San Francisco (USA), May 16 (EFE) .- Star point guard Stephen Curry contributed 46 points and became the NBA’s most experienced scoring champion since the legendary Michael Jordan achieved it at age 35 in 1998 , after he helped the Golden State Warriors beat the Memphis Grizzlies 113-101 in the last game of the regular season.
The victory allowed the Warriors to secure eighth place in the Western Conference and they will play the play-in game on Tuesday against the team that occupies the seventh, which now belongs to the Lakers, but could also be the Portland Trail Blazers.
At 33, Curry and Jordan are the only scoring champions 33 and older. Curry also joins Jordan, former players Wilt Chamberlain and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as the only players with multiple scoring titles, MVPs and NBA championships.
Two-time MVP Curry secured his first scoring title in 2015-16 with his second basket of the game late in the first quarter.
The Warriors’ star point guard (39-33) scored 9 of 22 3-pointers and also contributed nine assists and seven rebounds in Golden State’s sixth straight win.
Curry averaged 32 points during his second 2,000-point season.
Guard Jordan Poole scored 15 off the bench and hit a triple with 4:28 left that was decisive.
Canadian forward Andrew Wiggins scored an assist from Curry from deep down the field on the next possession for 21 points.
Forward Dillon Brooks started the fourth quarter on an 8-0 streak on his own to put Memphis into the 86-77 run, and Curry came back immediately and did so with a 3-pointer that kept the Warriors ahead, but the Grizzlies struggled and forced a tie with seven minutes remaining.
But power forward Draymond Green triggered Brooks’ sixth foul moments later, sending the Grizzlies star to the bench for the remainder of the final 6:12 minutes of the game after scoring 18 points.
Both teams entered with identical records of 38-33 and with winning streaks of five games in a row. They had split a two-game series March 19-20 in Memphis.
The day turned out to be quite a special day for outgoing Warriors president and chief operating officer Rick Welts, who will step down after 10 years with the franchise.
He led the construction plans for the second-year Chase Center and will continue to serve in an advisory role.
(c) EFE Agency