Stephen Curry is Lights Out

Those that watched the Golden State Warriors fall at Bakers Life Fieldhouse to the Indiana Pacers last night might be more than willing to discuss the brief brouhaha that ensued after David Lee and Roy Hibbert got into a brief shoving match.

Heck, Stephen Curry was thrown aside by Hibbert like an action figure and that made the airwaves via multiple sports shows.

The one thing that didn’t get garner enough attention — considering the Dubs defeat, it’s understandable — was the play of the Davidson product last night.

The Warriors’ starting guard put on a show with his incredible shooting on his way to 38 points on 14-for-20 field goal attempts and ankle-breaking crossover. His performance last night was one of the most impressive of his career.

Curry wasn’t exactly afforded a multitude of open jumpers, instead he had to work to get his shots off by the use of his exquisite handle in one-on-one situations, pick-and-rolls and running off screens.

The story of last night’s game for the Warriors was that Curry reaffirmed what we already knew: he is by far one of the best shooters in the NBA.

A quick glance at some advance shooting figures paints a different picture mind you.

Steph’s true shooting percentage (a combination of field goal, 3-point field goal and free throw percentage all wrapped into one) of 57.4 percent is the lowest since his rookie season, but it’s not a bad figure either.

For the sake of context, he is tied for the 56^th best true shooting percentage mark in the Association, ahead of players such as Dwight Howard, Kobe Bryant and Kyrie Irving to name a few.

Being somewhere in the top 60 hardly sounds like a place for the elite. But then again, not all shooters are created equal.

Last night’s contest at Indiana demonstrated what makes Curry a middle of the pack shooter from the floor in terms of his percentages.

This was somewhat obvious while watching the game, but verifying the data with Synergy Sports confirmed what the eye test observed: Curry failed to attempt a spot up jumper on the night.

And in truth that makes sense.

No great defensive team worth its salt could ever allow a topnotch shooter like Steph to get an opportunity to plant his feet and wait to receive a perfect pass to launch from long-range. Instead, Curry had to get creative to manufacture his looks, whether from mid-range, 3-point land or in the paint.

Have a look at the top 10 shooters from 3-point range this season as well as their percentages from downtown in spot up situations and also their amount of spot up attempts (data obtained from Synergy Sports):

Only Ersan Ilyasova and Mike Dunleavy have attempted less spot up 3-point jumpers than Curry.

The Dubs lead guard benefits at times from Jarrett Jack’s playmaking to set him up for open jumpers, but for the most he has to rely on his ballhandling talents to get himself free to launch from behind the arc or simply fire away from a few feet behind the line.

As a result, his overall field goal percentage tends to suffer.

He is not yet the lethal off the dribble shooter that Steve Nash is, but he is getting close.

And yet, Stephen Curry converted 7-of-10 treys last night in Indiana and they were all exciting in their own respect given the work needed to shake his defender for a split second to launch his silky jumper.

The Warriors’ leading scorer has a knack for finding ways to create daylight to take and make 3-point shots, and the statistics bare this out as well. NBA.com’s advanced stats tool tells us that with Curry on the floor, the Dubs are the top long distance shooting team in the league but once he hits the bench they drop to the bottom third.

In other words, no matter how you slice it, Stephen Curry is an elite shooter.

Statistical support provided by NBA.com.

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