Bradley Beal’s 50 piece fueled Steph Curry’s performance in scoring title battle

As he and Bradley Beal trade shots in the NBA scoring title race, Steph Curry acknowledged being motivated by Beal’s performance on Saturday night.

Despite missing the entire overtime of Saturday night’s game against the Indiana Pacers, Washington Wizards guard Bradley Beal put up 50 points to raise his scoring average to 31.4 points per game. Steph Curry entered Saturday averaging a league-high 31.6 points per game.

Curry’s game Saturday night against the Oklahoma City Thunder tipped off after Beal and the Wizards were done playing. He needed 22 points to maintain his scoring lead over Beal.

In what practically amounted to two quarters of output in a 136-97 win for the Warriors, Curry had 49 points on 11-for-21 from 3-point range (14-for-26 from the floor; 10-for-10 from the line). He scored 46 of those points in the first and third quarters (24 and 22 respectively), as he sat out the fourth quarter of the blowout.

Curry pushed his scoring average to 31.9 points per game for the season, a half-a-point clear of Beal. Just as the margin was entering Saturday.

Steph Curry noticed Beal’s 50-point outing

Curry was asked if he knew what Beal had done against Indiana. The response was perfect.

Curry not only knew Beal had put up 50 against the Pacers, he answered it with a 49-point outing to maintain his scoring lead as if neither of them had even played.

Beal’s status going forward is unclear, with full testing on his injured hamstring to come presumably on Sunday. The Wizards are battling to stay in a play-in spot, in ninth place in the East, 0.5-game clear of the 10th-place Pacers with four regular season games left. So being without Beal for any of those games will hurt. Secondarily, it will also hurt his chances to catch Curry for the league scoring title. But with the run he’s been on since April, Curry may just put the scoring title further out of reach anyway.