Warriors, Steve Kerr cry foul over Stephen Curry's one weakness
HOUSTON – It’s not “no harm, no foul” for Stephen Curry and the Golden State Warriors, but the other way around. No fouls, or few enough of them to avert the risk of getting booted from the game, and the two-time defending champions are able to use their figurehead star to his full potential.
Early foul trouble, however, the kind that Curry has regularly and routinely found himself magnetically drawn toward of late, and a rare weakness in the Warriors’ armor is thereby exposed.
“If his mom can’t get through to him, I’m definitely not going to get through to him,” Warriors head coach Steve Kerr said last week, as part of a hysterical exchange in which he revealed he’d appealed to Curry’s mother, Sonya, to try to curb his player’s propensity to foul.
It was a funny moment, but is a serious topic for Golden State. Despite being 2-0 up on the Houston Rockets, expect Kerr to continue to prioritize creative and innovative ways to limit Curry’s fouling as much as possible. In Game 1 he got five, with five more coming in Game 2. When he gets into foul trouble it affects the flexibility of Kerr’s formations and Curry’s late-game productivity.
He is one of the best players in basketball but his slight stature means he has never been particularly good defensively. Houston sees him guarding its scoring talisman James Harden as an ideal match-up.
Kerr and his brain trust have responded to that by “bumping” him off his regular coverage when possible, optimally having the defensive-minded Andre Iguodala monitoring Harden instead.
No one is quite sure why the fouls keep coming with such regularity, but they do.
“He’s the only superstar who gets five fouls,” Iguodala told The Athletic. “I don’t know, it’s mind-boggling. It’s like, yo that one, you didn’t need to get that one. Just let it go.”
The NBA, after reviewing Game 1, said that Curry should actually have fouled out with 1:10 remaining, after making contact with Harden. Houston’s displeasure was exacerbated when Curry hit a crucial three-pointer to effectively close things out with 24 seconds to go.
Sonya Curry’s advice is unknown, but Curry’s father Dell did comment on the matter.
“I talked to Steph (ahead of Game 2),” Dell Curry told NBC. “I said ‘son, this is going to be a very scrutinized, tight-called game. I think you need to leave your hands to yourself and make sure you are on the court’. But he wants to defend. He takes that challenge at the defensive end personally.”
It is a weird kind of thing. Yes he is small, but Curry has something that should make him at least a decent defender – quickness. However, that speed actually counts against him at times, because it is coupled with a chronic lack of patience.
Because he is so fast, when Curry rushes in, it inevitably leads to the sort of obvious contact that makes for an easy call for the officiating crew.
The Rockets make tactical moves to exacerbate Curry’s foul trouble, getting him into pick-and-roll situations wherever possible.
“I need to continue to focus on it,” Curry said recently. “But good call or bad call, I need to not put myself in bad positions.”
Refereeing was a major part of the discussion around the first two games, with several Game 1 incidents coming under heavy scrutiny. Game 2 was far more straightforward in terms of refereeing, and was just a ferocious scrap in which Curry dislocated a finger and Harden sustained bloody eyes in a collision with Draymond Green.
And while Curry got into foul trouble again, he was outstanding when he returned to the floor. Despite favoring his left hand due to the pain caused by the dislocation and the inconvenience of heavy taping, he scored 20 points and was a figure of energy and commitment throughout.
Could the pain and misfortune of the injury carry Curry out of his mini-slump?
Klay Thompson thinks so. “Difficult situations are nothing new for him,” Thompson said. “That’s when you see the best of him.”
Follow Martin Rogers on Twitter @RogersJourno