Besides they didn’t.
The NBA doesn’t acknowledge particular person play-in stats or workforce wins/losses as a part of the regular-season or playoff document books. In different phrases, Golden State’s win on Tuesday disappeared into the ether, as did Butler and Curry’s heroic performances.
NBA.com has a separate category for the play-in, and even Basketball Reference acknowledges the video games occurred. Nevertheless, neither entity counts the participant’s or workforce’s cumulative stats tangibly.
Curry is most affected by the unusual rule
Curry often is the most affected by the NBA’s refusal to rely play-in stats as playoff numbers. The veteran sharpshooter has tallied a mixed 135 points from four play-in games, averaging 33.75 per contest.
If these factors counted towards his postseason stats, he’d presently have 4,101 profession playoff factors as a substitute of three,966, that means he’d rank greater than Tony Parker on the all-time list, and on the verge of surpassing Jerry West for ninth-most playoff factors.
Final 12 months, each Curry and Warriors head coach Steve Kerr urged the NBA to rely the play-in stats as playoff stats.
“These are playoff video games,” Kerr mentioned forward of final 12 months’s play-in recreation, via NBC Sports Bay Area. “I can’t consider they don’t seem to be included within the stats. The stats simply disappear into the ether, it is loopy.”
Curry mentioned, “It is sort of a bizarre kink within the system. Appears like I is perhaps just like the main play-in scorer, if that is a stat.”
The NBA has created an analogous paradox because it pertains to the NBA Cup remaining, aka the in-season event. The Bucks defeated the Thunder in the NBA Cup final final December, however the end result did not rely in opposition to both workforce’s regular-season document or particular person stats.
It’ll behoove the NBA to rely the play-in stats as playoff stats. The video games are performed underneath comparable strain, and a few might argue that they’ve greater stakes because of the sudden-death elimination format.
