The greatest shooter ever may have had his greatest moment ever.
Stephen Curry has four NBA titles, a couple of MVPs and the league’s all-time 3-point record. His shooting changed not just the Warriors and the NBA, but the game of basketball the world over.
But never in his surefire Hall of Fame career has he had a golden moment like this.
The only spot in Curry’s overflowing trophy case still bare was for an Olympic gold medal. And he filled it Saturday, the same way he filled up the basket when Team USA needed him in a 98-87 final victory over host France.
“It wasn’t easy, but damn, I’m excited,” Curry said. “This is everything that I wanted it to be and more, so I’m excited.”
Curry poured in 24 points, five assists and eight 3-pointers. And it wasn’t just what Curry did, but how he did it. And when.
After watching Team USA get wobbly and seeing their double-digit lead shrivel to just 82-79 with under three minutes left, the U.S. rode Curry’s back.
Or more accurately, they rode his red-hot hand.
Curry scored a dozen points in the final 2:48 of the game, all on 3-pointers.
“That was an unbelievable moment. I’ve been blessed to play basketball at a high level for a very long time. I don’t know, this ranks very, very high in terms of the excitement and the sense of relief getting to the finish line,” Curry said in an on-court TV interview after the victory.
“It is special. Two years ago when we won our last championship, I knew that this was going to be on the horizon, and something that I was excited to go after. Anything you sign up for, any mission that you take on, you give everything you have. … We missed the playoffs, so I’ve been preparing for a long time, but these last five weeks together with this group has been nothing but ‘one, two, three, gold.’ That’s all we’ve been saying. So for us to finally accomplish that, for me to get the gold medal, is insane, and I thank God for the opportunity to experience it.”
Curry’s heat-check 3-pointers — daggers from the logo — have changed the game and inspired a generation of players to emulate him. But the original was on display Saturday in Paris, and he was on fire.
After mustering just 29 points on 5 of 20 shooting from deep through Team USA’s first four games, Curry erupted for 60 on 17 of 26 the last two.
It was Curry’s game-high 36 points that overturned a 17-point deficit in the semifinal win over three-time MVP Nikola Jokic. Saturday against the future of the sport, Victor Wembanyama, he pulled off an encore.
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When Wembanyama got the hosts within 82-79, Curry answered back with a 3-pointer just 10 seconds later. Then he drained another with 1:53 to play, and another, and finally a high-arcing miracle shot over a Wembanyama double-team with 35 seconds left.
That was the exclamation point on the win. And after it was over, Curry was on the podium conducting the American pockets of fans in chants of “USA! USA!” the same way he’d conducted Team USA to gold.
“It’s right up there with all of the greatest games of his career,” Team USA coach Steve Kerr said in a TV interview. And after winning four NBA titles with Curry in Golden State, Kerr would know.
“The shotmaking was just incredible,” he said. “But under the circumstances — you know, on the road in Paris against France for a gold medal — this is storybook stuff. But that’s what Steph does. He likes to be in storybooks.”
Curry wasn’t just in this one. He wrote the golden ending for it.
