The Story of Stephen Curry in Bounce Back Games

Stephen Curry has a history of doing things related to basketball that we’ve never seen before. In Game 5 of the 2022 NBA Finals, he did something he’d never done in a playoff game — he didn’t take a single 3-point shot.

Curry’s record streak of 132 straight playoff games with at least a 3-pointer as of April 20, 2013 – and his record streak of 233 straight games in regular season, playoffs and play-in tournament games with at least a 3-pointer made, dating back to December 1, 2018 – were both caught.

After Curry carried the Warriors’ offense on his back through the first four games of the series — scoring 32.5% of Golden State’s total points — his teammates picked up the gap as Curry went 16 points, 7 for 22 (31, 8%) finished. Shoot from the field and 0-for-9 from 3-point range. The win softened the blow from Curry’s tough night of shooting.

“Of course that bothers me as a shooter,” said Curry after the game. “They want to affect the game in that way. But thankfully, that’s not the only thing you do out there on the court.

“The fact that everyone went up – Wiggs [Andrew Wiggins]JP [Jordan Poole]clover [Thompson] hit some big shots, Draymond [Green] found his life and spirit and the way he affects the game. We were able to withstand a 9v40 and me 0v9 as a team and still come away with a win.

“Obviously the track record says I’ll shoot the ball better next game. I’m looking forward to this setback.”

Whether it was watching his reactions on court after each missed 3-pointer or hearing him answer questions after Game 5, you could almost feel Curry’s frustration. While there was a sense of relief that the Warriors still had the win, there was also anger that he hadn’t shot well when it mattered.

His teammates are counting on that anger and frustration from his Game 5 struggles to fuel Curry tonight in Game 6 (9 ET, ABC).

“He was 0-to-9 out of three. He’s going to be angry in Game 6 and that’s what we need,” Green said.

“All I know is that he’s going to answer,” Thompson said. “He’s one of the biggest competitors I’ve ever seen. And he’s a perfectionist, like me. I know he’ll think about the shots he missed. And that’s a good thing because hopefully on Thursday he’ll regress to the mean most of the time and it’s scary when he does that.”

But what does history tell us what to expect from Curry when the Warriors look to take down the Celtics on the street?

Let’s start by recreating this scenario and look at games where Curry didn’t score a 3-point shot. There’s no playoff history to explore with this, as Game 5 was his first such game without a 3-pointer. Of the 961 career games he’s played (this total includes regular season, playoffs, and play-in games), Curry has only 40 games in which he has not made at least a 3-pointer. Game 5 of those Finals was only his sixth game without at least a 3-pointer since the Warriors’ championship run began in the 2014-15 season.

All in all we have five Games from the last seven seasons to see how Curry reacted after missing a 3-pointer in a game.

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In those five games, Curry averaged 30.6 points on 51.5% shooting overall, 46.2% on 3-pointers, and 92.6% on free throws. In terms of 3-point shooting, Curry made at least two 3-pointers in every game, made at least three 3-pointers in four games, and had a record-breaking performance.

On November 7, 2016, Curry set the then-NBA record for most 3-pointers in a single game when he jetted 13 three-pointers in 17 attempts against the New Orleans Pelicans — just three days away from a 0-on- 10 shot from deep against the Los Angeles Lakers. Two years later, Curry’s mark was surpassed by Thompson, who still holds the record of making 14 3-pointers in a single game.

While these five bounce-back games most closely replicate Curry’s current scenario, each of these five games took place during the regular season. The stakes of those games can’t be compared to what Curry now faces in the 2022 NBA Finals.

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So let’s look at a different set of games. While Game 5 was Curry’s first postseason game without a single 3-pointer, he had nine previous playoff games with only a 3-pointer. In those nine games — spanning April 30, 2013 through April 21, 2019 — Curry averaged just 14.8 ppg on 50 for 134 (37.3%) shots from the field and 9 for 63 (14.3 %) 3 points shooting. How did he follow up on those games?

While Curry’s pointing and shooting percentages were down a bit compared to his regular-season bounce back games, Curry was still very efficient after his worst 3-point shooting games of his postseason career — averaging 26.1 ppg and four 3-pointers at 40.9% shots from beyond the ark. He made at least four 3-pointers in six of the nine subsequent games.

We’ve seen Curry react to poor shooting performances while also facing the added pressure of the playoffs. But all of these games we looked at are from 2019 or earlier. Do we have a newer sample we can look at?

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The Warriors missed the 2020 and 21 playoffs, and so far in the 2022 playoffs, Curry had scored at least two 3-pointers in every game prior to his Game 5 in the Finals. But he had eight games in the 2021-22 regular season in which he only managed a 3-point success, including his last regular-season meeting with Boston (when he was eliminated after just 14 minutes with a foot injury that kept him up for 22 finals).

In the eight consecutive games — including Golden State’s playoff opener game against Dallas as a follow-up to Curry’s final regular-season game against Boston — Curry averaged 23.3 ppg on 45% shooting (63 to 140) and 39.2% shooting ( 31-to-79) from the 3-point range at an average of 3.9 3-point bets per game.

Here we see a few instances of Curry’s back-to-back shooting nights as he went through a filming slump in January. In early 2022, Curry had a 1-on-10 game against Miami on January 3 and a 1-on-9 performance against Dallas two days later. It was the only time in his career that Curry had back-to-back games with fewer than two 3-pointers while attempting at least eight.

Later in the month, Curry had a 1-on-13 game against Utah on Jan. 23 and a 2-on-10 game against Dallas two days later. While Boston would love to see another instance of Curry’s back-to-back bad shooting games, his overall history suggests the opposite.

One thing we know about Curry is that even after a bad night, his confidence in his shot won’t waver. The mentality of the shooter remains the same in the next game.

“Keep shooting. Very easy,” Curry said after Game 5. “I’m not afraid to go 0 for everything because I’m going to keep shooting and I’m going to keep shooting shots you normally think you can take. And I have.” reacted well when I had such games from the 3-point line.”