For most of basketball history, making at least seven 3-pointers in a single game was enough to stop the presses. Stephen Curry has turned it into a relatively regular night at the office. He did it again Wednesday, finishing with nine 3s and 41 points in Golden State’s 130-125 loss to the Clippers.
It is the 129th time Curry has made at least seven 3s, an NBA record. The next closet guy, Klay Thompson, has done it 48 times. This marks the fourth straight game that Curry has made at least seven 3s. Nobody else in history has ever done that.
Here was the record breaker:
Here’s how Curry has shot it from three, plus his overall point totals over his past four games:
- vs. Clippers: 9 for 19, 41 points
- @ Utah: 7 for 16, 25 points
- vs. Phoenix: 9 for 16, 30 points
- @ Indiana: 11 for 16, 42 points
Do the math, and that’s 36 3-pointers over a four-game stretch, which ties an NBA record. Whose record did Curry tie? His own. Go figure. The guy is about to turn 36 and he’s on pace to break his own record for 3-pointers in a single season, which he set in 2015-16 with 402. (He’s already got 250 through Wednesday night, and the Warriors still have 30 games to go.)
However, Curry wasn’t enough for the Warriors, who led for most of the game, to secure the win. The Clippers, even without Kawhi Leonard, are just too much when they get going collectively from beyond the arc. The depth of their 3-point shooting cannot be matched.
On Wednesday, L.A. didn’t light it up from deep, making 13 to Golden State’s 18 triples. But they got hot at the right time. Norman Powell hit four of his five 3s over a four-minute-and-change stretch of the fourth quarter, and Amir Coffey hit another one a minute later. Over that span, the Clippers turned a five-point deficit into a seven-point lead.
Brandin Podziemski cut Golden State’s deficit to three with 39 seconds to play, but Thompson made a big mental mistake by intentionally fouling Russell Westbrook when the Warriors had time to play the defensive possession straight up and still get the ball back with plenty of time to go for a game-tying 3.
Westbrook made both free throws.
After Curry cut the deficit to three again with a layup at the 31-second mark, the Warriors finally did get the stop they needed on a missed Westbrook jumper with nine seconds to play, but they were unable to secure the rebound. They had to foul James Harden. who made both freebies, and that was all she wrote.
It’s a tough loss for the Warriors, who, again, appeared to have this game in control for a good stretch of the second half. Their five-game win streak is over. But they’ve still won seven of their last nine and can make it eight out of 10 with a win in Utah on Thursday, their last game before the All-Star break.
Golden State remains in 10th place, the final play-In spot, in the West, while the Clippers remain one game back in the loss column of the No. 1 spot.
