Stephen Curry Was Extremely Fired Up After His Dagger Three Against Klay Thompson And The Mavs

The biggest game of the night in a packed slate of NBA Cup games was the Mavs taking on the Warriors in Klay Thompson’s first game back in San Francisco since leaving as a free agent this summer for Dallas.

It was an emotional scene as they played a terrific tribute video and had the crowd in captains hats to honor their former star, but once the game got going there was plenty of juice on both sides in a reunion that wasn’t all happy. The two teams went back and forth, as the stars on both sides all played their roles, with Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving combining for 52 for the Mavs, while Thompson hit 6 threes on his way to 22 points in his return, including a big one late that gave Dallas a five-point lead midway through the fourth quarter.

That lead would get up to seven before Stephen Curry took over for the Warriors, scoring 12 points in the final 3:10 of game time, including a personal 10-0 run (aided by some spectacular defense from Draymond Green) that turned a Golden State deficit into a 4-point Warriors lead. His final bucket of that run was a vintage stepback three-pointer over Dereck Lively II, as he hit the Mavs big man with his signature “night night” celebration, before making a demonstrative declaration to the crowd that “this is my sh*t.”

The Mavs would hit a three to cut the lead to one, but a pair of Curry free throws and a missed Luka three saw the Warriors win in regulation, 120-117. Curry finished with 37 points in the win, and while it’s clear there’s not actual bad blood between either side in the Splash Bros. breakup, there did seem to be a little extra fire from Curry for a mid-November game to make a statement at home with Klay now on the other side. While the “night night” is nothing new, the jersey popping and yelling “this is my sh*t” was more than we ever see from Curry in a non-playoff environment, and while I am a fan of the NBA Cup and think it brings out more competition in these games, I think this had more to do with who was on the other side than the Cup ramifications of this game.