Steph Didn’t Steph
Saying that Stephen Curry’s performance last night was horrendous is being too kind and too sanitized for this platform. Consequently, it’s also too simple to just leave it as such. Curry scored nine points on 3-14 shooting and 2-9 from three to go with his six rebounds and five assists.
It is rare that Curry scores in single digits for the entire game but in the few instances that he does, his plus/minues ends in a plus and the Warriors win. Last night, Curry was a minus 14 and they lost by four.
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Quiet as it’s kept, Curry is slumping. Before entering the game, he’s shooting a low for his standards 38.8 percent from three. Curry’s shooting struggles were masked because of his impact in other ways.
He was impactful by being aggressive on offense in driving to the basket and finishing, and absorbing contact to draw the foul. I didn’t see any of that last night. Instead, I saw a timid, out – of -sync player that didn’t know when and where to take over the game.
The fact that he missed wide open threes didn’t concern me. It happens. What concerned me was Curry’s reluctance to drive to the basket and not making better decisions with his shot selection on offense.
I don’t remember a play where I saw Curry attempt a mid range jumper. Ironically, his percentages are better from inside the arc (55 percent) than his three point percentages. So why not drive and look for mid range opportunities in a game like this one?
Defensively, Curry began to unravel in the second half, picking up two senseless fouls in the third to take himself out of the rotation. While the Celtics played good defense, they didn’t take Curry out. He did that to himself.