Golden State Warriors superstar guard Stephen Curry is confident that his late game shooting performance in Sunday’s win over the Chicago Bulls can carry over, and help him get back on track from his shooting struggles to start the 2020-2021 regular season.
Curry’s numbers are surprising, considering his reputation as one of the greatest shooters in NBA history, but he managed to score 13 of his 36 points during the fourth quarter against the Bulls, connecting on 2 of his 3 shots from deep in the process.
“I missed a lot of open ones which — hopefully doesn’t continue to happen,” Curry said, according to ESPN’s Nick Friedell. “But the rest of them are just trying to find my rhythm. There’s no excuse, just for what my expectations for myself and shots that I take I always think I’m going to make. I don’t think — maybe one or two of them I would call bad shots. The rest of them I was confident in and ones that I feel I can make. And it’s just a matter of sticking with the program.”
Curry’s long layoff due to injury has certainly contributed to his rocky start, having played in just five games last season before missing most of the rest of the season due to a broken left hand. But Curry isn’t allowing that to be an excuse for his shooting woes of late.
“You can talk about how many games I played in a calendar year, but I feel like I can shake that off pretty quickly,” Curry said. “That’s just a mindset thing, so that’s why in the fourth quarter it turned around and hopefully that carries momentum into the next game. The last thing you can do is just stop shooting no matter how frustrated you get.”
“I thought Steph sort of found something there in the fourth,” Warriors head coach Steve Kerr said. “He’s been a little frustrated but it’s perfectly natural. For Steph, this is a brand-new team.”
Kerr also talked about his confident in forward Kelly Oubre Jr., who is suffering through his own shooting slump, and how Kerr believes it’s only a matter of time before Oubre gets back on track.
“I always feel like coming to a new team is difficult,” Kerr said. “So Kelly’s shooting struggles right now really aren’t that surprising. I know it’s going to turn. Every time I went to a new team in my career, it was very, very difficult to find comfort in my shots in the early going. And I think Steph is actually going through the same thing right now because he’s not as comfortable with where his shots are coming from. Just because of the differences in personnel … Steph’s not used to the same patterns we’ve had for many years, but I think we’re starting to get to some of those.”
It’s certainly a different offense, with so many new players in the fold, many of whom have not played with Curry before.
“Extremely different,” Curry said. “Mostly just because of different personnel and that’s OK right now. We’re learning and growing so I think you got to be honest with yourself. Around the first two games it was terrible and disjointed. Even if shots had gone in I think it was necessary to do what we did from last game to tonight. Kind of cut it down and just work on executing the details and the small things in our sets and try to create shots out of that. As we continue to grow week to week we can add a little bit … I think we had a little bit more confidence that’s going to continue to grow.”
