Stephen Curry may not be NBA Finals MVP, but he won't complain
CLEVELAND — Stephen Curry was never going to come out of the NBA Finals looking like the best player on the planet.
Not when he's sharing an arena with LeBron James, the Cleveland Cavaliers star who has been a one-man wrecking crew through five games and who deemed himself "the best player in the world" on Sunday night at Oracle Arena. And not with the roster makeup of his Golden State Warriors team that is one win away from winning it all.
All throughout his MVP campaign, Curry's place among NBA stars has been questioned because of the landscape that surrounds him. He pays a price on the perception front because of the Warriors' dominant depth, with players like Klay Thompson, Draymond Green, Harrison Barnes, Andre Iguodala and the rest of them providing the kind of support that so many other stars don't have.
We saw this in the MVP race, where James Harden was so widely celebrated for his ability to carry an injury-ravaged Houston Rockets team. And we're seeing it in some ways now, with James being lauded in large part because his amazing feats have come while fellow All-Stars Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love watch helplessly from the sideline.
But until the Warriors' Game 5 win on Sunday night at Oracle Arena, when his magical little man act was back in the form of a 37-point outburst, the criticism that surrounded Curry had nothing to do with context. It had everything to do with Matthew Dellavedova, the pesky Australian guard who had seemed to get under Curry's skin. It was about good, old-fashioned struggle, too, with Curry shooting just 41.3% through the first four games overall.
But this? This was the guy who Warriors fans have swooned over all season long.
The fact that he finally broke through doesn't bode well for the Cavaliers, who — with Game 6 coming on Tuesday in Cleveland — have surely noticed that the Warriors' crisis of confidence that had them looking so vulnerable early on has been replaced by their trademark swagger. Curry is their poster boy for that cause, the resident ankle breaker and highlight maker whose scintillating style is such a huge part of their identity.
So when he put on that fourth-quarter show in Game 5, scoring 17 points in the final period while his parents danced in their Oracle Arena seats and Dellavedova looked like an extra for "Disney on Ice," it was more than enough to make you wonder if the Cavs can come back from this.
"I called all those plays. Those were my genius inventions," Warriors coach Steve Kerr joked afterward. "No, that was just Steph taking over the game."
His 27-footer from the right wing with 2:44 left in regulation was nothing short of basketball ballet: Curry dribbling behind his back to the left while Dellavedova made his futile chase, then crossing over to the right and skipping back behind the line to fire away. The Warriors were up 10 at that point, and it was the first time all night the party atmosphere that was such a constant in their home building during the regular season returned.
"He hit him with the bop-bop, and guy leaves his feet, but he's also trying to slide on defense," Warriors forward Andre Iguodala would later recount. "He almost falls back, and Steph had that rhythm about him when he shot it, and you know it's going in as soon as it's leaving his hands."
It was, potentially, the play that sent the Warriors on their way.
"Signature moments only come for players who are holding the trophy at the end of the day," Curry said when asked if that was the signature moment he'd been seeking. "So I can sit here and talk about what a great play it was and what a turning moment it might have been, but we have to be able to back it up and finish the job."
At this point, there's simply no way that Curry can match James in this series when it comes to individual greatness. James, who is averaging 36.6 points, 12.4 rebounds and 8.8 assists in this series, is on track to become the first player in NBA history to average at least 35 points, 10 rebounds and five assists in the Finals.
But Curry's body of work in this postseason has been a sight to see. Among players who survived past the first round, he's second in scoring only to James (29.9 points per game vs. 28.5) while shooting 45.7% overall and 43% from three-point range. The all-around game has been there, too, as Curry is averaging 6.3 assists and 5.0 rebounds per game.
He has long since broken Reggie Miller's all-time mark for three-pointers made in a single postseason — Curry now has 95 in 20 games while Miller had 58 in 22 games. Yet as he told Paste BN Sports back on May 20, that wasn't the mark he was gunning for.
"You know what mark I want?" Curry said then. "Danny Green's."
Green, of course, is the San Antonio Spurs guard who set the Finals record for three-pointers two years ago when he hit 27 in seven games against the Miami Heat. But the point, from Curry's perspective, is that his thirst to win it all was growing by the day. Sure enough, Curry now finds himself just five threes away from Green's record entering Game 6
"He's one of the best shooters in the league," James said. "Coach (David Blatt) preach to us every night, have a high hand (because) he's going to make tough shots. Couple tough threes. But we've got to contest and we've got to be at halfcourt and make it physical for him and make it tough for him.
"I guess he exploded — quote unquote — but we've just got to do better."
Because Curry certainly is.
Follow Sam Amick on Twitter @sam_amick.