Steph Curry may be unstoppable but is there another way to defend him

[Originalman]

For the basketball aficionados your thoughts or how you would play it?

@Malta @Gil Scott-Heroin

Dude is too good to stop. Plus the warriors have a bunch of shooters so you can't double him. IMO you chase him off the 3 line and make him drive or shoot 2s if possible.

But I still stand by what I said beginning this season. You make him plays defense and go at him (you will need a good back court and small forward so he can't hide on anyone). You also run him through screens and pick and rolls. Bump him constantly when you screen him.

He is a jump shooter first and needs his legs so going at him on offense and running him through picks and screens will fatigue him. Leg fatigue is the worse thing for jump shooters.

Finally you must get a sizable lead on the warriors because their depth allows curry to not play as many minutes as he would on a team with less depth. Of you can maintain a lead you can force Kerr to play the starters more minutes. Which means curry is less likely to play 32-34 minutes and more likely to play 36-39 minutes.

 

[G.O.A.T Squad Spokesman]

Thibs don't even have the answer but you think the Coli does?

 

[NaijaProdigy Redux]

I don't see how blitzing the Warriors would be anything but an unmitigated disaster...that team passes too well

You have to force Steph to work on defense and make him run through screens. Also turn them into midrange shooters or force them to drive.

I actually think OKC did a pretty good job on the switches.

With all that said, you just pray Klay and/or Steph are cold.

 

[the kid]

One thing i agree with Oscar Robertson about, defenses are not being creative or adjustiting to make it difficult for GS. Teams need to mix up their defensive schemes. Throw a zone in. Full court press some time.

I even like the switching, just in doses. When the switch occurs, the defender cannot even allow a 3 point attempt. Force both Klay and Steph to drive. It's pretty simple really. Sit on their right shoulder and force a dribble drive into help. Do not play them straight up. I actually would prefer them to drive into help.

I would play them like score is 10-9 going to 11 and they can beat me with 2 pointer. No threes. While it is counterintuitive to allow drives, Klay and Stephen are more efficient shooting 3s than they are shooting 2s.

 

[threattonature]

Theres really not much you can do with Thompson back there. You cant have your best perimeter defender play them both. The problem with getting the ball out of his hands is that they have so many other options and if they start swinging the ball around he'll just get open again thru all those screens

Yup that's the scariest part. Even when you force the ball out of Steph's hands by blitzing GS will move the ball around and force the defense into scramble mode which then leads to Klay or Steph getting a good look in all the chaos since they're both smart about picking out the spots that'll be open.

 

[ghostwriterx]

I'd put Love on Bogut, they'll seek him out of course, but at least in that scenario you can trap /hedge hard on Curry and live with Bogut rolling to the rim, don't overreact to him catching the ball at the top of the key or foul line.

Yeah, recognition is key. Teams get so focused on closing out against the Warriors shooters you start to see dumb sh*t like Kanter closing hard on Varejao at the top of the key last night.

Its getting to the point with Steph and Klay where I'm not sure it even matters if you contest or not. I'd be tempted to go under every screen dare him to break the record every night and stay home on everybody else, meanwhile run him ragged on the other end. If you manage to keep it close, start occasionally trapping hard in the 4th and hope everybody else is too cold to convert.

 

[ghostwriterx]

One thing i agree with Oscar Robertson about, defenses are not being creative or adjustiting to make it difficult for GS. Teams need to mix up their defensive schemes. Throw a zone in. Full court press some time.

I even like the switching, just in doses. When the switch occurs, the defender cannot even allow a 3 point attempt. Force both Klay and Steph to drive. It's pretty simple really. Sit on their right shoulder and force a dribble drive into help. Do not play them straight up. I actually would prefer them to drive into help.

I would play them like score is 10-9 going to 11 and they can beat me with 2 pointer. No threes. While it is counterintuitive to allow drives, Klay and Stephen are more efficient shooting 3s than they are shooting 2s.

This is fine with Klay since his court vision is atrocious, but Steph will just finish over your scrambling bigs or find the open shooter.

 

[MostReal]

slippery slope,, traditionally thats why everyone considered green the playmaker cause often on that curry green pnr, if u trap curry, green then has a 4 on 3 dive to the basket, with shooters on both wings....cavs did a lot of switching last year, and tristan was somewhat commended for his defense on steph after the switch..

The Thunder did this well and got away with it a ton because of Ibaka's length. Ibaka (or Roberson) would guard Green after that trap pass one on one and bother his shot. I don't know anyone on the Cavs roster that will bother Green like that.

Curry and the Warriors changed up their pick n rolls somehow to prevent the hard traps which led to the one on ones with the bigs, once they found a way to free Curry and iso on those Bigs the series was over.

 

[threattonature]

That's basically what teams do all throughout the season, but when Curry gets the ball over the trap to Draymond he's able to put the ball on the floor and either find a wide open shooter in the corner, throw a lob to the big or try to make a play for himself.

It's a pick your poison scenario. Either you give up a 4on3 or Curry dances with your big men. A lot of times both. Or they just run him off ball and try to get him free through screens. I do think a team with great length that can switch 1-5 poses the biggest threat to GSW defensively. A locked in OKC was that.

Cavs problem is that they haven't been playing good defense this postseason and weren't great in the regular season either so it'll be interesting how they survive all the problems the Warriors will pose to them. Can't see Love getting heavy minutes without being repeatedly blown up defensively.

OKC off ball switching was so beautiful and really Golden State like. That's where the Warriors started switching up there off ball movements and setting double screens and faking screens to try and create confusion with all the switching OKC was doing. I think that is the best chance like you said is to have crazy length and athleticism and being able to switch everything. Everybody shyts on OKC but in the end their defense really didn't fail them. They lost cause Golden State just started hitting completely ridiculous shots that are damn near impossible to stop.

 

[#SOG_soldier]

Bad idea imo. With trapping green had a 4 on 3 dive to the rim. Green is a master playmaker, that will lead to open 3 after open 3 and besides. The heatles didn't beat sas, greg pop a bytch just outhought himself

 

[Malta]

One thing i agree with Oscar Robertson about, defenses are not being creative or adjustiting to make it difficult for GS. Teams need to mix up their defensive schemes. Throw a zone in. Full court press some time.

I even like the switching, just in doses. When the switch occurs, the defender cannot even allow a 3 point attempt. Force both Klay and Steph to drive. It's pretty simple really. Sit on their right shoulder and force a dribble drive into help. Do not play them straight up. I actually would prefer them to drive into help.

I would play them like score is 10-9 going to 11 and they can beat me with 2 pointer. No threes. While it is counterintuitive to allow drives, Klay and Stephen are more efficient shooting 3s than they are shooting 2s.

Klay and Steph were among the league leaders in FG% in the paint.


The Raptors tried that kind of thing with the Cavs in game 1 & 2, they overplayed the three point line and it resulted in the Cavs hitting more than 50% of their shots.

 

[#SOG_soldier]

Yeah, recognition is key. Teams get so focused on closing out against the Warriors shooters you start to see dumb sh*t like Kanter closing hard on Varejao at the top of the key last night.

Its getting to the point with Steph and Klay where I'm not sure it even matters if you contest or not. I'd be tempted to go under every screen dare him to break the record every night and stay home on everybody else, meanwhile run him ragged on the other end. If you manage to keep it close, start occasionally trapping hard in the 4th and hope everybody else is too cold to convert.

That's playing with fire the cave don't have the offense to shoot it out imo. I think lue will play the splash bros straight up and probably look to try and muck it up with green. I think if you can get green to be over emotional make that anger of his a negative instead of a positive.

 

[#SOG_soldier]

Klay and Steph were among the league leaders in FG% in the paint.


The Raptors tried that kind of thing with the Cavs in game 1 & 2, they overplayed the three point line and it resulted in the Cavs hitting more than 50% of their shots.

Yeah I Don't think giving up looks inside is ever a good idea





was casey thinking?

 

[fifth column]

Curry is unguardable because the Warriors have a lot of playmakers and not just specialists like the Cavs. Curry gets open on and off the ball. Best way to beat the Warriors is to grind it out and make it ugly inside the paint on offense and limit their offensive possessions.

 

[threattonature]

One thing I'd consider doing though is putting a smaller guy on Draymond and Bogut. Draymond's post game that he was displaying earlier in the season as seemingly disappeared over the course of the season. Early on he was punishing teams that was putting small players on him. Not sure what happened but he's been nowhere near as good at that late in the season and seems to have all but given that up now. Bogut's only going to score on dunks. If you have defenders that can play close on the perimeter without getting blown by I'd just go small and switch everything.