a taste of what was to come in the postseason.
Here are a few of the ridiculous plays in GIF form...
Don't get dizzy, Iman:
Here's Curry using Pablo Prigioni and Kenyon Martin like traffic pylons on an obstacle course:
Here he just kind of lulls Prigioni to sleep before releasing one of his 11 three-bombs:
At which point Carmelo Anthony begins to realize what's happening, likely experiencing a premonition of the Knicks' 2013-14 season:
Nobody pulls up in transition for a three at full speed quite like Curry does:
Even if he has to take a slight detour:
Seriously, no one:
It wasn't all about the threes, though. Off-balance, lefty layup while falling out of bounds? Sure, why not?
But if we are going to make it about the threes, this one has to be the most memorable:
On this night, we were all guilty of 'Woodson Face':
(All GIFs courtesy of nba.com/stats boxscore video)
And of course, to relive all of the madness in real time video, there's this: