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Hot-shot Stephen Curry had a big game in the big Apple Wednesday night but the New York Knicks spoiled his one-man show.
Carmelo Anthony scored 35 points, J R Smith had 26, including the tie-breaking jumper with 70 seconds left, and the Knicks withstood Curry’s NBA-season-high 54-point explosion for a thrilling 109-105 victory over the short-handed Golden State Warriors.
“When somebody’s hot like that there’s nothing you can do,” Anthony said, “but we won the game.”
Tyson Chandler had 16 points and pulled down a career-high 28 rebounds for the host Knicks, winners of two straight following a season-high four-game slide.
Curry treated the sold out Madison Square Garden crowd to a shooting display, hitting 18-of-28 from the field and 11-of-13 on three-pointers to go along with six rebounds and seven assists while playing the entire 48 minutes.
“I knew it was a good night but I didn’t exactly realise what that meant,” he said. “I was trying not to look at the scoreboard because you don’t want to jinx yourself or get too excited because obviously we wanted to get the win.”
The Knicks had no answers for Curry until Raymond Felton, burned all night, blocked his jumper with one minute 28 seconds left and the game knotted at 105-105.
“He had it going tonight, and there was nothing nobody could do,” Felton said. “I wanted to keep him in front of me and was able to come up with a big play at the end.” Felton’s rejection led to Smith’s go-ahead basket and Anthony followed with a turnaround jumper to make it 109-105, spoiling the homecoming of New York-native and former Knicks star turned Warriors coach Mark Jackson.
“We were short-handed and needed a performance like Steph’s to have a chance,” said Jackson, referring to David Lee’s one-game suspension for his part in multi-player scuffle with Indiana’s Roy Hibbert on Tuesday. Steph was phenomenal, he put on a clinic. I’ve seen a lot of great performances in this building but this one goes up there. His shooting performance was a thing of beauty.”
Elsewhere: Phoenix Suns 105, San Antonio Spurs 101 (OT): Jermaine O’Neal had 22 points with 13 rebounds, Poland’s Marcin Gortat hit the go-ahead basket with 67 seconds left in overtime and the Suns snapped the Spurs’ 18-game home-winning streak.
Frenchman Tony Parker had 22 points, Tim Duncan added 19 with 11 boards for the Spurs, who missed all 10 shots and were outscored 5-1 in the extra session.
•Oklahoma City Thunder 119, New Orleans Hornets 74: Russell
Westbrook scored 29 points, Kevin Durant added 18, 11 rebounds and 10 assists for his third career triple-double, and the Thunder squashed the visiting Hornets with its most lopsided win of the season.
• Memphis Grizzlies 90, Dallas Mavericks 84: Zach Randolph tossed in 22 points, Spaniard Marc Gasol added 21 with 12 rebounds, and the Grizzlies recovered from 25 down by outscoring the visiting Mavericks 25-4 in the third quarter en route to their eighth straight victory.