Warriors hold off Suns 116-113 as Steph Curry's season-opening free throw streak ends at 51

Steph Curry went 51 free throws into the season without a miss. The 52nd, with seconds left and a chance to put Phoenix away, hit the rim. It nearly cost the Warriors. They held on to beat the Suns 116-113 Monday night at Chase Center, their fifth straight win, after Collin Gillespie's 36-foot heave at the buzzer came up short.

The New York Post reported that Dillon Brooks grabbed the rebound off Curry's miss and pushed it ahead to Gillespie, who got off a clean look at a tying three. If it had gone in, a game Golden State had already won would have gone to overtime. Instead the miss goes down as a footnote. Curry made his first 11 free throws of the night, hit five threes and finished with 34 points, his third straight game with at least 30.

The streak still mattered. Curry, the most accurate free throw shooter in league history at 91.3 percent for his career, was one make away from tying his own 52 straight to open 2017-18, which would have been the third-longest run to start a season. Steve Nash's 53 in 2007-08 was next on the list, and Jose Calderon's record of 84 from 2008-09 was still a long way off. The Post noted that Curry had not missed a free throw in a competitive game in 204 days. The scoring run puts him in rare company too: at 38, only LeBron James and Michael Jordan were older when they put up three straight 30-point games.

Curry didn't seem worried. Asked about the miss, he told reporters, "I'm shocked when I miss anytime," according to ClutchPoints. Steve Kerr put it down to the law of averages catching up with a shooter who has made a career's worth of big free throws.

This was another comeback. Yahoo Sports reported that Phoenix built an early lead before Golden State scored 42 points in the third quarter to tie it at 93. Curry and Jalen Green each scored seven in the fourth, and Curry's free throws down the stretch put the Warriors ahead for good. The streak ties the San Antonio Spurs for the longest active run in the league.

What it means for Miami on Thursday

The Warriors are now 5-3 after an 0-3 start that included a 127-105 loss to the Lakers, a 111-108 home loss to Memphis and a 131-122 loss in Phoenix. Since then they have won at Denver by 20 and at Minnesota by five, then beaten the Lakers, Clippers and Suns at home. Monday's win also paid back Phoenix for that early-season loss in the desert.

The Miami Heat come to Chase Center on Thursday, November 5, on NBA TV. The whole league has Tuesday off, so Golden State gets two days of rest with a long homestand rolling. Curry has topped 30 three games running, and over the past week he has been the main reason this team keeps coming back from early deficits. Against Miami the Warriors will try to stretch the streak to six. Curry starts a new count at the line.