For a while there, it looked like Stephen Curry would give the 18,064-strong crowd at the Chase Center ample reason to rejoice. The Warriors were down by five with five minutes left in the match, and he knew he had to weave his magic once more in order to upend the rival Lakers. To argue that he had hitherto been playing well below his usual standards would be to understate the obvious. He was just two days removed from a clunker in which he shot 15% from the field against the otherwise beleaguered Pacers. And two games before that, he put up a bunch of zeros in a shocking swoon. Yet, there he was, turning back time in a superb effort down the stretch.
Certainly, the Warriors needed Curry to be, well, himself, and not just because they were a woeful three and 10 heading into their Christmas Day set-to. Embedded in those losses was an alarming inability to meet expectations in the clutch, defined by the National Basketball Association as a situation where the protagonists are within five points of each other with five minutes left in a given contest — precisely where they stood versus the rival Lakers yesterday. And so he went to work; he scattered 13 points in the final 3:16, with each made field goal under duress and still finding the bottom of the net. His 31-foot three off an inbounds play with 7.1 ricks remaining in the payoff period tied the score and gave them hope.
Unfortunately, the Lakers had other plans. Every time the Warriors threatened to wrest momentum, they came up with a counter. And while, needless to say, LeBron James was in the thick of things, it was Austin Reaves who came up big under pressure; his nine points in the clutch included two critical free throws with 8.2 seconds on the clock and the game-winning lay-in off a gutsy drive against noted defender Andrew Wiggins. As he took the ball in the final play of the purple and gold, he had clearly made up his mind to take matters into his own hands.
Considering the ages of the superstars, it’s fair to wonder how many more times Curry and James will do battle against each other. The greatest shooter of all time is 36, while the greatest of all time, period, is turning 40 in four days. And so fans have been only too happy to partake as much of their heroics as possible in the interim, the diminished stakes notwithstanding. Neither the Warriors nor the Lakers are likely to go deep in the playoffs — and that’s if they even survive the highly competitive Western Conference. Meanwhile, the generational pieces continue to plod on, still among the best of the best in the league but needing others to help carry the load more and more.
Anthony L. Cuaycong has been writing Courtside since BusinessWorld introduced a Sports section in 1994. He is a consultant on strategic planning, operations and human resources management, corporate communications, and business development.