Steph shines, silences physical Rockets defense in Warriors' win originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
HOUSTON – As Amen Thompson grabbed a hold of Steph Curry’s left arm in the third quarter Sunday, the Warriors superstar secured a defensive rebound with his right hand off a missed Fred VanVleet 3-point attempt and pushed the ball down the length of the court. Curry was too fast for both Thompson and Dillon Brooks.
From behind, Thompson jabbed at Curry and VanVleet met him beyond the arc where his only response in slowing Curry down was pushing down at his left arm. Curry tried to beat the Houston Rockets’ game plan, or at least get to the free-throw line, with a right-handed layup through all the holding and prodding, but the ball bounced off the side of the backboard and into the hands of Jalen Green.
No whistle.
Curry quite literally was laughing in stride while trying to evade the Rockets’ defense. He didn’t find it to be a laughing matter, though, and neither did the rest of the Warriors. Steve Kerr threw his hands up in disgust. So did assistant coach Jacob Rubin and forward Gui Santos.
The last place Curry will turn to, win or lose, is making excuses. He knows the narrative of how referees treat him and hears his team’s pleas. Those words of frustration aren’t going to come from him.
“If you’re really allowing the refs to be a talking point or a distraction or something you’re relying on, you’re kind of thinking about the game wrong,” Curry said Sunday night.
The Rockets couldn’t contain Curry. Outside factors didn’t bother him, either. That missed layup also broke a streak of eight consecutive made shots for Curry after missing his first three on the night, still finding his way to 31 points on 12-of-19 shooting and 5 of 9 from deep in 40 minutes as the Warriors took down the Rockets on the road, 95-85, in Game 1 of their first-round NBA playoff matchup.
“He was incredible,” Kerr said. “With that type of pressure from Thompson and others, he just made some amazing plays and obviously carried us offensively.”
Curry in the lead up to Sunday rewatched all three games he played against the Rockets this season. He pressed pause and rewind on his three-point performance in the Warriors’ loss to the Rockets two weeks ago when he took 10 shots and only made one. But eight of those shot attempts were threes.
So were his first three tries Sunday. None fell through.
The Warriors’ April 6 loss to the Rockets was their second game home after returning from a six-game, 13-day road trip. They had just enjoyed a 14-point win against the Denver Nuggets on the second night of a back-to-back where Curry scored 36 points. After one day off, Curry and the rest of the Warriors looked exhausted with heavy legs that turned to sweaty Jell-O.
With four days of rest and preparation, Curry again showcased Sunday why his ability to adjust is one of his great superpowers. What got him going was slicing the Rockets’ obstacle-course defense and still making his way to the basket. Curry’s next four buckets were two finger rolls and two layups cutting to the hole. The threat of him going downhill allowed him to tap into his deadly 3-point prowess.
“The first three shots were all threes, so it was kind of counterintuitive to how I saw that game and the adjustments I was making, but once I got to the lane a little bit, things started to open up,” Curry said.
Then there’s all the noise surrounding a series that features two teams on different timelines whose styles are as different as can be. Curry has found himself on the playoff stage against Brooks and VanVleet trying to bully him numerous times throughout his storied career. Thompson supposedly was in line as the next Steph Stopper.
Could Curry, at 37 years old and dealing with nagging injuries all season, hold up enough from the Rockets’ physicality? He has seen it all, he has beat it all. And Curry, whether he wants to or not, hears everything.
“He’s a true pro,” Draymond Green said. “Today’s day and age, it’s impossible to not hear anything. You open your phone up, even if you’re not looking at something, somebody’s going to send you a DM or somebody’s going to send you a message off Instagram. That’s just the nature of the world we live in. I think it’s impossible for anybody to not hear anything, but at the end of the day, we’re not coming out here trying to prove a point.
“We’ve been at this for a very long time. To try to prove a point because someone said ‘X’ is pointless. We’re trying to win basketball games, and in order for us to win basketball games, it requires Steph Curry to be great.”
Curry put Brooks, VanVleet and a handful of others on the grill and cooked them to a crisp. He made three 3-pointers from 27, 28 and 34 feet with Thompson right up on him. It’s easy for all this to feel routine by now, but his falling fadeaway three from the right corner to give Golden State its game-high 23-point lead in the third quarter had his teammates holding each other back on the bench.
Jimmy Butler has seen the show from afar and now up close as Curry’s co-star. Try as he will to stay in the moment, on the floor and on the bench, Butler was in awe on a night where he also was spectacular himself.
“The shots that he takes and makes are absolutely incredible,” Butler said. “For him to know that that ball is going in and for everybody probably in the building, maybe even in the world, to know that the ball is going in, it’s incredible. I’m a fan as everybody else is, and he just makes big shot after big shot and helps us build on these leads.”
Easter Sunday marked Curry’s 59th playoff game scoring at least 30 points. The Warriors are 17-2 in series with Curry and Green after winning Game 1, and now have won a road game in 29 of the 30 playoff series those two have been in. Golden State also improved to 24-5 this season in games Curry and Butler have played together.
Sitting at the podium, a puddle of water formed under Curry from the ice wrapped around his injured right thumb, serving as a metaphor for perhaps the Rockets’ only hope.
All these years later, one constant remains the same: Houston, you still have a Steph Curry problem.
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