Watching TheAthletic’s Anthony Slater’s locker room interview clip (see transcript below) of Stephen Curry postgame the other night, I couldn’t help but wonder how Curry could possibly remember New Orleans being among the first four games of the 2015-16 season.
We’ve seen him postgame on the podium recite certain specific plays in games that just happened, but could he really have an elephant’s memory going as far back as eight years ago with this one?
I mean, NOLA is certainly always a road destination to remember. Check out the ambience of the behind-the-scenes video (and while you’re at it, compare it to Houston):
Well, this makes sense: Turns out that in late October 2015, the Golden State Warriors played the New Orleans Pelicans twice. And Steph scored a combined 93 points: 40 on Opening Night at Oracle Arena, then 53 in the Bayou four nights later — I probably would’ve remembered this, too, had I gone on that road trip, but I didn’t start covering the team regularly at visiting arenas until 2017-18 (also, for me, NOLA doesn’t rank all that high because of the long distance from Louis Armstrong airport to downtown, as well as more sketchy Airbnb spots).
I mean, it should come as no surprise that 2015-16 had stretches where Steph went bonkers, as that season was his second MVP in a row and we all should remember that the second time around was mind-blowingly even better than 2014-15.
But as Slater tweeted, through the first four games of this season, Curry is scorching right now:
* 27 pts in 31 minutes, 8/20 FG, four 3s
* 41 pts in 35 minutes, 14/19 FG, seven 3s
* 24 pts in 31 minutes, 6/16 FG, six 3s
* 42 pts in 30 minutes, 15/22 FG, seven 3s
He’s averaging 33.5 points on 56-47-92 splits
And yet, here are the first four lines from that magical 2015-16 regular season:
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40 pts in 36 mins, 14/26 fg, 5/12 on 3s
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25 pts in 27 mins, 9/15 fg, 4/9 on 3s
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53 pts in 36 mins, 17/27 fg, 8/14 on 3s
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30 pts in 28 mins, 10/16 fg, 4/8 on 3s
I’ll do the math for you: that’s 37.0 ppg at 59-48-96 — literally better than this season, but those were absolutely nuclear splits!!!
By the way, those 93 points against the Pelicans weren’t all against Jrue Holiday. Holiday didn’t play on Opening Night. That night in Oakland, Nate Robinson and Ish Smith were the victims of the Baby-Faced Assassin (truly baby-faced back then).
I mean, that’s it. That’s all I’ve got to say for now. Steve Kerr is ready to hit the pregame podium at Chase Center before the Sacramento Kings game as I write this, so I’m done.
I’ll just leave you with the “93 ‘Til Infinity” irony that our most-watched video ever (5.8 million views), our claim to fame, is the time when I filmed Steph hitting 93 out of 100 threes after practice. Luckily there was no copyrighted music blaring in the background that day, just the sweet bounce of the ball and many splashes:
POSTGAME TRANSCRIPT OF STEPH
0:00 Steph Curry postgame New Orleans on Dennis Scott saying that Steph joked, “More shots!” in the pregame when asked about the absences of Klay Thompson and Jonathan Kuminga: “That’s just a mindset because we have a lot of options. Klay demands a lot of attention out there. JK’s been playing great off the bench, really pushing the pace, getting us transition buckets, knocking down shots. So when those two guys are out, especially Klay, like I said, it opens up more opportunities and I had to be aggressive because it opens up options for everybody else, too. So thankfully, shots went down early, which kind of got us into it, especially on a back-to-back which is tough.”
0:36 on being a big cheerleader for Chris Paul from the bench:”I love good basketball, right? I’ve been watching him, playing against him, Hall-of-Famer. You know the resume, so when he comes in and — 19th year, I think it is? — is still impacting games, though it looks different than earlier in his career. He makes his presence felt, so it’s looking exactly like we thought, obviously (only) game four. We gotta keep getting better building our chemistry.” Dennis Scott:”Two 40s already; keep it going.” Steph: “Thank you very much; appreciate you.”
1:15 on if this start has been as hot as he can remember to open a season: “No.”
1:20 on which year he had a hotter start: “2016 (he means 2015-16, we looked it up).”
1:39 on if he remembers those first four games of 2015-16: “Uhh, it was New Orleans. It was here. I don’t know, something like that. I was playing with confidence and having fun, playing basketball.”
1:37 on how good he feels right now: “I feel good but I’m just more excited about our team and how we’re putting it all together this early. Nobody’s getting brighter sitting in here the last seven, eight games after four games, but the way the work is showing in terms of the cohesiveness, the ability to mix and match some lineups, the way CP’s running our second unit, and infusing himself with the starters and the end of halves and that piece, our bench is not only holding on to leads, they’re building on them, and it just gives us so much confidence especially on the road to win, I don’t care who you’re playing.”
VIDEO OF STEPH x DENNIS SCOTT
REMAINING VIDEOS FROM NOP+HOU
👍👍💛💙