NEW YORK — On the night Steph Curry broke the all-time 3-point record, it was the shots that didn’t go in that defined the Golden State Warriors’ 105-96 win over the New York Knicks Tuesday at Madison Square Garden.
Curry drained the record-breaking 3-pointer after only 4:27 had expired from the clock. He only widened his grip on his new spot atop the all-time leaderboard by three the rest of the way, though. The rest of the Warriors (23-5) didn’t find much more success but clamped down on defense for second straight game to steal another win.
Curry has been in a rut ever since coming with striking distance of the 3-point record, but the entire Warriors offense has been stagnant for a increasingly long stretch of games, too. Before the game, coach Steve Kerr suggested Curry and the rest of the Warriors were “due” for an offensive breakthrough, but that didn’t come Tuesday night.
Curry’s team-leading 22 points came on 8-of-19 (42.1%) shooting from the field and 5-of-14 (35.7%) from 3, the sixth time in the past eight games he has been held at that mark or below from behind the arc.
Perhaps it is no coincidence that the Warriors were also held below their season scoring average (112.1) for the sixth time in their past eight games, as well, despite facing a Knicks defense that ranks in the bottom third of the NBA.
Neither team shot better than 40.5% from the field in a first half that ended in a 48-47 stalemate, and the second half didn’t get off to a much better start. But it proved to be only a continuation of a first-half cold spell and not a sign of things to come.
Nobody on either team made a shot from the field for the first 3 minutes, 40 seconds of the second half, until Kevon Looney converted a cross-court pass from Jordan Poole. That begun a second half that featured 58 Golden State points on 50% shooting and nine of their 15 total 3s.
The Warriors pulled away during a third quarter in which they limited the Knicks to 16 points. New York went more than 8 minutes of game time without making a field goal between the second and third quarters — 15 straight misses from the field.
During that span, the Warriors were able to erase an eight-point deficit and pull even at 49. They rarely trailed after that point.
In a defensive duel, then, it should come as no surprise that Jonathan Kuminga, Gary Payton II and Juan Toscano-Anderson all spent at least 10 minutes on the court. Kuminga and Payton teamed up to trap and rob Julius Randle during the Knicks’ third-quarter dryspell.
Jordan Poole was able to impact the game despite converting only three of his 11 attempts from the field and none from beyond the arc. He reached the foul line 13 times and sank them all, finishing second to Curry with 19 points.
One Warrior who was able to shake his cold snap was Nemanja Bjelica. The big man who normally sports a sharp shot had only made 26.1% of his attempts from distance since he recorded back-to-back games of double-figure scoring three weeks ago.
Bjelica didn’t miss Tuesday night. In 17 minutes, he made all four of his 3-point attempts and added another bucket on a drive to the rim to finish with 18 points, third-best on the team.
Kerr said he thought Bjelica had recently shown some hesitation to put up the open shot, but that was absent Tuesday night.
