Nobody is saying Jrue, Conley, or Beverley would expose Curry as a bum but it makes a difference when you actually have to defend on the other side of the ball and then go back and be the engine of your team for 40 minutes. How many players do we see doing both? Few, especially as guards. And I'm trying to be objective but this same board swears what Lebron has done as next to nothing because of his "opposition", now I don't know if you're one of those people but if it was done to him it can be said about Curry. Warriors are a well-rounded, deep team, and Stephen Curry makes them great. Take him off that team they lose in the 2nd round every year as a ceiling in the West. He is the motor, and that motor had little to deal with.
As far as him "not defending PGs", who would he have defended?
In New Orleans, if he's not defending Jrue he's guarding who? Tyreke? Gordon? Both are entirely too strong and Gordon is a very good shooter but since he hasn't exactly been a stud in the league I'll give you that.
He'd have a break on defense with Memphis.
And Curry certainly wouldn't be guarding Harden.
Bottom line is the hardest Curry worked for his shooting numbers was against Dellavedova in the Finals, who he did not have to respect on the other side of the ball. More stars than not have had tough matchups on their way to a trophy. Curry had 1 series of 4, at the end. No one is saying he and Golden State don't deserve a ring but this was a very easy road to it.
Nope I'm not one of those nonsensical LBJ critics, he's played some of the best defenses of the era consistently throughout his prime postseason years (Pistons, Magic, Celtics, Bulls, Pacers, Spurs, even the Hornets were top 5 in 2014) so anyone taking away from his performance is entirely without merit.
First let's establish one thing here, the Warriors didn't hide Curry much throughout the regular season. He guarded the likes of Westbrook and Lillard, and then busted their ass on the other end of the court. So it shouldn't be doubted that he has the stamina to put in that work. Curry is such an active team defender anyway and always looking to get out in transition after forcing a turnover that he's not exactly resting on defense.
I'm a Pelicans fan here, Eric Gordon absolutely does not play with strength, has nothing in his arsenal to punish teams for putting smaller defenders on him and can't take people off the dribble like he was able to in 2011 before the injuries. He game is almost entirely predicated off spot up shooting. Whenever Quincy Pondexter (Who is a good perimeter defender btw often on Curry, didn't matter though) is on the court he can guard him too, while the Warriors can stick Iggy/Klay on the actual offensive priorities on the perimeter while the opposition is unable to punish them for hiding their weakest defender. Its a great strategy honestly.
Rockets he can guard Trevor Ariza who has possibly the worst dribble of any perimeter player in the league and is very much a one dimensional spot up shooter, and if they try to force him the ball in order to "expose" the matchup like he's Ray Allen that's all the more possessions you're taking away from James Harden. When Beverly is on the court he can guard him, and James Harden is being hidden as well since he can't guard anyone in the Warriors backcourt.
Cavaliers: JR Smith and Iman Shumpert. Thunder? Anthony Morrow and give Andre Roberson the Tony Allen treatment. Not sure what your thoughts are on Westbrook but he is such a reckless, terribly disciplined defender that the Thunder would be doomed if they had that man guard Curry in a series. They can't guard each other, and both can be hidden in a PS matchup.
Delly only bothered Curry temporarily, and even in that game he missed a handful of wide open shots that he'd normally hit in other situations. Performance was an outlier that just happened to occur on the worst stage possible. It was also a combination of the Cavs controlling the pace of the game taking the Warriors out of their comfort zone and having an athletic big man in Tristan Thompson hedge to give Delly enough time to recover from screens + keep Curry from getting an open look from three. No other team was able to execute that strategy to the extent of the Cavaliers, and it wasn't a matter of health but personnel and execution. In truth if Kevin Love or Kyrie Irving are healthy that strategy falls apart unless the Cavs commit to small ball with TT at C or Delly plays next to Irving to cover for him (people make too much of Kyrie's defense in G1, common sense says he cannot stick Curry consistently and is certainly a downgrade from Delly). The Cavaliers also were not in any shape or form an easy finals opponent. Best player of his generation + a good defense behind him, a defensive strategy executed by perfection and a couple rebounding beasts in the frontcourt which is the Warriors biggest weakness as a team. They matched up pretty well against GSW.
I disagree with Curry not having to face much, as alluded to above Quincy Pondexter saw a lot of time on him in the Pelicans series and ideally he's the type of guy you want to put on him. But he got faked out of his shoes and hit with tough screens that he couldn't recover from + didn't get the help necessary for guarding him. Rockets ranked 8th defensively on the year even without Bev/Howard for much of the season, should be given more credit. The real reason they got smoked by Steph is because of their turnover problems, sporadic effort in transition which had been a problem for Houston all season long, their pace which plays directly into the Warriors hands and not enough help for their point guards defensively. When Curry was starting to get his rhythm back, Mike Conley was moving around fine. Wasn't doing anything much differently defensively than he would've if 100% + Courtney Lee saw possessions against him. If you didn't know of his ailments and just watched him defend Steph's makes I doubt you would think he wasn't healthy. The problem was whenever the Grizzlies switched they got murdered, Mike got run through so many screens that it was hard to expect him to recover onto Curry in time, he destroyed them in 1on1 opportunities (Conley can only pray against Steph if defending on an island) and was able to get out in transition. Whenever the Grizzlies did double, he quickly found the open man taking advantage of the 4on3 opportunity. Mike Conley is not the answer for Stephen Curry. Neither is Beverley, his great shooting against them as primary defenders throughout his career supports this and I think its very exaggerated how much their absence contributed to his success. He's just a flat out dominant shooter doing dominant shooter stuff on the biggest stage of the sport.
I do appreciate that you acknowledged what Curry means to that team and how great they were this past season, so at the very least I can respect your position as I don't sense any disrespect here. Just a good discussion.
