Steph Curry gets second Player of the Week honor in Warriors’ young season

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NEW YORK CITY — No player has matched the 50 points Stephen Curry dropped Monday against Atlanta, nor has anyone mounted as many 40-point performances as Curry this season. Likewise, nobody can match the Warriors superstar in player of the week honors in this young season.

Curry earned his second such honor when he was named Western Conference player of the week Monday, honoring him for the second time this season for a four-game stretch in which he averaged an NBA-high 34.8 points while leading Golden State to three wins in four games.

He was rewarded with a day off in New York City while the rest of the team — sans Draymond Green and Andrew Wiggins, who were also given the day off Monday — went through a casual, two-hour practice ahead of their game in Brooklyn Tuesday evening.

This was the 18th time in his career that Curry has earned a player of the week nod, more than any other players in Warriors history since the league began handing it out in 1979. It came as Curry bounced back from a minor illness the previous week that limited him to 20 or fewer points in his past four games entering this week.

He showed he was back to full strength in a big way Monday against the Bulls, becoming the oldest player in NBA history (age 33) to record a 50-point, 10-assist double-double and the third player to do so in franchise history.

“It follows the usual pattern of how I start seasons,” Curry said this week of his up-and-down past two weeks. “A lot of it too is just staying aggressive, locked in on how I’m trying to get off on most nights.”

With a 28.1 per game average, Curry is second only to Kevin Durant (29.6) in scoring this season.

Coach Steve Kerr on Monday agreed there was no competition: the two former teammates, who won two championships together and will face off Tuesday in Brooklyn, are playing the best basketball in the NBA.

“No doubt,” Kerr said. “To me, they’ve been the best two players in the league so far.”

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