Steph Curry has come under fire with the Golden State Warriors on the brink of playoff elimination at the hands of LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers.
The Warriors face a must-win game five on home court on Wednesday after coming up short in a 104-101 loss to put the Lakers 3-1 up in the series on Monday.
Curry led the Warriors with a triple-double in that game, but it was an unusually inefficient performance from the four-time NBA champion, missing 18 of his 30 field goals including two late threes before losing possession after a decisive jump ball in the dying seconds.
With an abundance of playoff experience across the roster, the Warriors believe they can overturn the deficit and keep their hopes of making the Western Conference finals alive, but they will need better performances from Curry, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green et al.
And pundit Skip Bayless has questioned Curry's contributions in the biggest moments of playoff games, with the costly miscues on Monday night adding to a trend of missing clutch shots despite building a glorious career.
He said on Undisputed : "If you just skim the box score and say 'Oh my god, 31, 10 and 14', you would say that's winning basketball. No it was not because hidden in these numbers is 12 of 30 shots overall, three of 14 from three, six of 19 in the second half and one of nine from three in the second half.
"Down the stretch, he missed the two big shots that could have put you over the top and I'm going to say it again. The incredible Steph stat is he has taken 14 shots in the final 50 seconds of playoff games to go ahead in the game and never made one of them. That does not speak well to his big-picture legacy.
"He played even smaller than he is at 6ft 3in. Sometimes people glorify Steph Curry and say 'God, he's doing this and he's only 6ft 3in' and then they try to give him a pass, 'Well he's only 6ft 3in, what do you expect from him'.
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"Well, he's the greatest shooter ever so what do I expect from him in a turning-point game four in LeBron's house? I expect him to be better than 12 of 30. He missed 18 shots, that's a lot of shots, man."
The odds are stacked against the Warriors as they try to win three straight games to rescue the series. Just 13 teams in NBA history that have trailed 3-1 have bounced back to win in game seven, with 264 – more than 95 per cent – being eliminated.
However, Curry and many of his teammates have experience of pulling off a miraculous comeback, recovering from 3-1 down to the Oklahoma City Thunder to triumph in the 2016 Western Conference finals, and the Warriors will have to produce similar heroics once again, starting in San Francisco on Wednesday night.
