Stephen Curry is famous for leaving his defenders in the dust with his constant movement on the court. Most NBA players can’t even keep up with him in practice, let alone on the biggest stage of all at the NBA Finals.
Former NBA champion Matthew Dellavedova sat down with Richard Jefferson, his ex-teammate from the Cavaliers, for an interview on ‘The Richard Show’ where they spoke about several things leading up to their recent 10-year reunion.
While discussing their experience in the 2015 NBA Finals, Dellavedova revealed that he had to spend a night in the hospital after guarding Stephen Curry in Game 3.
“I mean, obviously it’s like an impossible task chasing Steph around. He never gets tired. Bogut and Draymond and David Lee are trying to kill me on screens. Bogut is my assistant coach now in Sydney.”
“I just remember coming to timeouts, and Mike Miller and James Jones are just like grabbing me by the shoulder, saying, ‘You got to get every loose ball.’ And my head was wobbling around,” Dellavedova recalled.
“Just found a way to get it done. It was a big win. And the crowd, as you know, is just going nuts. So, you’re just feeding off your teammates, the crowd.”
“So I get in the locker room, they do the talk, but I start cramping. Steve and UK take me back there. They like cut my tights. They’re trying to rub ice. My quads are cramping. My hamstrings are cramping. So you can’t stretch one or the other. I’m just in a world of hurt.”
“Then they like carry me and put me in the ice bath up to like here, and I’m just sitting there and slowly the cramps kind of go away. And then we only had one day between the games.”
“And so I think Steve and the doctor were like, ‘Yeah, your best shot at getting ready for the next game is going to the hospital and just getting an IV overnight,” Dellavedova admitted. Richardson reconfirmed whether Dellavedova spent a night in the hospital, and he said that he did.
“And then the next day I go to, you know, the little media shoot around stuff, and I’m like, all right. Like nothing happened. Yeah. I’m all good,” Dellavedova concluded.
Even though Andre Iguodala won the Finals MVP in 2015, many argued that Stephen Curry also deserved that award for how well he played in that series.
He ended the 2015 NBA Finals run averaging 26.0 points, 6.3 assists, and 5.2 rebounds while shooting 44.3% from the field and 38.5% from behind the three-point line.
Meanwhile, Dellavedova averaged 7.5 points, 2.7 rebounds, and 2.7 assists while shooting 28.3% from the field as the backup point guard behind Kyrie Irving that year.
Over a decade later, Dellavedova still remembers the experience Curry gives his defenders. The 38-year-old is nearing the end of his career but is still playing like an All-NBA-caliber player.
When Curry finally calls it a day, several generations of basketball players will talk about not just three-point shooting but also his quickness and stamina on the court like folklore.
