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For the first five games of the season, it was hard to overstate how bad the Golden State Warriors looked. They were offense in 30th place and defense in 29th place. Against the three playoff contending teams they faced, they lost by a total of 90 points. Stephen Curry, by his standards, was struggling, blasting his way on a 32 percent shooting streak from deep and scoring a decent portion of his 26 points per game during the formality minutes of the explosions.
This, of course, started a lot of talk. The Warriors were finished. Curry cannot carry a team. The latter is a twisted narrative as you begin to evaluate Curry’s legacy, which is already established as indisputably one of the top 20 players of all time, and arguably one of the top 10, no matter what he or the Warriors have done since. here. None of this is about what Curry has done so far. If you try to argue that, you are stupid.
The only logical talking point centers on Curry’s breakthrough, and whether he can still be the kamikaze-firing wizard that he was in the days before Kevin Durant. After all, he was 26 at the beginning of his first MVP season. He is now 32 years old. At least you could argue that a slight decrease occurred in that span, only it was undetectable within an all-time system, alongside an all-time teammate.
On Sunday, Curry showed he still has all the assets to go nuclear, hanging 62 points, his career high, over Damian Lillard and the Portland Trail Blazers. There were many reasons why Curry, who was named Western Conference Player of the Week on Monday, looked like his old self and the Warriors looked like a true high-functioning NBA basketball team against Portland. The best player on the court attacked all night, mostly.
Curry wasted no time letting the game get to him; He chased his shot from the jump, attacking downhill, reaching the basket and creating room for his patented 3s off the dribble. He shot 31 times. He made 18 free throws. A pretty tough line can be drawn: If Stephen Curry makes more than 30 shots and reaches the free throw line more than 10 times, the Warriors will be a tough team to beat now that Draymond Green is back.
Ah, Draymond.
Five paragraphs, and I’m getting to one of the top 10 players in the league in the last half decade. It’s a fitting tribute. Green tends to go after Curry in Warriors talks, but his legacy is also grounded. The Warriors would not have become a dynasty without Green; they may not have won a single title. Casual fans assume Green’s impact is limited to defense, but that’s not even remotely true.
Green’s form of play and his sense of when and where to get Curry the ball has been one of the main keys to unlocking the Golden Sate attack. This was never more apparent than in his absence to start this season. Warriors coach Steve Kerr notably prefers a move-based offense that uses Curry in a heavy role off the ball, which needs capable facilitators to actually return the ball to Curry once he surrenders. .
It’s not just about the actual demise. Most of the passes that lead to a clean look for Curry are pretty routine. It’s the moment. The feeling and the anticipation, not just of what Curry is going to do, but of what the defense will do in reaction to him. Green’s feeling for all of this is on another level. He processes defenses, particularly when it comes to finding Curry, like a genius, so often one step ahead of a defense that he will lose the Curry battle in a nanosecond of relaxation, and makes decisions fast enough to take advantage these tiny moments of freedom for the most aggressive shooter in NBA history.
The work below perfectly illustrates Green’s improvised form:
Pay no attention to the fact that Curry didn’t make the shot. The point is the has the shot, and it was 100 percent due to Green. At this point, Curry was approaching a career high in points and Portland was throwing the kitchen sink at him defensively, making it harder to open. You have to be creative. Think how many times Draymond has made that same pass over a Curry double team and took advantage of a 4v3 downhill situation. It’s second nature for him to turn and attack the paint and look for shooters in the corners.
The thing is: the defense knows it too. Once Curry gets the ball so far from the rim, he’s supposed to be offside and there’s a moment of relaxation. That’s all it takes with someone as resourceful as Green, working independently of his standard reading and immediately flipping into a dribble, handover / ball display for Steph, who stepped up for an open stare.
That’s the kind of chemistry that had been lacking in Golden State’s first five games, when Curry, through The Ringer’s Kevin O’Connor, “touched the ball in the middle court 31 times every 36 minutes, a slower pace. than in any season since. Mark Jackson was still the head coach in 2013-14, according to NBA Advanced Stats.
“Even his brother, Seth Curry, averaged more midfield touches (33.2), as did 86 other players,” O’Connor continued. “That changed Sunday, when Curry set season highs in total touches (88), midfield touches (44) and time on ball (6.6 minutes).”
This changed, again, because Curry was more aggressive and Kerr has already seen the light he has to improve Curry’s activity without the same type of shooters and playmakers around him. But even when Curry does pick-and-roll, defenses will still do what the Blazers did upstairs and try to catch him off the play. Even when he’s attacking from the dribble, they’re going to send him two and even three defenders, because no one else in the Warriors scares you as a shooter or scorer.
The point is: the ball cannot be in your hands all the time, from the start of a possession to the end. The problem is not that Curry gives up the ball; is getting it back. With Green on board making plays like the one above, the Warriors are in a much better position to return the ball to Curry rather than having possessions die in the hands of inferior players while Curry is full of ball.
Green is no stranger to how Curry is defended, and he has a list of instinctive counterattacks accumulated over years of experience that no one else in the Warriors can take advantage of mentally, much less physically execute. And there is no better illustration of this sixth sense connection between Curry and Green than this impromptu dribbling handover that only seems routine due to quick thinking and the experience of the tandem executing it.
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