Death, taxes and Wardell Stephen Curry II vs. The World. 

The Warriors played their second game since Jimmy Butler’s season-ending torn ACL Thursday night and suffered their second straight loss after winning four in a row for the first time this season. 

Curry couldn’t shake off the shock of Butler’s injury Tuesday night in the Warriors’ first game without him and scored just 16 points against the long, young and athletic defense of the Toronto Raptors with the entire game plan on him. That gave him three straight games without scoring 20 points. It had been more than four years since he had done so, dating back to January of 2022.

Knowing the jolt the Warriors needed to get back on the winning track without Butler, Curry wasn’t about to keep his streak of scoring under 20 points alive. He scored 25 points in the second half alone after a 13-point first half to reach 38 points on the night. The result still was a 12-point loss to the Dallas Mavericks.

“He’s obviously very capable, as he showed tonight,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said to reporters in Dallas. “Ironically, the non-Steph minutes were actually really good tonight. It’s a really weird box score. Steph has 38 points, he’s a minus-24.” 

Take Curry’s plus/minus against the Mavs with a grain of salt. The stat can serve a purpose and deserves the eye test. The numbers can also get skewered when one player, in this case Curry, pulls the team bus to the arena and still is expected to be a nearly 38-year-old Batman without anybody showing up to the casting call of being his co-star.

Nobody in the Warriors’ starting lineup would get a call back from any director that wants to get people in the seats to watch Steph and his supposed sidekicks. 

Curry scored 38 points in a loss where the rest of the Warriors’ starters scored 30. He made 14 shots, three more than the 11 the other four starters combined. The eight 3-pointers Curry made was one more than the rest of his teammates made as a whole. 

This marked the 14th 30-point game from Curry in his 17th season, and the eighth game he has scored at least 38 points. The Warriors now are 6-8 in his 30-point games and 3-5 when he reaches 38 points.

Again, re-read the first sentence of this story. 

To start the game, Golden State missed its first six shots until Curry hit a three. His first of eight 3-pointers then was followed by a Brandin Podziemski blocked dunk and a Gary Payton II missed layup, before Curry hit his second 3-point attempt. Moses Moody missed a three on the Warriors’ next offensive possession, only for Curry to make his third three in as many tries the next time down the court.

The Mavs came into Thursday night allowing the most points in the paint per game (55.9) in the NBA. Oftentimes you’ll hear coaches talk about KYP, which stands for “Know Your Personnel.” Those three letters felt forgotten by the Warriors while Dallas’ defense didn’t have any of its three real rim protectors in Anthony Davis, Dereck Lively II or Daniel Gafford. 

The Warriors kept settling for 3-pointers and missing them, finishing the night 15 of 46 (32.6 percent). Warriors players without the last name Curry went 7 of 31 beyond the arc (22.6 percent). The Warriors lost the points in the paint battle, 56-50, falling six points short of what the Mavs’ defense averages. 

Even worse, the Warriors missed 14 shots labeled as layups. 

The two players who were getting to the rim at will, De’Anthony Melton and Jonathan Kuminga, were the two Warriors outside of Curry able to provide a scoring spark. Melton scored 22 points off the bench on 9-of-15 shooting and just one of his nine made shots came outside the paint. Kuminga was a perfect 3 of 3 from the field, all inside the paint, and made all four of his free throws — including two three-point plays. 

But after being plucked off the bench following Butler’s injury and scoring 20 points last game, Kuminga’s night ended early with 10 points in nine minutes as a plus-18. He was cleared for takeoff in the second quarter before awkwardly sustaining a left leg injury. 

Kuminga initially stayed in the game but upon limping up and down the court asked to be removed. He was ruled out for the rest of the game to start the second half with what the Warriors labeled as left knee soreness. Kerr told reporters Kuminga is getting an MRI on his ankle and knee Friday. His injury isn’t considered serious, per source, and isn’t going to be a long-term issue. 

The Warriors now have less than two weeks to make a decision on Kuminga’s future by the Feb. 5 NBA trade deadline. The situation was given another new spotlight because of Butler’s injury, and now the outlook becomes even murkier with a hobbled Kuminga. 

“I’m not talking about that right now,” Curry said when asked about the trade deadline. “We’re just trying to win a game on the road. There’s a lot of time before February 5th. There’s a lot of time before the playoffs. I don’t need any existential thoughts right now.”

Unless the Warriors go bold, and unless health can get back to being on their side, the outlook can become bleak for Curry less than two months from his 38th birthday. His powers have always taken the Warriors to unthinkable heights, but now he only can hope they aren’t back to being the same team they were before a big-time move in bringing Butler aboard at last year’s deadline completely changed the season. 

Wardell Stephen Curry II vs. The World, Part Infinity.

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