Warriors guard Steph Curry drives between Knicks Kenyon Martin and Pablo Prigioni on his way to scoring 54 points, highest for the NBA season. Reuters

Had conventional wisdom truly done its job Wednesday, the Knicks would have won in blowout fashion.

They would have taken advantage of the fact that the visiting Golden State Warriors—who'd played a game the night before—were without their lone All-Star. They would have soaked up their home crowd's cheers, and sent that same Madison Square Garden crowd heading for the exits early because of how lopsided the score would have been.

Luckily for those fans, conventional wisdom had almost no place in what transpired.

The Knicks prevailed, 109-105, over Golden State, but only after Warriors guard Stephen Curry made things captivating by torching them for an NBA-season high 54 points.

The 24-year-old put on a dazzling shooting display—one of the best in the Garden's illustrious history—connecting on 11 of his 13 attempts from three-point range. Several of his shots, nearly 30 feet from the basket with a defender's hand in his face, prompted audible gasps and roars from the opposing fan base.

"We were just trying to trap him and give him different looks to get the ball out of his hands. But he hit a couple shots where I don't even think he looked at the rim," said Knicks center Tyson Chandler (28 rebounds), who, despite being the league's reigning Defensive Player of the Year, was often left helpless.

Curry, who also logged seven assists and six points, picked up steam throughout the game after scoring just four points in the opening quarter. He followed up with an enormous 23-point second period, before logging another 15 in the third to enter the fourth with 38.

The final quarter was just as impressive until the Knicks made a couple of key stops when it mattered most. With a minute and a half left and the score knotted at 105, Curry got his shot blocked by guard Raymond Felton, a play the Knicks turned into two points when J.R. Smith (26 points) sunk a seven-foot floater.

On the following Golden State (33-25) possession, Warriors guard Jarrett Jack committed a traveling violation while trying to find Curry with a pass. The Knicks (34-20) essentially iced the game on the other end, when Carmelo Anthony (35 points, eight assists) nailed a short jumper that served as the game's final basket.

It was relatively important for the Knicks to win after blowing an early 14-point lead, if only because of the treacherous schedule they have before them in the coming weeks. Of their final 28 games, 17 are against teams that would make the playoffs if the season ended today. Sixteen of the remaining games are on the road, including Friday's matchup with the resurgent Washington Wizards.

But despite the outcome Wednesday, the game's focal point was clearly Curry, who played all 48 minutes and seemed not to care who was guarding him. Because of ex-Knick David Lee's one-game suspension, Curry had to take on a larger scoring role.

"We were shorthanded and needed a performance like that to have a chance," said Warriors coach Mark Jackson, also a former Knick player. "The sad thing is, to the audience, that was Stephen getting hot. But to us, that's just who he is. He's a knock-down shooter in the highest regard."

The shooting performance—which Warrior players treated like a perfect game in baseball, by not speaking with Curry whenever he came to the bench—was one of the greater displays in the famed arena's history. Only seven players, including Wilt Chamberlain, Elgin Baylor, Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant, have scored more than Curry's 54 in a single game at the Garden.

"There was a lot of energy in the arena for both teams when I started putting up some numbers," said Curry, who nearly got drafted by the Knicks in 2009. "When I made a couple shots, you could hear the crowd a little bit. It was electric."

Not bad for a game that, on paper, shouldn't have been all that close to begin with.

Write to Chris Herring at chris.herring@wsj.com