Stephen Curry may have had the least effective game of his career on Thursday. Against the Memphis Grizzlies at FedExForum, the Golden State Warriors superstar finished with as many points as turnovers: two. Both of his points came at the free throw line. Curry, the greatest shooter in the world NBA history, missed all seven baskets he attempted, including six from behind the 3-point line.
“First time for everything, right?” Curry told reporters. “I never thought it would be a situation or the result of a match. From the first jump, they just punched us in the mouth. We didn’t have an answer. They did well shot the ball, we had the upper hand. The ball was going out of the basket on every possession. They were directing us to the places on the court where they wanted us rather than the other way around.
It was actually the seventh game of Curry’s career in which he failed to score a field goal, by Stathead. However, in each of the other six, he played 11 minutes or less. This time, Curry logged 24 minutes and the Grizzlies outscored Golden State by 41 points in those minutes. Memphis led by 22 at the end of the first quarter, by 31 at halftime and by 50 at the end of the third. The final score was 144-93 and the Warriors trailed by 57 points.
“If you don’t have an answer for how a team protects you, you have to figure something out on the fly, and we didn’t do that,” Curry said. He added: “It was quite embarrassing.”
In the 13 seasons and more than 700 regular-season games they played together, Curry and Draymond Green had never gone without a made basket in the same game until Thursday.
“Shit, this happened? Oh shit, this is crazy”, Green told reporters. “But it’s not because I I didn’t score a basket. ” Green laughed, then continued: “No, I’m just playing. No, they did a good job. Give them credit. »
MORE: Draymond Green makes embarrassing NBA history as Warriors suffer 51-point loss to Grizzlies
Memphis, whose defense is ranked No. 5 in the NBA, guarded Curry and didn’t allow his teammates anything easy in the paint. The Grizzlies “took us out of what we were trying to do,” Golden State coach Steve Kerr said. told reporters. Kerr called it “a humbling night for everyone.”
Overall, the beauty of Curry’s particular style of play means he can have a hugely positive impact on the game, even on bad shooting nights. No one in the history of sports has created more scoring opportunities for their teammates by moving away from the ball and making the defense react to the threat of their jumper. In this game, however, when Curry was on the court, the Warriors shot 11 for 45 (24.4%) from the field and scored 72.2 points per 100 possessions.
“If a team is going to (protect me), then we have to be able to – and I have to be able to – say, ‘OK, I might not be able to get a lot of FGA, but you I have to be able to create a nice appearance,” Curry said. “But we have to be able to stop things and then force them to guess whether it’s going to work or not. Tonight, everything worked, so we didn’t force them to adapt at all.”
Fifteen games into the season, Golden State was 12-3 and had the sixth-best offense in the NBA. That was only about a month ago. However, he has lost 9 of his last 11 matches and in this period he scored just 106 points per 100 possessions, which ranked 27th in the league. This slippage was part of the justification for the acquisition Dennis Schroder of the Brooklyn Nets. In theory, Schroder can punish teams hyper-focused on denying Curry the ball. On Thursday, however, Schroder finished with two points on 2-of-12 shooting and four turnovers in 22 minutes.
It was Schroder’s debut with the Warriors, and Kerr threw him right into the starting lineup. “Dennis looked like a guy on a new team,” Kerr said. “It’s always very difficult to be traded mid-season and play with a whole new group and have different terminology and all that.” Curry said Schroder, a pick-and-roll guard who usually likes to attack off the dribble, seemed unsure whether to go for his own shot or keep the ball moving.
“We’ll need Dennis to be very aggressive and not worry about Steph Curry being on the floor,” Green said. “And everything will be fine. It’s not Dennis’ fault, by the way. But I said in a press conference last week that we wanted him to come here and that we would adjust to (him ), not that he’s worried about trying to figure out this system We’ll figure it out, we’ll figure it out around him and then he’ll figure out the system and so we need it and (that was) game 1. . Everything will be fine.”
Golden State’s next game is Saturday against the Minnesota Timberwolves, who had won six of seven before a blowout loss to the New York Knicks on Thursday. “I expect an answer from us,” Green said. The Memphis mishap was “kind of a perfect storm of (the) new starting lineup, Dennis in there, the way Memphis defended us and the way they played overall,” Curry said. “We came across a circular saw. But we obviously know we’re better than that. I have to be better than that.”
The last time the Warriors suffered such a lopsided loss was in March against the Boston Celtics at TD Garden. Curry shot 2 of 13 that night and missed all nine of his 3-point attempts, and the Celtics rolled to a 140-88 victory. This time, the atmosphere around the team is different, according to Curry.
“I like the current atmosphere better than this one, that’s for sure,” he said.
Curry said there’s a “sense of urgency” to change the “momentum of the season,” but he believes Golden State has the answers. “We have to go to Minnesota and not let one bad shot or blowout affect your style, your confidence and your belief that you are a good team,” he said.
By the numbers, the Warriors have been just an average team this season. They are 14-12 and 10th in the West and, according to Cleaning The Glass, they are #14 in net rating, #22 in offense and #7 in defense in non-waste time minutes. “Nobody won a championship in December, so we’ll be fine,” Green said. Kerr acknowledged, however, that putting the puzzle together has been difficult, and the front office just gave his coaching staff a tricky new piece. If Golden State is better than its record, it needs to prove it.
“I’m going to do it, we’re going to keep saying it because I truly believe it: We’re better than we played, we’re better than what we showed tonight,” Curry said. “The vibes are a lot better. It’s nice to say that, but you have to be able to do something, and I feel like we can.”
