Sometimes, for brief, fleeting moments, it’s possible to doubt the Warriors.
They get lazy with the ball, their jump-shooting goes cold, and despite all the evidence to the contrary, a small part of you starts to question whether a guy that small and that fragile-looking can actually put a team on his back in the same way that the broader shoulders of Michael Jordan and LeBron James have done in the past.
But then you remember that he can, and you remember that the NBA is Stephen Curry’s world and everyone else is just living in it.
There’s always been something especially cruel and magical about Curry’s slight stature. Watching his 86 kilograms make the big, proud bodies of LaMarcus Aldridge and Kawhi Leonard look nothing more than traffic cones on Sunday night felt as demeaning as it was marvellous.
There was an idea that after his first performance in San Antonio this year, his worst of the season, the Spurs might have figured something out about Curry that nobody else had. They have an all-time great defence and the league’s best individual defender in Leonard to present Curry with his biggest obstacle. But that’s all their defence is – an obstacle – and Curry always overcomes whatever is in his path.
The past two Warriors-Spurs match-ups, as well as the first one, have proven that the Spurs don’t have any Steph Kryptonite – they’re just as vulnerable to his transcendent talent as everyone else. Sure, they’ll make it harder for him than anyone else – they rarely make mistakes – but all they do is force his greatness to become more apparent.
San Antonio’s defence will make Curry take tougher shots than any other defence does. But what makes Curry legendary is that there is no tough shot for him. The single most important NBA mandate is ‘do not leave Stephen Curry open from deep’, yet he still manages to jack 11 threes a game and hit five of them. There is no defence for the man impervious to defence.
The about-to-be two-time MVP can’t beat San Antonio by himself. Despite being six games back in the loss column, the Spurs have a better point differential and net rating than the Warriors. They are not the Pat Riley Knicks or the Jason Kidd Nets, teams that served as mere roadblocks for a historic team’s path to the title. The Spurs are a historic team themselves.
Curry entered God Mode (Steph Mode?) in the third quarter last Sunday and exploded for 18 points, but Golden State only won the period by a single point. He needs help. That’s where having arguably the single greatest team of all-time comes in handy.
The Warriors won the last Spurs match-up in the time that Curry was off the court. With Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green riding the pine to start the fourth quarter, and the Warriors nursing a one-point lead, a line-up of Shaun Livingston, Ian Clark, Andre Iguodala, Harrison Barnes and Marreese Speights was put out for a four-minute spell. These are the windows where San Antonio need to make it rain. But incredibly, by the time Curry checked back in with 5:47 remaining, the lead had been extended to five, and the game was all but over.
There’s a perception that the Spurs are a bad match-up for the Warriors. They’re seen as the more hardened, veteran team and they beat the Warriors 2-1 last season with two double-digit blowouts in San Antonio, including one towards the end of the season that created a happy mania about the Spurs being the Warriors’ biggest threat in the playoffs.
Not only are they savvy championship warhorses, the Spurs are built in the mould of last season’s Cavs in the finals, only if those Cavs were actually good. The Spurs lockdown on defence, play at a snail’s pace on offence to get the game off the Warriors’ terms, and have significant height advantages on Golden State’s death line-up, enabling them to play volleyball at the rim.
But the reality is that these Warriors are the worst possible match-up for San Antonio, and we’ve seen it in the four match-ups this season. In San Antonio’s lone victory, Curry and Thompson combined to shoot two for 19 from deep, Anderson Varejao, Brandon Rush, Ian Clark and James McAdoo combined for 48 minutes, and Boris Diaw shot 86 per cent. And the Warriors were within one shot with less than two minutes to play.
The other three games featured two Warrior blow-outs that were over midway through the third quarter, and Sunday’s game, which felt over with five minutes to play.
The Spurs just can’t score against Golden State. Aldridge can’t generate advantages over Green in the post, and Leonard, despite being the number two on my MVP ballot, still lacks the offensive nuance to give the Warriors real headaches (his passing vision is a glaring hole, averaging 2.5 assists for the season).
Danny Green has been in a shooting slump that started in last year’s series against the Clippers – that was 12 months ago – and Tony Parker has scored four, five, six and ten points against the Warriors this season.
Tim Duncan as a scorer is nothing more than bittersweet nostalgia at this point, and while Patty Mills and Manu Ginobili off the bench are fantastic, they’re not carrying an offence. Bizarrely, Boris Diaw represents the one clear match-up advantage the Spurs seem to have, because Harrison Barnes doesn’t have a prayer for BoBo’s guile in the post. But as much as ‘On aime le BoBo’, counting on Diaw as your offensive trump-card is a losing hand.
The Spurs have issues elsewhere too. Duncan is virtually unplayable against Golden State when Steph is on the court. He doesn’t have any mobility left in his heroic legs, and he’s a plodding lamb to a three-ball slaughter if he gets switched onto Curry.
Despite San Antonio’s vaunted depth, they don’t have a lot of horses for a race against the Warriors. Kyle Anderson has been disastrous against Golden State, unable to contain Harrison Barnes, and Kevin Martin has been disastrous against basketball life, unable to contain a semblance of on-court usefulness. Boban Marjanovic is interesting but will get torched in pick and rolls like he did on Sunday, while David West, gallant as ever, just lacks the agility to keep up with Golden State.
It’s not all dark for the Spurs. There is mounting evidence that Klay Thompson’s effectiveness is hugely susceptible to elite defences, and the Spurs give him headaches. When Klay gets cold his shot selection gets worse and worse, forcing up contested looks to try and get himself going, which often only deepens his struggles.
Defending Green with Leonard has been a smart tactic, and the game’s most dynamic pick and roll (perhaps in history) between Curry and Green becomes less imposing when you involve the league’s best defender on the other side.
Aldridge can feast on offensive rebounds and put-backs, and Andrew Bogut has struggled dealing with Tony Parker’s slithery speed around pick and rolls, getting beaten to the hoop on Sunday.
But these are all just minor victories for San Antonio, and none stack up to the knockout of ‘Steph’, which still has them, and the rest of the league, unconscious on the mat.
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