It couldn’t have felt good to be on the wrong side of Steph Curry’s historic 43-point performance in Game 4 of the NBA Finals Friday night. The Celtics must have felt helpless as Curry kept making clutch shot after clutch shot.
During their media sessions with reporters Sunday, Boston’s top trio of Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown and Marcus Smart had to tip their cap to Curry.
“Steph Curry is pretty good, if you guys haven't noticed,” Brown said Sunday. “He can shoot the ball unbelievably. Even watching it, playing against it and even in the Finals, I feel like he's taking it up a notch a little bit. He had a hell of a performance in Game 4, and we have to respond to that. We've got to do even more of a better job. We've got to be even more focused on the details because obviously Steph Curry is a hell of a player.”
Curry has pushed himself to the top of the Finals MVP conversation with four stellar games to begin the series, averaging 34.3 points, 6.3 rebounds, 3.8 assists, 6.3 3-pointers per contest while shooting 50 percent from the floor and 49 percent from 3-point land. Tatum, meanwhile, is averaging 22.3 pointers per game while struggling to shoot just 34.1 percent from the field, despite his scorching 45.2 percent clip from 3-point land.
Tatum, 24, still has some catching up to do to the 34-year-old Curry.
“I mean, everybody knows he's a great player, right, one of the greatest,” Tatum said. “He's doing what he has to do to put his team in the best position to win. You know, it's no secret. I knew he was a great player before the series, and after Game 4, I knew he was a great player as well.”
Smart has been tasked with the unenviable assignment of slowing down Steph. Aside from his on-ball wizardry, Curry’s off-ball movement and conditioning level can wear down his opponent in a seven-game series.
Smart gave a lengthy answer Sunday describing the multitude of ways Steph impacts the game.
“We all know what he can do outside of 20 feet, 30 to 35, 40 feet,” Smart said. “The dude is special in that regard. The way that he's able to affect the game by being able to run around and play off the ball and get himself open, it's just tough on a defender because you can't take a break. The instant you think that he's not doing anything, the play is over for him, and that's when you get beaten. That's when you get burnt. That's when this mentality comes in and you've got to stay ready, you can't give up, you've got to keep going.
“For him, he can affect the game at all levels, passing, play-making, shooting the ball, scoring the ball. He's got the whole package, and you have to be able to guard every last thing he has, and not many players can do that. Not a lot of people, especially on that defensive end, likes to sit down and play defense. It's not fun. It's not glamorous at all. You're not going to get any or much of the credit. None of that. But you have to be willing to take that challenge and just go do it when you're guarding him.”
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