Steph Curry is very, very special

Lost in the hoopla over Stephen Curry's incredible performance in New York Wednesday night was the minor detail that he was almost as good the night before in Indianapolis against the Pacers. Here's are Curry's lines from the last two games:

That's 92 points in two games, while making two thirds of his shots and over three-fourths of his three pointers (which made up almost half of his total shots, by the way). I'm not the Elias Sports Bureau, but I feel pretty confident that no one has ever had back to back games totaling 92 points with better than 85% with this sort of shooting efficiency.

We take special interest in Curry here at Clips Nation for a number reasons. For one thing, he's a special player and one of my personal favorites. But beyond that, he seems to routinely do this sort of thing to the Clippers, so it's about damn time that he went Hulk-mode on another team.

Prior to Tuesday, Curry had two games this season where he had posted a True Shooting Percentage of better than 85% -- and both of those games came against the Clippers. He might easily have gone for 50 in the January 2nd game against L.A. had the Warriors needed him to, but they led by 20 points for most of the game, so it wasn't really necessary. Now he's had four.

Here are his lines from those Clippers games:

Of course, the 54 point performance in New York is special for a reason. It's one thing to shoot the lights out and score 30-something. But once you pass 40, the opponent has pretty well cottoned on to the fact that you need to be stopped, and to hit 50 while maintaining this level of efficiency against double teams and anything else the defense can throw at you is truly incredible.

In fact, Curry's performance in New York was the most efficient 50 point game since 1995, and the third most efficient since 1984 when searchable game data is first available. In March 1995 Dana Barros of Philadelphia scored 50 while shooting 21-26 from the field, 6-8 from three and 2-2 from the line. A month later, Glen Rice of Miami scored 56 on 20-27 from the field, 7-8 from three and 9-10 from the line. And those are the only two more efficient 50 point games I know of.

Fifty point games are relatively rare in the NBA, but there have been 172 of them since 1984, a handful every season. But most of the time the scorer is hoisting a LOT of shots and/or a LOT of free throws to get to the half-century mark. Chris Webber had a remarkable NBA career, but he only scored 50 or more once, and it took him 47 shots to do it. To score 54 while taking only 28 shots and getting to the line just seven times is, as we've seen, almost without precedent. Incidentally, the highest field goal percentage in a 50 point game since 1984 belongs to Michael Jordan, who scored 52 points on 24-29 from the field, missing the only three pointer he took.

Curry's three point shooting in New York is noteworthy as well. No one in NBA history has ever made 11 three pointers on as few as 13 attempts. That each successive three he took seemed like a heat check from the previous one makes it all the more remarkable. He actually missed the only three pointer he attempted in the first half. He was 11-12 from deep in the final three quarters, 7-7 in the second half. Which raises the question -- can you heat check a heat check?

It was a remarkable couple of games for Curry, which almost shockingly ended in two losses for the Warriors. He obviously can't stay this hot, but he is the best shooter in the league, and when he's on he's basically unstoppable. The Clippers have known that for awhile, and now everyone else knows it as well.