Steph Curry knew the game was over as soon as he passed Dame the ball.
Never a doubt
The NBA All-Star Game was a three-point bonanza. Of the 221 shots taken by Team LeBron and Team Durant, 113 were threes (60.1%). Stephen Curry only attempted three two-point shots, Damian Lillard took four and James Harden only tried one shot from inside the arc.
Curry and Lillard weren’t taking run-of-the-mill threes, either. They pulled up a couple of times from half court, just for fun.
As Steph and Dame’s Team LeBron approached the 170-point target score, Curry tried to win the game with a shot on the run from the logo. When that didn’t fall, Lillard came back on the next possession and hoisted one from just inside the halfcourt line.
Curry knew the game was over before Lillard even came close to shooting it. Curry inbounded the ball to Lillard, immediately turned to the Team LeBron bench and started waving goodbye as Lillard brought it up the floor. He didn’t even bother going to join the rest of his teammates in the offensive half. He knew it was over.
Look familiar? Curry was mimicking the wave Lillard did after sending the Thunder crashing out of the 2019 playoffs with a 40-foot game-winner over Paul George.
“That’s a bad shot,” George famously said after the play. But now he’s changed his tune.
George, who was also on Team LeBron, admitted after the game that he was wrong about Lillard’s range.
“Well I guess I was criticized for the right reason, for calling Dame’s shot in the playoffs a bad shot.” George said with a chuckle. “I mean, I see these guys’ range is crazy. They have the ability to knock those shots down. It’s not like it’s a half-court heave. These are shots that are well within their range. They probably can shoot it deeper.”
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