Stephen Curry signed this Sunday the best performance of his career in the seventh game of the playoffs, contributing 50 points to the 120-100 victory of the Golden State Warriors in the field of the Sacramento Kings with which the NBA champions advanced to the Western Conference semifinals.
After wasting the first 'game point' in San Francisco last Friday, the Warriors needed a piece of art from their brightest star to finish off some Kings who lived a dream season, in which they ranked third in the West and they returned to the postseason after 17 years of waiting.
Curry signed the best performance of his career in the 'playoffs' and led the Warriors to the next round, in which they will be rivals of the Los Angeles Lakers of LeBron James, who eliminated the Memphis Grizzlies. His mark in a seventh game bettered Kevin Durant's 48 points in 2021, Dominique Wilkins' 47 in 1988 and Sam Jones' 47 in 1963.
The Warriors legend finished his game with fifty points and twenty of 38 shooting. To them he added eight rebounds and six assists, in an afternoon in which his team's second best scorer was Andrew Wiggins with 17 points.
Twenty of the Warriors' 56 points in the first half were signed by Curry, who made eight of his fifteen shots, with four triples, and sustained his team in the most difficult moment of Klay Thompson, who only scored one of his ten attempts from the field.
In the Kings, De'Aaron Fox suffered, with only eight points and many misses (3 of 8 shooting), but it was Sabonis who stepped forward with 16 valuable points to give his team two points ahead in a game of maximum balance. It was in the third period when the Warriors shot up their level at the rate of a stellar Curry, starring from the goal, but also with tackles in traffic and acrobatic baskets.
One of them, with an added foul, gave the Warriors a 67-62 advantage who continued to step on the accelerator and dominate the rebounds. They barely lost a ball in the third quarter and Thompson gave a final blow to the table with a three-pointer and free kick included, which made it 91-81 to the light.
Klay went from seven points scored in the first half to ten in just the third period, going 3-for-4 on shots. He finished his game with 16 points.
It was a psychological blow for the Kings, who couldn't keep up with the defending champions' scoring pace and completely melted down in the fourth quarter, when the Warriors reached the twenty-point margin at 111-91. Curry continued to dominate and despaired the Kings with a tremendous triple for 100-83 with 7.43 minutes to play that ended the options of the locals.
He was the absolute protagonist of a historic afternoon for American basketball, in a duel in which Kevon Looney also gave a valuable contribution with eleven points and 21 rebounds. For the Kings, Domantas Sabonis had 22 points, with eight rebounds and seven assists, while Fox did not exceed 16.
