CHICAGO -- The longest shooting slump of Steph Curry's career has droned on for the better part of a month. But the Warriors star might have turned a corner Friday night in Golden State's 138-96 throttling of the Chicago Bulls at United Center.
It wasn't a vintage Curry performance. No Chicagoans left The House That Jordan Built with stars in their eyes at the show Curry put on. There was no explosion. No eruption. The Warriors didn't need that. They built a big lead thanks to an early burst from Andrew Wiggins and Jordan Poole, pinned the Bulls down and never let them up.
But Curry did score 19 points on 7-of-15 shooting from the field while hitting four of his 10 3-point attempts. Still, it was a sign that the ball is starting to drop for the two-time NBA MVP. It was just the fourth time in the last 16 games that Curry has shot over 45 percent from the field, and just the third time in that span that he has hit 40 percent or better from beyond the arc.
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While it was nice to rip the net a few times in the Windy City, Curry isn't going to take too much away from Friday's performance. A light at the end of the slump tunnel? Maybe. Another step in the greatest shooter of all time's process? Absolutely.
"Yeah, but again, it's not a situation where you react to -- for me right now what the line looks like, I take the same shots I would take, no matter what," Curry said Friday after the win over the Bulls. "It's kind of funny. I laughed at myself because, call it whatever you want, I haven't been shooting to my standards and I still can't help myself with the shot that I take. I have unbelievable confidence in myself and in my abilities, what I can do out there. You don't ever have to worry about that."
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While no one will remember Curry's performance Friday in Chicago, there's a chance it ends up being an important moment in the Warriors' season.
Golden State Warriors
Coming off a blowout loss to the Milwaukee Bucks, the Warriors, losers of four of five, were reeling. Curry appeared to be locked in an icy vortex like the kind that blows in from Lake Michigan in the winter.
Curry opened Friday night's game locked in the same cold spell. He scored just two points in the first quarter, going 1-for-4 from the field and missing all three of his attempts from distance.
But a 12-foot mid-range jump shot in the second quarter seemed to turn things around. He hit a corner 3-pointer two possessions later and dropped a bomb on the Bulls right before halftime, an exclamation point on an excellent first half for the Warriors and perhaps a statement that he was beginning to put the longest shooting slump of his career behind him.
Winter always ends. The water thaws, and then the dam starts to break.
Curry got a little warmer on a typically frigid January day in Chicago. Everyone knows what comes next.