Stephen Curry of the Golden State Warriors surprisingly fared better defensively than James Harden of the Houston Rockets in Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals.
When playing against the Golden State Warriors, even a first-year coach would understand that his (or her) team’s chances of scoring on a possession go up exponentially when going at former NBA MVP, Stephen Curry.
I mean, when Golden State’s lineup of Curry, Klay Thompson, Andre Iguodala, Kevin Durant and Draymond Green are on the floor (a.k.a., the Hamptons 5), it should be a no-brainer. Curry, of course, understands this entirely.
When asked after practice on Friday about the possibility of the Houston Rockets targeting him defensively over the course of the 2018 Western Conference Finals, Curry stressed that he remains confident in his ability to do what he can on the defensive end despite being well aware of his defensive shortcomings.
“I’m going to be fine,” Curry said. “Obviously, James (Harden) averages 30 points a game. He’s hard to stop for anybody in the league. But we’ve been in situations where teams want to pick on whoever.”
Steph Curry knows the Rockets are going to drag him into switches to isolate him defensively guarding Harden/Paul. He understands the strategy. "I hope it's every single play." pic.twitter.com/0nJ9YhM9p4
— Anthony Slater (@anthonyVslater) May 11, 2018
“It’s kind of funny, if you look at the — sorry, Coach — the Hamptons 5 lineup that’s out there, I would probably do the same exact thing if I was coaching against me. When you got Klay, Andre, Draymond and KD out there, I embrace those opportunities to get stops, try to make it tough in those iso situations or whatever the case it — just do my job.
“At the end of the day for us, we have a pretty good gameplan going into it. We’ve played teams that try to do that consistently, whether it’s Cleveland in the Finals the last three years or whatever team tries to do it. We handle our business.”
Fast forward to Monday, and we expectedly see the Rockets force Curry to switch on to Harden. What we didn’t expect, however, was Curry actually doing a pretty good job.
According to NBA Advanced Stats, Curry played 13 defensive possessions against Harden. In those 13 possessions, Curry held Harden to 2-of-6 shooting from the field (33.3 percent) and 1-of-2 shooting from behind the arc (50.0 percent).
And mind you, Curry even stated he’s had trouble moving laterally as a defender since coming back from the MCL sprain he suffered back in March; in other words, not only did Harden have trouble going at a guy whom everyone in the NBA targets defensively, but that same guy just so happens to be even more limited defensively than he usually is.
Steph Curry explains why moving laterally defensively after an MCL sprain is tougher than making quick-twitch offensive moves (an important thing to note in this iso heavy Rockets series) pic.twitter.com/CHwxhiYKKD
— Anthony Slater (@anthonyVslater) May 11, 2018
Most importantly, Curry committed just one shooting foul on Harden (albeit, an ill-advised foul beyond the arc). For the most part, the former unanimous MVP did the right thing by simply doing his best to lead Harden into the help defense whenever Harden got the first step.
Overall, Curry played 73 possessions on defense, during which opponents were held to 5-of-13 shooting from the field (38.5 percent) and 2-of-5 shooting from long range (40.0 percent).
On the opposite end, the Warriors targeted Harden, who allowed Curry to go 4-for-4 (100 percent) in 12 possessions. Overall, Harden accounted for 73 defensive possessions, which resulted in the Warriors shooting 12-of-21 (57.1 percent).
I’ll admit that I don’t expect Curry’s defensive numbers to hold up for the rest of the series. Once Houston takes a closer look at what they did wrong, they’ll more than likely go at Curry more aggressively in hopes of getting him into foul trouble.
Next: 3 takeaways from Game 1 win vs. Rockets
However, considering this game has likely set the tone for the remainder of the round, I highly doubt it’ll matter.