With game-winning shot, Steph Curry does something he’d never done in his career

SAN FRANCISCO — Stephen Curry’s buzzer-beater jumper secured the Golden State Warriors’ 105-103 win over the Houston Rockets on Friday night.

Curry and the Warriors celebrated the regular season win over a tanking team like it was a title-clincher. Justified, the team said, given the team’s recent funk in which they’d lost seven of their last 10 games.

“We’ve been struggling a bit of late. To be in that game and the way we fought back. Steph took an amazing shot,” Kevon Looney said. “Got to celebrate with him, it was an amazing feeling. Hoping it’s something we can carry over and start playing better basketball.”

A spirit lifter was also a historic buzzer-beater. Curry said it was his first career walk-off buzzer beater.

“It’s a different feeling when it’s a walk-off,” Curry said. “It’s good to know what it feels like, finally.”

The Warriors say it was the team’s first since Andre Iguodala hit one against the Atlanta Hawks in November 2014.

Curry has hit numerous last-second game-winners, eight to be exact. But never a buzzer-beater, not since high school.

His shot heard ’round the world to beat the Oklahoma City Thunder in overtime in Feb. 2016 is perhaps Curry’s most famous game-winner. Nailed from near half-court to secure the Warriors’ stunning win and mark one of the franchise’s iconic regular season games.

But the shot left .6 seconds on the clock. Not a buzzer-beater.

Curry hit two in 2018, a layup against the Los Angeles Clippers to give the Warriors a 129-127 win and a three-point winner against the Dallas Mavericks to break a tie with three second remaining.

Curry had two in the 2013/14, including a game-winning jumper against the Mavericks that left .1 seconds on the clock. Just nearly a buzzer-beater and one against the Boston Celtics with two seconds left on the clock. He hit a game-winning three-pointer against the Orlando Magic early in the 2014/15 season — a spark that began a season in which the Warriors formally introduced themselves as a basketball dynasty, and Curry it’s king.

His first game-winning three came in 2013 against, of course, the Mavericks (his first of three against them), that left 1.5 seconds on the clock.