The ball goes in or it doesn't.

It's called a foul or it isn't.

Either you win or you don't.

There is no gray area.

So it's not shocking that over this past weekend there is a lot of binary talk about Steph Curry, especially if you go back to Friday night, when Portland bumped the Warriors by 25.

Curry was still Golden State's leading scorer that night, but even he called the evening quote demoralizing after making just four of his 12 3 point attempts and finishing the game a minus 27.

And boy, did that.

Get people talking, depending on which corner of the Internet you hang out on, You heard Steph described as either ah martyred saint whose otherworldly trials included roster instability, injuries and the box and one, or as an aging, overhyped role player who can't cross the street without a Kevin Durant shaped cane in his hand.

Four days the debate raged, stirred further by some Damian Lillard comments about how quote it's different than the past four or five years for Steph and that quote he's seeing, it's tough to get those quality looks now, of course, if you actually listen to the full interview, Lillard was not remotely taking a shot at Curry.

He was making a much larger point about how both for him and Steph Curry there is sometimes not much you can do when an opposing coaches throwing three or four defenders at you on every trip down the court.

But the step is overrated.

Crowd grabbed those Lillard headlines and ran with them so loudly that even Steph himself couldn't ignore all the buzz.

By the time he stepped onto the court last night for the book End of the Warriors to game home stand against Portland, he was determined that things go differently.

And, boy, did they as step brought out all the tricks.

Handles?

Yeah.

Check who?

Little reverse up and under there.

Yeah, no problem.

Yeah, you could just do that fist.

Hmm.

And the threes off balance.

No problem.

E.

Love it.

Catch and shoot.

Goodness.

No problem.

You're talking about one of the two time m.

V.

P.

S right?

Who now?

It was not the most important game of Steph Curry's career, but it was one of the best he's ever had.

Statistically and even in a mostly empty arena, there was that other essential part of any true Steph Curry masterpiece, that kind of liquid joy that spills across the court and uplifts an entire team like, say, rookie James Wiseman, who racked up his first career double double in the locker room after the game, Steve Kerr gathered the team and actually said he was going to give the game ball toe Wiseman pump, faking it toward the youngster before then, instead sending the ball to step.

The stunt sent several guys to the four, laughing, And then when they met with the media afterwards, they were universal in their praise, not just for steps game, but the way he had handled the tornado of criticism all weekend.

I think that was right up there with the majority of them.

I mean, with with the best of them.

Um, just because you know all the talk that's that's been going around, I could just e could just see like, you know, stuff has a tendency at times to kind of brown with the basketball.

There was no around, you know he comes.

He came out and everything was shot or attack like and me.

I watch your guy's eyes.

He never looked the past once in the beginning of the game.

It's crazy.

Remind me of two K because I used to play with stuff all the time and I used to drop like 60.

So just like actually watching it personally, that was that was phenomenal.

And then there was Steph himself, making a last dance joke.

You the Jordan team, right?

I take all that personally, I don't get frazzled too easily and very confident in who I am.

And, um, no, as a person as a basketball player.

And you know, there's not gonna be anything you could say about me or to me that's gonna affect that is gonna be, uh, you know, that kind of narrative from here on out and I love it.

I had hoped for a brief moment.

The Steffes performance make well, some of that binary talk online.

Of course, that wasn't gonna happen.

Even as Steph was still at the podium, debate was raging between the I told you so Crowd versus the Hey, it's just a regular season game crew.

The truth, of course, is somewhere in the middle.

Steph is a generational, truly great player who also does need to figure out this season how to make more of a nightly impact leading a depleted team.

It's not a binary problem, and last night's outburst cannot be the regular solution.

No one could put up historic numbers.

Every night doesn't work that way.

But at least for 48 minutes amid all the talk, it was Steph Curry who had the loudest word.

Either the ball goes in or it doesn't.

And last night it did.

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