When Game 1 of the NBA Finals between the Golden State Warriors and the Boston Celtics kicked off, Stephen Curry threatened to deliver a historic evening. He dropped a record 6 threes in a single quarter that instilled fear on all Celtics fans. However, the players didn’t shy away from this unique challenge. From that moment forward, there was double and sometimes even triple coverage on the star.
Boston was determined to supress his shooting with help from DPOY Marcus Smart and the rest of the Celtics. The strategy did wonders during the second and fourth quarters, Steph wasn’t able to perform when he was needed the most. But there is one person who is convinced he knows how the Celtics managed to keep Curry at bay.
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As one of the best defensive players of his generation, Gary Payton senior said this on JJ Reddick’s show: “Steph, you have to put your body on him. Did you see what Smart did last night? He got into him a little bit. When you let him be free, you see the first three quarters what he did. In the first half, he was just free free free, couldn’t nobody stop him. He was stepping back, shooting threes.
“Then when Smart got into him a little bit, it took away a lot of it because he was pressuring. And then what it does is make the other people who got the basketball, they see that Steph is getting really really hounded. What do they do? They go away from him because they don’t want to turn the basketball over they don’t want to give it to him. Then they try to do things they can’t. And that’s what happened.”
Can Stephen Curry recover from this?
Getting to recover from this defeat won’t be easy for Stephen Curry and the Golden State Warriors. Sunday is the day in which they will attempt to tie the series at Chase Center during their second straight game at home.
However, losing that game could mean the endo fothe road because winning two games at TD Garden seems almost impossible. This will all depend on how well Curry navigates the loss he just suffered against one of the most surprising teams in the NBA this season. Can the Warriors overcome this setback?
Marca
