June 3, 2018 — Stephen Curry shot 9 threes in an NBA Finals game and Kevin Love called the last one a "moon ball"

On the night of June 3, 2018, Stephen Curry (Golden State Warriors point guard and the man personally responsible for making the three-pointer the NBA's most coveted shot) walked into Oracle Arena in Oakland, missed his first five three-point attempts, and then made nine of the next twelve. The Warriors beat the Cleveland Cavaliers 122-103. 1

Nine three-pointers in a single Finals game. The old record was eight, set by Ray Allen in 2010. Curry broke it, then raised his arms wide at the Oracle crowd — the exact pose in the photo — and walked back on defense.

Before June 3, 2018, the NBA Finals single-game three-point record belonged to Ray Allen (Boston Celtics shooting guard, widely considered the greatest pure shooter of his generation before Curry arrived). Allen had made 8 threes in Game 2 of the 2010 Finals against the Lakers — seven of them in the first half alone, which tied the previous full-game Finals record before halftime even ended. 3

Allen held that record for 7 years, 11 months, and 28 days. Then he had to watch Curry break it in a fourth quarter where Curry went 5-for-5 from three.

Curry's reaction afterward was diplomatically understated: "It's a pretty cool deal to accomplish knowing who's held the record." 2

Curry went 0-for-3 from three in the third quarter. Cleveland outscored Golden State 34-31 in that period to cut the deficit to 7. The Cavaliers had just watched LeBron James score 51 points in Game 1 (with an overtime victory, plus JR Smith's infamous clock-management blunder — the Oakland crowd facetiously chanted "MVP" at Smith when he went to the free-throw line in Game 2). Things were not settled.

Then Curry scored 16 of his 33 points in the fourth quarter, going a perfect 5-for-5 from three. In the first minute of the fourth, he answered a LeBron three with two of his own, pushing a 7-point lead to 13. Then came the shot Kevin Love will probably describe for the rest of his life.

With just under 8 minutes left, Curry dribbled off a screen, lost control, recovered the ball while turning his back to the basket, and launched an off-balance 28-footer over Love's outstretched fingertips as the shot clock expired. It went in.

"We played 23 and a half seconds of good defense," Love said afterward, "and he turned around and hit a moon ball." 4

Less than two minutes later, Curry was fouled on another three, completed a four-point play, and the Warriors' lead stretched to 16. The game — and, as it turned out, the series — was effectively over.

Warriors head coach Steve Kerr was asked whether Game 2 was one of Curry's best Finals performances. "It's hard to think back to all of the games," Kerr said, then added: "He was tremendous. Nine 3s and seemed to hit the big shot every time we needed one." 2 LeBron James, whose 29-point, 13-assist performance on the other team was objectively excellent, was philosophical: "Every shot that he takes, he has the business of making them. That's what he does." 2

That 9-three game was not some fluke peak that Curry immediately fell back from. It was the announcement that the record might never be broken.

As of June 2026, the NBA Finals single-game three-point record still sits at 9 — Curry, June 3, 2018. The second spot on the list is Allen's 8 from 2010. The third spot includes Curry himself twice more (7 threes in Games 1 and 4 of the 2022 Finals), plus several other players with 7. 5

The most recent Finals (2025) saw no one crack 6.

And Curry's career three-point record only widened after 2018. On December 14, 2021, he surpassed Allen's all-time three-point record of 2,973 at Madison Square Garden. 7 On March 13, 2025, he became the first player in NBA history to make 4,000 career threes. As of June 2026, that total sits at 4,248 — over 850 more than second-place James Harden's 3,390. 5

Curry has five seasons with 300+ three-pointers made. Every other player in NBA history has two such seasons, combined.

The 2018 NBA Finals were the fourth straight championship series between Golden State and Cleveland — the first time in any of North America's four major sports leagues that the exact same two teams met in the finals four consecutive years. 8 The Warriors swept the series 4-0.

But the larger ripple from Curry's three-point era isn't just the record column. NBA teams averaged 32.0 three-point attempts per game in the 2018-19 season. By 2024-25 that number was 37.5 — a 17% increase in just six years. 9 In 2025, Daryl Morey — the executive who built the Houston Rockets' three-heavy offense and helped ignite the revolution — told a sports analytics conference that the three-pointer had become "too valuable" and now "essentially breaks the game." 9

The man who built the monster is now worried about the monster.

Kevin Love defended Curry for 23.5 seconds and watched a moon ball drop through the net. That is now just a normal Finals night.