Tyronn Lue is already tired of seeing Stephen Curry in the postseason. The Clippers coach said Wednesday night’s play-in tournament rematch with the Golden State Warriors would hinge on one simple task: keep Curry from getting loose from 3-point range.
Los Angeles hosted Golden State on Wednesday with a spot at stake and a trip to face the Phoenix Suns for the Western Conference eighth seed on the line. The winner would keep its playoff hopes alive, and Lue sounded well aware of the force he was trying to contain. He joked that he is sick of Curry in the postseason, then warned that the guard can erupt for 50 points if opponents are not careful.
That concern was not theoretical. Curry scored 24 points in 29 minutes in Sunday’s 115-110 loss to the Clippers, a game the Clippers won without Kawhi Leonard. He attempted nine shots from beyond the arc and made four of them, the kind of volume Lue said his team cannot allow again. “He’s just a guy who can explode. He can score 50 if you’re not careful,” Lue said. “He only had 24 last game, but he had nine three-point attempts. We can’t let him get that many attempts up from the 3-point line. We gotta try to keep him down as much as possible.”
Sunday offered the Clippers a preview of the problem. Derrick Jones Jr. was Curry’s primary defender, but Golden State’s guard still found enough space to test the defense, and since returning from injury he has gone 15-for-36 from deep, a 41.6% clip. Steve Kerr first said Curry would remain under a minutes restriction on Wednesday before later indicating that he could play more than 30 minutes, a shift that only increased the pressure on Los Angeles to control his rhythm early.
The matchup also carried the usual postseason complication around Golden State’s switching game. The Clippers may have to sort through those switches on Brook Lopez, and the article’s defensive blueprint was plain: force turnovers, rotate on time and do not give Curry the kind of clean looks that can flip a game in a few possessions. If the Warriors get the right exchanges and the wrong defender in front of Curry, the night can change fast. That is the danger Lue was trying to name before the ball went up.
