Stephen Curry spices up showdown with James Harden
OAKLAND – The MVP cook-off didn't disappoint.
Chef Curry, otherwise known as recently named MVP Stephen Curry, finished with 34 points, six rebounds and five assists in the Golden State Warriors' 110-106 win over the Houston Rockets in Game 1 of the Western Conference finals. Chef Harden, aka MVP runner-up James Harden, had 28 points, 11 rebounds and nine assists as his Rockets pushed the Warriors all the way until the end.
"You've got two chefs going at it," Rockets big man Dwight Howard said afterward. "We'll see who can make the best dish."
What better way to settle this kind of score, especially when these two superstars somehow stumbled on the same nickname.
Yet while the headliners had quite the big-time back-and-forth – Curry hitting six three-pointers, Harden scoring 21 of his points as Houston surged in the second half – the irony of their faceoff is that they may be the only ones in the hoops world who aren't talking about their showdown. That's how it's been all season long, through the head-to-head matchups (the Warriors beat the Rockets all four times) and the MVP race that wasn't nearly as close as so many had anticipated (Curry received 100 first-place votes to Harden's 25).
Curry and Harden certainly have a friendly relationship, not only because of their NBA ties but through their shared time with the Team USA program in which they clearly clicked while winning the gold medal at the FIBA World Cup in Spain. But when asked if they'd ever acknowledged this elephant in the room, perhaps engaging in some good-natured banter about who was having the better season or shaking their respective heads at all the hype that they had caused, Curry said they had both stayed silent on the matter.
"No, (that conversation) hasn't happened yet and probably won't," Curry said. "When you get into a situation, obviously a playoff series but even during the regular season, those kind of matchups, there's no real time to kind of chat about the extracurriculars that are going on.
"Like I said, we're both trying to help our team win and do it our individual ways. It's a great competitive environment, and obviously we don't guard each other very much, but when you're out there you kind of get riled up with the back and forth that might happen, like tonight. Or just the will to want to win the game even more because you know how great of a player he is and what it takes to beat a team like Houston with a guy like James."
No one knows that more than the Warriors' Klay Thompson, who has the duty of keeping up with the Harden in this matchup. That was the tallest of tasks in the fourth quarter, when Harden had a stretch in which he scored 10 points in less than four minutes while hitting five of the Rockets' six field goals during that time. There were four stepback crossovers during that span, one in particular putting Thompson on his heels as Harden buried the shot and tied the score 97-97.
"He loves that one‑on‑one challenge," Curry said of Thompson. "The possessions where James was getting some tough shots to go in, we were fine with the way he defended him. James had hit a couple step‑back shots over him over an extended and contested hand, and you bet on the fact the more tough shots he has to take and the harder it is to get into those spots that you hopefully wear him down over the course of a game.
"He's a great player that's going to make great players. You're defending him well and you're making him work. You don't want to give him easy baskets. That's the one thing you can count on the whole series is Klay is going to step up to that challenge."
Said Howard of Harden: "He was unbelievable. He did all he could do."
The first course of this delightful basketball meal, however, went to Curry and his Warriors.
He scored eight straight points for the Warriors midway through the third quarter to put Golden State up 67-62 – a three-point play off of a floater, a pull-up jumper and a three to cap the one-man run. After the Rockets had tied it at 97-97 with 5:28 left in the fourth quarter, it was Curry's driving layup and subsequent three-pointer minutes later that helped push the lead to nine points.
"It's a lot more fun to watch Steph do that than James," Warriors coach Steve Kerr quipped afterwards.
Follow Sam Amick on Twitter @sam_amick.