Stephen Curry says contract talks may have affected his opening night performance

The Warriors earned a hard-fought victory over the Suns on Wednesday, in a game where they blew all of a 17-point first-half lead and had to come from eight points down in the final period to get out with that win.

A big part of the Warriors’ trouble was the fact that the team’s biggest stars in Stephen Curry, Andrew Bogut, and David Lee didn’t contribute in a positive way offensively to the team’s effort. Curry and Lee combined to make just 4-of-30 field goal attempts, and Bogut, playing his first game since suffering an ankle injury nine months ago, performed well but was limited to just 18 minutes by the team’s medical staff.

It’s unclear why Lee was so off on this night (and we’ll leave it to Warriors fans to further disparage his particular performance), but Curry may have had a legitimate reason.

The contract extension talks — which resulted in a generous $44 million dollar extension over the next four years — had been weighing on Curry significantly, and after the game he said that the “crazy day” he endured may have indeed been part of the reason for his 2-of-14 night from the field.

“I think it was just one of those games, but it was just a crazy day,” he said, while trying to make sense of it all. “It was still a little nerve-wracking the last 48 hours seeing if we could get something done, and obviously we didn’t have any games so it’s pretty much all I was thinking about. And then this morning, realizing that it was finally done, and then media obligations and family texting me every five seconds … it was definitely a blessing. But thankfully we were able to get a win and finish off the day nicely.”

The win almost didn’t come, with the Warriors leaving the door open time and again for the Suns to take it instead, especially down the stretch. Curry had a chance to seal the game with his team up two and just 4.4 seconds remaining, but the career 90 percent free throw shooter missed two straight from the line to give the Suns one final chance.

“That was about the sign of how my night went,” he said. “Thankfully there was not enough time for them to get a shot off and I was able to walk off with a win.”

Now that the contract extension is firmly in place, it’s likely Curry returns to form the next time he takes the court. If he takes the advice that head coach Mark Jackson had for him, he should be able to put this one bad game behind him and immediately find his way back.

“I told him he already earned his money,” Jackson said. “He doesn’t have to go out there and try to earn it all again in one night.”