Stephen Curry was 0-of-8 shooting when covered by Matthew Dellavedova in Game 2.
Was that about Dellavedova’s defense, or was Stephen Curry just having an off night?
TNT analyst Charles Barkley in the latter group. He was on SiriusXM Bleacher Report Radio channel today with Nicole Zaloumis and Ric Bucher.
“I don’t think he’s a dirty player. I think he’s a hard-working player. And I think people need to slow down giving him so much credit because Steph Curry will kill that kid in the overall scheme of things. He just didn’t make shots last night, and I think that everybody needs to slow their roll. Steph Curry just missed some shots...This notion that he stopped him is just ridiculous. You know, when you are a jump shooter you have good days [and] you have bad days. And Steph had a bad day last night but, listen, Dellavedova wasn’t the reason he was missing shots.”
I’d swear I just read Charles Barkley defending the jump shooting team, but that can’t be true.
Like most things in life, the reality is somewhere in the middle.
Dellavedova did a superb job sticking with Stephen Curry, denying the ball at times, being physical with him and never letting Curry get comfortable and in a rhythm. That said, Curry was 1-of-9 on uncontested looks in Game 2, and we know he is fully capable of draining contested looks. He’s done it all season against the opponent’s best defender.
At some point his shots will fall more often, but if the Cavaliers defense can keep the Warriors team from getting an offensive flow they have a good chance to take the series.
