Two of the league’s top point guards in Kyrie Irving and Stephen Curry have been burning the nets with their hot hands from distance. Curry has been making noise since the beginning of the season, especially with the success that Golden State has been enjoying, while Irving has started to make significant noise recently and it could also be attributed to Cleveland’s impressive run.
While both players have won the three point shootout, Kyrie Irving has had better success in the contest having reached the finals in both times he participated, although it’s noteworthy that he lost out to Curry this year because the latter was simply in the zone. Curry might be the more popular choice, but Kyrie’s resume from beyond the arc is able to stand side by side with Steph’s. Both players have similar career highs in threes with 11 and for this season they hold similar three point percentages as Curry shoots 41.9% while Irving is at 41.0%.
Steph Curry gets a bump in terms of popularity because of the Warriors success this season but Kyrie Irving has been making significant noise as well in the Cavaliers’ impressive run. Something to consider when talking about Irving’s hot run as of late is his 50 point explosions, first one was when he went 11 of 19 from distance en route to 55 points against Portland and almost a month afterwards, he exploded for 57 points on 7 of 7 shooting from three. Curry also gets more love since he hits more threes than Irving, but since the Cavaliers’ run that started on January 15, Irving has trumped Curry in terms of three point percentage as Uncle Drew has a 44.5% accuracy compared to the Splash Brother’s 43.6%.
Here’s the shooting chart for Kyrie Irving’s 55-point performance against the Portland Trailblazers:
NBA.com/stats
Here’s the shooting chart for Stephen Curry’s 51-point performance against the Dallas Mavericks:
NBA.com/stats
Here’s the shooting chart for Kyrie Irving’s 57-point performance against the San Antonio Spurs:
NBA.com/stats
The icing on the cake for Irving is his performance during clutch. We can use a number of different perspectives when talking about who’s the better three point shooter but when it counts the most and you get to choose who shoots the three ball, Irving’s numbers are his calling card. Here is Stephen Curry’s single big three-pointer of the season:
According to NBA.com Stats index, in the last five regulation minutes and overtime of a game that is within five points, Stephen Curry is just 2 of 13 from three-point land, a miserable 15.3%. Kyrie Irving is currently 6 of 16 from three-point land in the final five minutes and overtime of a close game, a solid 37.5%. Clearly, Irving is the more clutch three-point shooter, as displayed by these two plays from earlier in this season:
Game-winning three against the Blazers:
Game-tying three against Spurs: