Steph's 10 most amazing stats from 62-point performance
After an offseason and first two weeks chock-full of threads and moratoriums on what Steph Curry’s legacy will be when his NBA career comes to a close, the two-time MVP put those criticisms to bed with a dominant 62-point performance in a win over the Portland Trail Blazers at Chase Center.It was a career-high for Curry, and the first 60-point game of his decorated NBA career.After a slow start to the Warriors’ season, Curry filled up the box score, knocking down eight 3-pointers and drawing praise from across the league.Let’s go inside all of the numbers and amazing stats from Curry’s historic performance.
Steph joined Klay Thompson, Joe Fulks, Rick Barry and Wilt Chamberlain as the fifth player in franchise history to top 60 points in a game. The most recent one was Thompson’s 60-point outing back in 2016 against the Indiana Pacers.
It will be pretty tough for Curry to become the franchise’s all-time leader in 60-point performances, however, as Hall of Famer Wilt Chamberlain did it an absurd 27 times during his NBA career.
Only two players in NBA history ever have been able to put up at least 30 points in both halves of a game. Kobe Bryant put up 32 and then 30 in a 2005 game against the Dallas Mavericks, and “Pistol” Pete Maravich did so in 1977 for the New Orleans Jazz.
Steph put up 31 in each half, which were the 10th and 11th halves of his NBA career with at least 30 points.
Curry’s 62 points became the highest-scoring individual performance by any player in the Warriors’ new arena. He ironically topped Damian Lillard, his counterpart in the performance, who previously had held the Chase Center record with a 39-point game in November 2019.
D’Angelo Russell’s 37 points in a January 2020 loss to the Indiana Pacers was the Warriors’ best individual scoring night at Chase Center prior to Sunday night’s game.
Just a few months shy of his 33rd birthday, Curry became the second-oldest NBA player to put up 60 points in a game, behind Kobe Bryant’s 60-point career finale at Staples Center, when he was 37 years old and 234 days.
Curry just edged out Chamberlain for second, who was 32 years and 172 days old when he last topped the 60-point threshold.
Amid a night of many milestones for Curry, his franchise record-breaking streak of consecutive free throws came to an end at 80 in the first quarter of Sunday’s win.
However, Curry did set a personal career-high with 18 made free throws, finishing 18-for-19 at the line.
Steph’s 21-point first quarter was his 27th 20-point quarter in his NBA career, and the eighth time the star has done so in the first frame.
As The Athletic’s Marcus Thompson noted on Twitter during the game, Curry last topped 20 in a quarter in Game 6 of the 2019 Western Conference Semifinals against the Houston Rockets, when he put up 23 in the fourth quarter to help the Warriors win the series.
Curry’s 62 points were the most by any player in an NBA game since 2017, when Phoenix Suns star Devin Booker put up 70 in a loss to the Boston Celtics.
As previously mentioned, Klay Thompson was the last Warrior to top 60 back in 2016.
There have been 425 instances in NBA history of a player making eight or more 3-pointers in a game. Curry has an amazing 49 of those performances, which is 11.5 percent of that list.
The last time he surpassed eight-plus threes made in a regular-season game prior to Sunday was April 5, 2019, when he knocked down nine of his 12 attempts in a win over the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Whereas Klay Thompson’s 60-point game in 2016 came off just 71 total dribbles, Steph Curry’s 62 points came with 403 dribbles, which should come as no surprise given Curry’s role as the Warriors’ floor general.
Curry also had possession for nearly four times as long as Thompson did, as he was tracked as holding the ball for over six and a half minutes, while Klay held possession for just one minute and 42 seconds.
(Per Sports Radar)
It’s been a simple formula for the Warriors so far in the 2020-21 regular season: when Steph puts up points, Golden State’s chances of victory shoot up.
The Warriors are 3-0 in games where Curry has scored 30-plus points, and 0-3 in the three games where he has failed to reach 30.
