Stephen Curry got the question and didn't even have to think about the answer. Someone wanted to know what French words that the Golden State Warriors star picked up during his gold-medal experience at the Paris Olympics this summer.
Of course.
The hottest basketball move in the world this summer wasn’t a crossover dribble, or a stepback jumper, or some sort of no-look pass. It was the summer of “night night,” Curry's signature hands-to-the-side-of-the-face gesture, one that he breaks out when the game is over — basically, when he's put the other team to sleep. The whole world saw it after his dazzling stretch of four 3-pointers, the drama growing with each one, in the final couple minutes of USA Basketball's gold-medal win over France in August.
Inter Miami's Lionel Messi — only the biggest soccer star in the world — did the night-night a few weeks ago. At the Presidents Cup last weekend, Si Woo Kim celebrated a chip-in by doing the night-night (a bit prematurely, given that the U.S. went on to win the event yet again) and at the Democratic National Convention, even Warriors coach Steve Kerr capped his speech in support of Vice President Kamala Harris by making the gesture.
And as this NBA season starts — all teams are now in training camp — it's still the rage.
“I've seen it at the DNC, I've seen it at the Presidents Cup in golf, I've seen it all over, Messi did it,” Curry said. “I think Steve takes the cake in knowing that was a good time to pull it at the end of a great speech and getting some good energy in the building. Si Woo Kim, shout out to you. I appreciate him doing it — even though I told him he’s got to remind himself about time and score and knowing when you pull a night-night out, you got to win.”
The night-night was epic.
The four shots that preceded the gesture — the four shots that delivered gold to the U.S. — they're still the talk of the NBA, too.
Warriors teammate Brandon Podziemski has seen Curry pull off all sorts of remarkable feats, both in practices and games.
And as he watched the gold-medal game, he had a hunch Curry had something special coming.
“I just really thought, like, this is Steph being Steph,” Podziemski said. “And what I mean by that is, he just gets in these modes and these phases where, like, I don’t know what happens. You just give him the ball and you just let him do his thing and that’s it.”
That's exactly what the Americans did for those couple of minutes. He tried passing the ball to Kevin Durant a couple of times; Durant just immediately sent it back his way. Devin Booker had a layup chance; he threw the ball back beyond the arc to Curry instead. It was his time. They knew it. France knew it. Podziemski knew it.
“I see it all the time in practice,” Podziemski said. “He just lets his body take over.”
Karl-Anthony Towns was on his couch with about 3 minutes left in the gold medal game, watching just like the rest of the world.
He didn't stay seated for long.
“It got me off the couch,” said Towns, the four-time NBA All-Star who's about to enter his 10th season. "I am 28 going on 29. I’ve been in the NBA 10 years. I’ve played against this man four times a year. I’ve never had a man make me feel like I was 15 years old and I've got to get off the couch and shoot some damn basketballs. I’ve never — never — had that.”
Towns said what made it even better was that Curry made four different shots, four different ways, four different sets of footwork involved.
“It was the greatest shooting expo I've ever seen,” Towns said.
Miami guard Tyler Herro saw earlier in the Olympics that Curry was struggling a bit with his shot.
He knew that wasn't going to last. Sure enough, he was right.
“It's the preparation that he does, the mindset that he has,” Herro said. “It didn't surprise me. Everyone knows how good he is and how hard he works and prepares. That’s kind of what I kind of try to take away from him, what he does, how he works, how he does everything game speed.”
Herro knows the shots — and the night-night — will be replayed forever.
“I mean, the influence he has, not only on basketball in America, but everywhere," Herro said. “They're doing it in FIBA games. Messi's doing it. I can only imagine what the rest of the world is like. That's Steph. It's so crazy.”
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