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As head coach Steve Kerr acknowledged during his post-game press conference, nobody is immune to a bad shooting night. Not even the best shooter in the present-day NBA. That’s exactly what last night was for Stephen Curry. Last night, Curry suffered through his worst shooting performance of the year, and arguably his career given the magnitude of the game that it occurred in.
There’s no denying Matthew Dellavedova did an outstanding job defensively on Curry. Dellavedova smothered Curry all night. He kept his eyes locked on the number 30 on the front of Curry’s jersey. Rarely did he turn his head or pay attention to what was going on around him. He focused all of his attention and energy on Curry, and it worked. But let’s not crown him as the next Gary Payton. Dellavedova was also the benefactor of catching Curry on an off night.
The stat that has everybody’s attention this morning is the fact that Curry missed all eight of his shot attempts when being guarded by Dellavedova. But he also hit just five of 15 when he wasn’t, including just two of 10 from long range. That is hardly up to Curry’s standards. As the game went on, you could sense Curry starting to press a little bit and he started to force up some shots, some really bad ones at that.
Yes, the shots Curry kept hoisting up are ones that he can regularly hit, but it’s usually because he is in a groove. They are not the type of shots you should be taking when you’re in the type of funk that Curry was in.
I don’t want to take away anything from Dellavedova because he was great last night. He’ll need to do that a couple more times in this series before I start to believe that last night was more about him than Curry having a poor shooting night.
That being said, look for Curry to bounce back in a big way tomorrow night in Game 3. Some of Curry’s best performances of the playoffs have been on the road and coincidentally have been in Game 3 — he hung 40 on both the New Orleans Pelicans and Houston Rockets. The Warriors will almost certainly look to get him going early because the longer he struggles, the more confidence Dellavedova gains.
As any shooter will tell you, “shooters just keep shooting.” That’s exactly what Curry did last night. That’s exactly what he will do in tomorrow night’s Game 3. And that’s exactly what the Golden State Warriors need him to do to become NBA champions.
Derek McVay is a Boston Celtics beat writer for www.RantSports.com. Follow him on Twitter @mcvay34, or add him to your network on Google.
