The Golden State Warriors are truly reaping the benefits of having Steph Curry back out on the court.
Despite missing 27 consecutive games with a lingering knee injury, Curry hasn't missed a beat since returning on Sunday night, following up a 29-point performance with a 17-point game on Tuesday night in a 110-105 win over the Kings for the Warriors.
Even though Curry's shooting is so fearsome, perhaps the thing the Warriors are getting to enjoy most is the space he creates and attention he draws, leading to more open shots for the rest of the Dubs.
De'Anthony Melton Reveals Curry's Impact
After the win, De'Anthony Melton dove into exactly why Curry is so impactful for the rest of the Warriors when he's out on the court, even if he doesn't necessarily have the ball in his hands.
"Just more space. When he’s out there and he gets to moving around and stuff like that, he causes so much confusion for the other team. So many guys want to stop him that sometimes, when he runs in the paint, you can kind of leak out to the other side and you’ll be wide open because everybody wants to stop him. I think that’s the beauty of it. Sometimes you get wide open looks due to him."
This season, Curry's gravity is quantified by the NBA to be 20.3, meaning he has 20.3 percent more gravity than a league-average player. In fact, despite being fourth in on-ball perimeter gravity at 14.6, Curry's off-ball perimeter gravity of 30.0 is so far in front of others in that category that it still allows him to have the most overall gravity in the league.
Melton Has Capitalized on Curry's Gravity
Melton was in a bit of a rough patch to end March and head into April.
Though he did drop 20 on March 21st against the Hawks, Melton's overall stats in a seven-game stretch from March 18th to April 2nd were just 8.3 points per game on 28.8% shooting from the field and 20% shooting from three-point range.
That also included two games where Melton did not score a single point and two games in which Melton could only muster up five points.
However, in the last two games with Curry back, Melton has seemed more settled.
Against the Rockets, Melton still only scored 6 points, but he wasn't inefficient for once, knocking down 2 of his 4 three-point attempts as the only shots he took all game. He also contributed 4 assists.
Then on Tuesday against the Kings, Melton exploded for a team-high 21 points and shot well, going 7-12 from the field and 4-6 from three, the most threes he's made in any game since February 11th.
There were multiple opportunities that Melton had that were wide open, as he said in his press conference, and he wasn't the only one benefiting so heavily from the attention Curry attracts from the defense.
As the Warriors trek towards the Play-In, getting in the groove of this offensive flow with Curry at the center and getting used to playing alongside him again will be vital.