Good riddance January: Steph ends horrid month with bang

After perhaps the most challenging month on the court since joining the NBA elite nearly a decade ago, Stephen Curry on Monday night delivered an emphatic message for January 2022:

Get off my back, out of my face and away from my basketball life. You won’t be missed. Good riddance, and take this boot to the backside on the way out.

Curry’s scoring touch, missing for weeks, came back with a vengeance Monday night in Houston. On the final day of the month, he scored 40 points – his highest output in 40 days – including 21 in the fourth quarter to bury the pesky Rockets and carry the Warriors to a 122-108 victory at Toyota Center.

“We’ve seen Steph do that a million times,” coach Steve Kerr said. “It was bound to happen, even though it’s been a couple weeks, or whatever it’s been. It’s not surprising. But it’s fun to see, just to see him shake free and have a game like he did.”

The 26-foot bricks so common earlier this month were replaced by the smooth stroke, with the net almost still as the ball dropped through. This was the caped Steph the NBA has come to know and expect, putting on a show that lifts his team and sends a buzz through the arena, no matter the city. 

Almost exclusively on the ball at point guard in the fourth, Curry entered takeover mode. Savage. Relentless. And remorseless. 

“When he gets going, the game is his,” Kerr said. “And we just kind of let him do what he wants to do. If we see something, we might call a play during a timeout. But he was just going and guys did a good job of setting screens and spacing the floor, and he got loose.”

Through his first 14 games this month, only once did Curry shoot better than 50 percent from the field. He was 13-of-23 against Houston, 56.5 percent. Only twice in the previous 14 games did he shoot at least 50 percent beyond the arc. He was 7-of-14, exactly 50 percent.

Prodded by nonstop chatter from brash Rockets guard Kevin Porter Jr., Curry’s response was to seize control of a game that was competitive early in the fourth quarter. With the Warriors clinging to a 92-87 lead with 9:04 remaining, he scored 21 of their final 28 points in less than eight minutes.

“I didn’t know that. I didn’t notice that at all,” coach Kerr said of Porter’s jawing. “But I highly encourage it.”

Curry heard it. He didn’t respond, because he never does. Not his style to fight his fight with his tongue. He used his shot, which generated the win.

“It’s not the first time, won’t be the last time,” Curry said of the Porter’s monologue. “You always have it, but you definitely bring another level of competitiveness when fun stuff like that happens in the game. I take it all as entertainment.”

Curry definitely looks to exploit anything that give him edge. The chatter, along with his desire to shed his struggle to excel at the thing he does best, combined to provide enough fury to summon his best after too many nights at his worst.

“It’s the gift and the curse of the bar that you set,” Curry said. “It’s part of the nature. You get all of the praise when things are going well and, obviously, there’s something to talk about when I don’t meet that level. You try to deal with the frustration when that happens over a consistent period of time. It’s a little new, but it’s keeping me dialed in on how to still impact the game even if shots aren’t falling.

“And understand that when they do fall, we’re extremely tough to beat. We’re already tough to beat, but that’s got to be a part of us trying to win a championship.”

Curry’s slump or slide, slip or dip, started fading last week. There was no sign of it Monday night. He scored 88 points over his last three games, shooting 45.9 percent from the field.

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More important, he was 16-of-34 (47.1 percent) from distance over that stretch. That’s the shot that had gone astray.

That’s the shot Curry recognizes as the one Warriors need to compete at the highest levels. The shot that was behind a 45-point night in October, a 50-point night in November and a 46-point night in December.

The shot that mostly abandoned him in January – until he dropped first 40-point on its final day.

Here comes February. The fire is about to get turned up.