SAN FRANCISCO — Never underestimate the power of purple kicks.
For the first three quarters of Monday night’s playoff contest between the Warriors and Grizzlies, Steph Curry looked hesitant and out of rhythm. He honored the late Craig Sager with some brightly colored orange shoes with eye-catching designs that the legendary broadcaster would have loved – or rocked on one of his epic sports coats.
Before Curry came in for his final nine-minute run in the fourth quarter, he changed up his shoes to the purple ones he sported in Game 3. Steph ended up elevating his game and playing a key role in the Warriors’ ugly 101-98 comeback win over the Grizzlies to take a 3-1 series lead.
His first three quarters? Steph struggled en route to 14 points on 18 field goals. In the fourth quarter? Curry dropped 18 points on seven field goals.
Curry probably didn’t want to shed any bad light on Sager after the game and told reporters he simply changed his shoes to “shock the system a little bit.”
But Steph did offer an explanation behind his spike in production in the fourth quarter.
“Nothing figured out,” Curry said. “It was just – don’t let the first three quarters influence the fact that we still had a chance to win the game. Shoot the shots you think you can make, play aggressive, take care of the ball. We did all those things.”
All four of Steph’s made field goals in the fourth were big ones. He started by hitting an and-one attempt in traffic to pull the Warriors to within six points with about eight minutes remaining. The next time down he splashed a 3-pointer. His pull-up trifecta with about five minutes left pulled the Warriors within one. Curry tied the game up with 3:25 remaining when he knocked down a fallback baseline jumper over Dillon Brooks.
But Curry really iced the game at the free-throw line, as he went 8-of-9 in the fourth quarter.
“That’s just Steph,” Klay Thompson said. “He has that mindset where he is the best shooter of all time and it just takes one good look at the rim of the free-throw line. And when that happens, the floodgates open.”
The Warriors trailed by as many as 12 early in the fourth quarter before Curry helped stem the tide. Now they’re just one win away from the Western Conference finals.
“Obviously, we didn’t (execute) for three quarters,” Curry said. “Defensively we were solid. Just offensively couldn’t get anything going and gutted it out.”
