Curry can play defense, too
Sharpened focus on other end reaping benefits
Before he added necessary bulk, before he cut down on reachins, before he stopped giving up a couple backdoor layups per game, Warriors guard Stephen Curry approached thenhead coach Mark Jackson with a request: let him defend his position.
It was fall 2013, and Curry was tired of hearing that he was a secondtier point guard. Perhaps he’d cement himself as one of the league’s best, he figured, if he could make life difficult on Chris Paul, Russell Westbrook and others. The only problem? Curry was illequipped for such a challenge, and Jackson knew it.
But even as he continued to hide Curry on spotup shooters away from the action while Klay Thompson guarded opposing point guards, Jackson appreciated that Curry had the gall to ask for one of the team’s trickiest defensive assignments. The mere request showed something that Jackson knew boded well for Curry’s future.
Now in his seventh season in head coach Steve Kerr’s switchheavy scheme, Curry,
32, is a big reason the Warriors boast the NBA’s fourthbest defense. Though he won’t be mistaken for a lockdown defender anytime soon, he handles his assignment well enough to be considered above average.
Players are shooting 43.5% from the field when Curry guards them, 1.2% worse than when Curry isn’t on them. Long prone to reachins, he has learned to be more patient, seldom attempting a steal unless his man makes an egregious mistake.
Still, Curry is a nearconstant nuisance for opponents. His 2.5 deflections per game rank 22nd among NBA guards. Perhaps most importantly, Curry has been effective without drawing whistles. His 1.9 fouls per game are on pace to be a career low — a major development given that, to be the driving force behind the Warriors’ offense, he must first stay on the floor.
Teammates attribute much of Curry’s improved defense to added muscle. During the extended offseason, he worked with the Warriors’ performance staff often on his core strength and conditioning. Little more than two weeks shy of his 33rd birthday, Curry is powering through screens, brushing off holds and grabs, and rarely getting fatigued.
With less than four minutes left in Wednesday’s win over the Pacers, Curry weaved past two screens from 6foot11, 240pound Domantas Sabonis to stick with Indiana guard Justin Holiday, deflect his pass and force a turnover. After the game, Kerr went out of his way to laud Curry’s effort on that end, saying, “I think Steph’s defense this year has been totally overlooked because everyone’s locked in on his scoring and shooting. His defense has been fantastic.”
This leaves opponents with no obvious player to attack in pickandroll situations.
Alongside Curry, the Warriors’ starting lineup features skilled perimeter defenders (Kelly Oubre Jr. and Andrew Wiggins), one of the league’s best allaround stoppers (Draymond Green) and a reliable positional defender (Kevon Looney). That group has posted a 93.1 defensive rating in 106 minutes together, which, nearly halfway through the season, is the NBA’s best mark among fiveman lineups that have played at least 100 minutes.
“Steph’s been fantastic,” Green said. “Due to his defense and the way he’s fighting on that side of the ball, there are no holes in our defense.”
Early in Curry’s career, the notion of him being a key part of the league’s top defensive unit would’ve seemed farfetched. Curry himself has admitted that he was awful on that side of the ball when he entered the NBA out of Davidson. In addition to lacking much of a grasp on positioning and angles, he simply didn’t approach defense with the same vigor that he took to offense.
But Curry soon realized that his defense was keeping him out of the discussion for the NBA’s premier point guards. A year after Jackson rejected his request to guard his position, Curry began to flash his defensive potential under Kerr, who stopped hiding Curry on spotup shooters in the corner.
Curry showed that he has quick enough hands and sound enough instincts to at least not be a liability on defense. Then, in 201516, he blossomed into a helpful defender. With his nagging ankle issues behind him, Curry led the league with 2.1 steals per game. His defensive win share of 4.1 — a stat that measures how many projected wins he added with his defense — led all point guards.
In the halfdecade since then, Curry’s defense has oscillated between average and above average. But given that defensive strides can be difficult to pinpoint, many clung to the old narrative that Curry was a bad defender. Just last spring, LeBron James’ business partner, Maverick Carter, made headlines for saying that Curry “can’t f—ing play defense” and “would have trouble guarding me.”
Curry dismissed Carter’s comments publicly, but those who know the twotime MVP well could sense that they irked him. Last summer, as he endured workouts designed to improve his explosiveness and lateral quickness, Curry envisioned being so dependable defensively that even his harshest critics couldn’t question his contributions on that side of the ball.
It remains to be seen whether Curry has completely dispelled the perception of him as a poor defender, but one thing is certain: The coaches and players who rely on his twoway abilities daily are ecstatic about what they’ve seen from him this season.
“He’s active as hell,” forward Eric Paschall said. “He’s all over the place. He’s standing his ground on drives and playing very well. I feel like he’s very underrated.”