Stephen Curry may have endured the worst shooting performance of his NBA career, but he felt the Golden State Warriors took a step in the right direction against the Toronto Raptors.
Although two-time MVP Curry was 2-of-16 from the floor for 11 points, the Warriors still managed to secure a 106-105 victory over the Raptors at Chase Center on Sunday.
It was the Golden State guard's poorest shooting display in a game when he attempted more than four shots, his previous worst having been going 2-of-15 for four points against the Portland Trail Blazers on Christmas Day in 2010.
The lacklustre performance followed on from Curry scoring nine three-pointers in a win over the Los Angeles Clippers on Thursday – his 26th game with as many makes from beyond the arc.
Asked if before the season he thought he would be able to be as inaccurate as he was against the Raptors and still end up on the winning team, Curry replied with a grin: "Well, I never thought I'd go 2-of-16. So, I never even thought about that."
However, he felt the Warriors improving to 6-4 showed they are on the right path after a difficult start to the season.
"It means we're moving in the right direction," said Curry, who still managed to contribute nine rebounds and six assists.
"My offense, I expect it to be there every night. And obviously with how teams are defending night to night, being able to figure that out, but in terms of us having confidence across the board no matter who's out on the floor, I like where we're at right now in terms of guys stepping up, staying within ourselves, spotting different ways to execute on that end of the floor.
"But forget my shooting, we don't win a game like this without our defense taking strides in the right direction. We all understood that and that definitely won us the game with how ugly it was on the offensive end."
Curry does not expect there to be any long-term impact from one sub-par outing on the offensive end.
"I've shot 0-for-11 one time and 1-for-10 and all everywhere in between," Curry said. "So mostly it's just keep shooting, and eventually it will find its way.
"I think you kind of have to stay engaged on the other parts of the game, obviously defensively, trying to get rebounds, be a decoy sometimes if necessary.
"There's a lot of different ways that you can still be impactful if you're not shooting, but at the end of the day, just keep shooting. I'm not worried about that. At all."
Head coach Steve Kerr added: "I think we have enough talent, enough weapons to overcome a bad shooting performance, so I don't even know that I need to say anything.
"If it happens, these guys all look at the box score, they know what's going on. And they know by this time that the key to our team is our defense. And we were very good defensively again, so we're absolutely heading in a good direction."