GQ caught up—briefly—with Steph Curry earlier in the week, while promoting his partnership with the Degree MotionSense Lab. He had just had the worst shooting performance of his season against the Knicks, going 5 of 17 from the field for a meager 13 points. It was a decidedly ordinary performance for the man who just may go down as the most extraordinary shooter in the history of the game. Then, during last night’s game against the Wizards, Steph scored 25 points in the first quarter and finished the game 19 of 28 (11-16 from three!) with 51 points, a basketball god reclaiming his place atop Olympus. Here, we ask him about Kobe, Riley, and the one glaring weakness in his game...

Let's talk about your dunking.

Oh God.

Do you remember the first time you dunked?

In college during my freshman year—probably like September or October—after one of our open gym sessions. I knew I could get close. That’s all I wanted to do [was] to be able to get up and dunk, so I remember exactly where it was, what basket it was. And then I’ve had some terrible moments since then of getting hung in games. It’s even so bad that at our practice facility with the Warriors, we have the Steph dunk count on the board. There’s a bunch of like 1/4’s, 1/8’s, half a dunk, all that kind of stuff. At least I’m trying though.

According to Pro Basketball Reference, your single season record is 4 dunks. You’ve got 3 this year. You going to set a new record?

I think so. If I got 3 already with 40 games left, I should be good.

Do you remember the first time you recognized that you could really shoot?

I was 9 years old playing AAU on the 10-and-under team, so I was playing up. I didn’t get a lot of playing time but when a team we were playing against would go zone, they’d put me in right away. That was kind of when I knew how that would help a team win. They needed me to go out there and be a zone-buster. That was really the only reason I played at the time. From there, I formed that identity and tried to expand the skill set beyond that, too.

When was the last time a coach told you, “Steph, that was bad shot”?

Coach Kerr tells me that all the time. I don’t know if he believes it half the time. I always have confidence, whether I miss four in a row or make four in a row, that the next one’s going in. To a coach, sometimes that might not make sense. I think the time he yelled at me the most, I was like 1 for 6 from three and pulled up from 30 feet, just cause I was feeling good at the time—why I was feeling good, I have no idea, just stubborn confidence. I missed.

Do you ever watch Vines of yourself doing this stuff, and think, Even I don’t how the hell I did that?

Yes and no. Most of the stuff I try in a game, in the moment I have supreme confidence I’m going to execute it. You go back and watch it, and, [think,] Yeah, that was pretty cool. My favorite one is the one from the Clippers game last year, weaving through all the defenders. There’s no reason I should’ve tried that. And it just happened to work out. That was a bad shot.

You’ve been known to celebrate shots before they’ve even gone in. Can you actually tell if a shot is good right when it leaves your hand?

100%. I’ve taken countless shots in my life so you know the ones when you’re in rhythm, with a perfect release and it’s on track, that it’s going in. I’ve done the turnaround moment twice when I’ve missed and it’s kind of a lonely feeling. But you got to take the good with the bad in that situation. Most of the time you of have fun with opposing bench—you take a shot right in front of them and everybody’s standing up waving towels, yelling at you, stomping their feet and you know it’s going in.