The Warriors beat the Knicks 105-96 on the road, and Curry hit 2,974 three-pointers after hitting his second three-pointer in the first half, officially surpassing Ray Allen's 2,973 and crowning him as the all-time three-pointer.
Getting taller players closer to the basket to score more easily has been the NBA's trend and direction for decades, but that has changed drastically since the advent of Steven Curry. 12 years ago, Curry found the Warriors' call at Madison; 12 years later, he was crowned in the highest temple in the basketball world. I don't know when it began, the title of the first person in NBA three-point history is no longer Curry, but when he hit the second three-pointer in Madison Square Garden today, pushing the career regular season three-point shooting number to 2974, at this moment, Curry finally stood on the top of NBA history, walked into the hall, and stamped his name on the history book.
Need is the mother of invention, and the short board of the body is regarded as an insurmountable barrier on Curry's road to top basketball players. But in Curry's hands, he forged it into a key, opening the door to a new era of basketball.
'Curry was a little bit taller than I was at the time, but in the NBA he was still the smaller player at the guard. Mark Price, who has been in the NBA for 12 years and shoots 40 percent from three-point range, said: "So, I started to look at how to play this deck of cards in my hand, hone my ability to challenge big players one-on-one, learn how to face players who are better and stronger in sports, and create my own shooting space in the game. Curry's movements are so delicate and compact that no matter where he is on the pitch, he can copy and paste the same posture to complete the shot. ”
Since Curry completed the crossing from an ankle injury and led the Warriors to the top of the league, "single-action" shooting has been frequently mentioned, and more and more research has been made on Curry's shooting posture, and everyone is eager to explore the mystery. For Curry in his formative years, such shooting moves are just changes he had to make in order to survive on the court.
In middle school, Curry was limited by his height and suffered from frequent opponent blocks in the game. As one of the top pitchers in the NBA, his father, Dale Curry, proposed to change his son's shooting behavior. At that time, who could have imagined that this time the help of the inadvertent willow would put Curry on the top of NBA history. But if you think about it, everything seems inevitable. Playing in the NBA for 16 years, Dale Curry hit nearly 1,300 three-pointers in the regular season and playoffs. Every opinion of his father is the key to Curry's ability to use his strengths and avoid his weaknesses and to lift weights in the NBA. In addition to the replacement of the projection action, Dale's insistence on Curry's transformation into a point guard is the cornerstone of the latter's ability to see history today.
When Curry joined Davidson College in 2006, Jason Richards, who had been on the bench for two years and had played 58 games as a substitute for the team, was the first choice for the coaching staff for the new season. For the next two seasons, Curry represented Davidson in the Collegiate League as a scoring guard. Stepping onto the court and scoring is the only thing Curry needs to think about. With accurate fixed-point shooting and almost untraceable cover, Curry averaged 23.7 points in the first two seasons of college and shot 284 three-pointers with 42.5 percent shooting.
However, with a height of 1.88 meters and a weight of 82 kilograms, Curry is doomed to become the next Reggie Miller. So in the third season of college, Curry followed his father's advice and began to transform into a point guard, combined with the no-ball skills cultivated in the previous two years, a humanoid weapon that was about to dominate the NBA's three-point line began to take shape.
"I'm a combination of Nash and Miller." Curry said.
After being selected by the Warriors with the seventh pick in 2009, the newcomer Curry could only play without the ball behind the powerful Ellis. Looking back from the top of the mountain, Curry now has an unprecedented ability to hold the ball and three-pointers, but in the first three seasons of entering the NBA, Curry only had 372 three-pointers that were dribbled and hit, accounting for 23.4% of the total three-point shooting in the same period. In 2012, Warriors management made what was perhaps the wisest decision in the team's history, sending Ellis away to straighten out the rising Stephen Curry. As the team's absolute backcourt core, Curry's ball blocking has become the main way for the Warriors to launch an attack, and a new chapter in his career has also begun.
In the 2012-13 season, Curry threw 273 three-pointers in his first year at the helm of the Warriors' offense, setting a single-season record for three-point shooting in the NBA. In the regular season, Curry completed a total of 600 three-point shots, shooting 45.3 percent from the field. At that time, people who patronized the amazement may not realize that 40% of the three-point shooting rate that once seemed out of reach in a single season was only the minimum standard for Curry. Today, Curry's career average three-point shooting rate is 43.2%, and no one can match the number of career shots, but only the third in the number of shots.
"A lot of times people can't understand how hard it is to make 14 three-point shots in one game." Curry, who has averaged 13.4 shots per game in three-point games this season, said. The precision of positioning pitchers, the ability to dry pull after the ball core creates space, the pioneering ultra-long-distance projection, everything about three-point techniques, Curry has everything. Change direction, emergency stop, go around the cover, retreat step, this is how Curry hits three-pointers; the top of the arc, the bottom angle, the 45 degrees, the half-time logo, this is where Curry hits three points. There is no doubt that Curry is the first and only set maker in the field of three points.
"I think a lot of people are comparing Curry to me and Miller and a lot of great three-point shooters like that," Ray Allen said, "but like I said before, he's playing the way Curry is, shooting with Curry's defense, and nobody can stop him from scoring on the court." According to U.S. media reports, Curry was training, and all the shots that were not hollowed out were considered offside. In Curry's career, before the start of the game against the 76ers on the 12th, Curry hit a total of 1560 hollow three-pointers, accounting for 53% of his total shooting.
Ever since Curry broke Ray Allen's record for three-point shooting in a single season, teams have developed a general approach that can limit Curry. They will let the team's more physically qualified shooting guards and small forwards go to the one-on-one single defense curry, and the purpose is also very clear, that is, to increase the confrontation, limit curry's movement, and reduce the space for his shots. If you happen to have a number one in your lineup who is about the same height as Curry, whose foot movement is not lost at all, and whose confrontation ability is even better, it is the best solution.
Remember that in the 2014 Warriors playoffs and Speedboats, Curry was frustrated for the first time against Paul at his peak. In the final round of G3, when the Warriors were only two points behind 96-98, Curry had a chance to kill. However, the cover of David Lee and O'Neill Jr. could not stop Paul, Curry could not squeeze Paul with the ball, and the retreat step in a hurry was completely unable to create a projection space. The ball did not touch the ground, the buzzer immediately sounded, curry put his hands on his knees, and sat on the floor for a long time.
Since then, Curry's trainer, Brandon Payne, has realized that if he wants to go to a higher level of stage, Curry must strengthen his ability to fight, allowing him to calmly create space and make offensive decisions under the high-pressure defense. "What surprised me the most when I watched Curry play was his unparalleled dribbling ability," Allen said, "The most different thing about Curry compared to a lot of top projections is his ability to find shooting positions and create shooting opportunities, and I can't dribble freely on the court like he does." ”
For Curry, the highest state of strength training is endurance. In the playoff level confrontation, before going to his own shooting position and creating shooting space, Curry may need to go through 5 changes of direction, 4 emergency stops, bypass 3 covers, and encounter 2 violations to avoid the referee's vision, in order to get a fleeting shot. Under such a large consumption, Curry can still use the ultimate core power to control the body, to complete the soft as a light twist, accurate as a lead like a shot. All of this is the result of day-to-day boring strength and physical training.
"Curry is an alien, I really can't imagine." Holliday said: "Once when he was shooting three points at halftime, I fouled him, he didn't look at the basket at the time, he almost threw the ball in, the ball hit the neck of the basket, the referee did not blow. I was like, 'What the hell is going on with you?' What did you eat? Can you give me some too? It's really crazy. ’”
After the 2018 Western Conference Finals G7, Curry sat naked in front of the wardrobe in the Toyota Center away locker room for an interview. Remember that in the first half, Thompson received his third foul in the first quarter, and the Warriors trailed by as many as 15 points at one point. After the easy side, Curry scored 19 points on 5-of-9 three-point shooting in the last two quarters, while the Rockets suffered the tragedy of 27 consecutive three-point misses, and the Warriors reversed to advance to the Finals.
Asked about the key to being able to complete a reversal, Curry gave a word: "Endurance." "Using scissors to remove the thick bandages on his ankles, Curry patted his chest hard with his hands, so hard that the skin was covered with red marks." As the game progresses, you have to get stronger and you need to be prepared for a longer game time. ”
As Curry's old rival, James has a deep understanding. "I think a lot of people don't know what a great engine Curry has, he never stops moving." And this, Curry is the teacher of Reggie Miller. In addition to his accurate shooting skills, Miller knows that he will always be the best runner on the court. "I've always thought of NBA racing as a marathon," Miller said, "Curry, Thompson, Hamilton, they can run the whole game and exhaust the physical fitness of the opponent." It's cool to see the guy who's defending you lose his breath in the fourth quarter, and we just turned the NBA into a marathon. ”
On November 28, the Warriors challenged the Clippers on the road, and Curry sprinted quickly with the ball, retreating to hit a three-pointer under the pursuit of Jackson and Bledsoe. When Curry stood outside the three-point line to make a technical foul gesture to the referee, the Warriors had 18 seconds left in the entire round of offensive time. 10 years ago, this was almost an unacceptable way for the coaching staff to deal with, and today, it has become the deadliest weapon in the NBA.
"When Curry can hit a three-pointer 30 feet (9.14 meters) from the basket in a conversion, that's when we're the strongest team." Warriors head coach Kerr said in an interview. Curry said he started with the 2014-15 season and gradually embraced the conversion of three points. And in the 2015-16 season, he further increased his projection distance, opening up a new era in the NBA. "The farther you get from the three-point line, the more space you're going to get," Curry said, "so you can finish your shots before the defenders are in place." So far in his career, Curry has hit nearly 560 converted three-pointers, or 19 percent of his total shooting.
On NBA courts, the NBA arc-top three-point line is 7.25 meters from the basket. In Curry's career, Curry hit more than 350 three-pointers from 8.5 meters away from the basket. Once upon a time, forward defenders only had to defend at the free throw line. In this season's Warriors and Spurs game, because Murray did not force Curry at the halftime logo to let him hit the whistle three points, It has made Popovich jump like a thunderbolt.
'When you face a player like Curry, you get a little scared. Wade said of Curry's game: "The fear for Curry is that you have no idea what he's going to do. Curry can complete the shot at any position in the half, and can break through to the left with the ball, and can also shoot when holding the ball to the right. When he handed the ball to his teammates, in the air cut and cover, he became more deadly, curry is an undefended presence. ”
On November 1, 2016, Ray Allen announced that he would end his illustrious career. Along with his NBA years, there are also 2,973 regular-season three-point shooting records, and ray Allen used 1300 games to do that. Five years later, Curry made the Thunder Gun record an older, while he made only 789 appearances. If Curry can maintain his current production, by the time he reaches the 1300-game mark, his three-point shooting will be 5000. For the 33-year-old Curry, the crown of the first person in three-point history is just another node and footnote in his career. Under his leadership, the Warriors, who have achieved nirvana from the bottom of the valley, once again lead the regular season list. Thousands of records have become a thing of the past, standing eight meters away from the basket, the eyes of the third god reflect the reflection of the O'Brien Cup.
Wen | Dong Chuangshuo
Edit | Fat Cat