Battle of the All-Star guards!
Today’s clash between the Golden State Warriors and New York Knicks is a battle of two teams jockeying for playoff positioning after the regular season in their respective conferences.
It’s also a matchup between two All-Star guards who are known for lighting up scoreboards across the country: Stephen Curry and Jalen Brunson.
Golden State Warriors vs New York Knicks
February 29th, 2024 | 4:30 PM PT
Watch: TNT
Listen: 95.7 The Game
NYC showed out for Steph pic.twitter.com/oQtCgpDNvU
— Warriors on NBCS (@NBCSWarriors) March 1, 2024
How good is this Brunson guy this season? My last memory of him as a Warriors fan was when the Warriors gentlemanly swept his team out of the 2022 Western Conference Finals when he was a Maverick.
But since then, he’s emerged as one of the faces of the NBA with an exciting playing style and a lot of gritty basketball play.
Check out this excerpt from SNY entitled:,“How Knicks star Jalen Brunson made his first All-Star team”:
After a quality 2022-23 season that saw him average 24.0 points and lead the Knicks to a playoff series win, an All-Star-selection in his second year in New York seemed inevitable for Brunson. This season, he is playing his own nightly game of twister on the floor, tying up opposing defenders with various pivots, pump fakes and hesitations.
In 48 games with the Knicks, Brunson is averaging 27.3 points and 6.5 assists. He’s evolved his game, launching more three-pointers (6.6 per 36 minutes) than ever in his career. The floaters and other midrange trick shots are still a regular piece of Brunson’s shotmaking puzzle. His assist rate has risen and his turnover rate has dropped despite receiving increased attention from opposing defenses.
Oh wow, that’s impressive! Meanwhile fellow All-Star Stephen Curry is looking to break out of a minislump that has made him seem like more of a human being than usual. Golden State’s last game against the Wiz was Curry’s third straight game shooting less than 36% from the field. Per Stat Head, this is only the fifth time in his entire career (spanning from being drafted 7th overall in 2009 to winning four championships) that he’s had such a streak.
Thankfully he’s headed to Madison Square Garden where he knows a thing or two about going on scoring binges. The Mercury News reminisced on Curry’s MSG exploits:
In 2013, Curry broke onto the national stage with a 54-point explosion at the mecca of basketball. He played all 48 minutes and went 11-for-13, outscoring the rest of his teammates.
In 2021, he broke Ray Allen’s all-time record for career 3-pointers in front of Allen and Reggie Miller in MSG.
Curry has played 10 games in Madison Square Garden since his rookie year, when he only logged three minutes. In those 10 games, he’s averaging 28.1 points per game on a ludicrous 49% from deep.
Which guard will run New York tonight?