Golden State Warriors 21-0

“There’s no words to explain”, said Leandro Barbosa, in his wide-eyed way, when it was over.

With Stephen Curry scoring a game-high of 44 points, the Golden Warriors continued their golden streak in the season, with an exciting 112-109 win over the Toronto Raptors on Saturday.

For NBA fans, Nash’s place as the focal point of Phoenix’s acclaimed, sprint-happy offense – immortalized, honored and appointed by Jack McCallum in Seven Seconds or Less – offers up compelling evidence he could be Curry’s on-court progenitor; Nash was a supremely skilled point guard without overwhelming athleticism whose one-man fast break and pick-and-roll heavy tenor turned the league inside-out from the post- and iso-heavy days of yore to the whiplash-inducing side-to-side perimeter ball movement and three-point shooting we see in today’s game. Barbosa was asked, how good is he? In this game Curry had 14 points after five-and-a-half minutes; he had 21 at the half after running face-first into DeMarre Carroll’s shoulder and feeling, in his words, disoriented; he had a disquietingly quiet start to the third quarter; and he was the prime factor in escaping from the Raptors in the fourth.

The Warriors have been so dominant – winning by an average of more than 15 points a game, with only six victories as close as single digits – the debate seems to have shifted, from whether anyone can possibly deny them a second straight title to whether Curry is truly the greatest player on the planet.

In person, it was a ballet. To go full-speed and be able to stop on a dime with people all around you and, by the time he releases the ball, it looks like his normal jump shot. It is basketball genius.

Kyle Lowry scored a career-high 41 points in a spectacular effort to lead a Raptors team that was in the game until the dying seconds. It tied the game at 98.

Curry did his part Sunday to extend the Golden State show. Stephen Curry was just a little bit better.

“I think over the long haul, that’s going to be better for us because it’s a long road, you know, it’s a long road”.

Thompson added 26 points for the Warriors, while Draymond Green had 16 points and nine rebounds. “It seems like he gets 40 points quietly”.

Just like that, two-fifths of what would’ve been Utah’s preferred starting lineup this season – and the two players generally regarded as the team’s best perimeter/interior defenders – are stuck on the shelf for extended periods of time. “Especially when the game came down to a couple of mistakes that we made”. “I just try to get to my spots on the floor”.

And that’s a good thing, a really good thing. He could probably take every shot, if he wanted.

LeBron James missed his first game of the season as coach David Blatt chose to sit the Cleveland star out of the Cavaliers’ game against the Heat in Miami Saturday.

Reserve Victor Oladipo scored a season-high 24 points for the Magic, who blew all of a 12-point lead early in the fourth. Bogut estimates that if Curry was a true conscience-free gunner, “he’d probably score 70 or 80”, but it wouldn’t matter as much, because the way Curry sacrifices helps this peerless team.

Kyle Lowry had 28 points on the night, and said afterward: “We competed”. That he outdid his opposite point guard allowed the Warriors to edge the Raptors (12-9) despite the absences of Bogut and Barnes.