OAKLAND -- Lost in the margins of the MVP discussion for the first two months of the season, Stephen Curry has used the past four weeks to parachute into the front of the conversation.
His 49-point performance against the NBA's No. 1 defense, in a nationally televised Warriors victory last Saturday, was as timely as it was incandescent.
If legendary newscaster Dan Rather is taking notice, it's officially impossible, or simply clueless, for a hoop aficionado to sleep on Curry.
Since returning to the lineup on Dec. 30, after an 11-game absence, Curry is mocking any and all defenses: 31.5 points per game, on 54.6-percent shooting, including 50.7 percent from beyond the arc. He's ridiculing the art of shooting a basketball.
"Steph's right in his prime, physically, mentally and emotionally," Warriors coach Steve Kerr said on Monday. "This is the smartest he's ever been in terms of his knowledge of his opponents and of the league. He has now seen every possible coverage over the last few years. He's got the peace of mind that comes with being a multiple champion and an MVP, so in some ways he's playing with house money.
"There are different stages of a player's career. There's the climb, there's the apex and then there's the descent. This is his apex, where there is nothing to prove on top of your game, feeling great. He should enjoy every bit of it."
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Curry, who turns 30 in about six weeks, says he feels good about his game but isn't really doing anything different now than he was earlier this season.
"Just shooting the ball. I mean, I don't ever overthink that," he said after the game on Saturday. "Just try to get to your spots, take shots that you think you can make and have confidence in shooting so, if I was in here shooting 10 percent the last five games I'd say the same thing.
"I really have the same mentality no matter what's going on and that's obviously a huge part of our game and I've got to make sure that I keep that confidence no matter what."
The first six weeks were pedestrian by Curry's standard. He was shooting just below 47 percent from the field and 36.4 percent from deep, but he started to find himself in December. In four games, interrupted by a sprained left ankle, he averaged 30.5 points on 58.3-percent shooting, including 56.1 percent from deep.
MVP talk then was focused mostly on Houston's James Harden, Cleveland's LeBron James and Boston's Kyrie Irving. The Rockets have since stumbled a bit, partly as a result of Harden missing seven games. The Cavaliers have fallen hard, taking James with them. As long as the Celtics continue to play at a 58-win pace despite losing Gordon Hayward on opening night, Irving is still in the debate,
Suddenly, they're all trailing Curry, who gained momentum by carrying the Warriors to victory over the Celtics and besting Irving, who was fabulous in his own right.
Those 49 points came on 24 shots from the field. Eight of Curry's 13 3-point attempts splashed through.
"We missed some switches, and you just can't do that. He's too good," Boston coach Brad Stevens lamented. "We probably will go back and look at that. There will be two or three that maybe we could have controlled a little bit better, but for the most part, it still doesn't mean you're going to stop him from scoring."
To repeat: Two or three.
The deeper the game went, the better Curry got. He scored 18 points in 12 third-quarter minutes, 15 in eight fourth-quarter minutes. He shot 66.7 percent, the rest of the Warriors 36.7 percent.
"What impresses me most about Steph is that he knows that if we wanted to, we could play every game like we did last game," Kerr said. "Just put him in high screen every play, and he could average 35 a game. He really could. But it wouldn't be good for the rest of the team. It wouldn't be good for the other guys' rhythm. It wouldn't be good for the flow of the game; it would feel more stagnant, which disrupts the rhythm of the other players.
"So his willingness not only to accept that but to embrace it because of his desire for other people to succeed, is fantastic. And then you combine that with the awareness of, ‘All right, we need this tonight. I'm going to get 49 and we're going to run a bunch of high screens and I'm going to take over.' That kind of combination is incredibly powerful."
Curry has two MVP trophies in his possession. If he continues to terrorize defenses as he has this month, if that's even realistic, a third could find him -- even if he already has missed 30 percent of the team's games.
