The Los Angeles Lakers beat the Golden State Warriors 118-108 at Chase Center on Saturday night. One of the keys to this win was the Lakers keeping Stephen Curry scoreless in the second half and postgame, LeBron James was asked how they managed to do it.
“Just hope that he miss. It’s Steph, man,” James said. “Just hope that he misses. Put bodies in front of him and you just hope he miss.”
Well, that is all you can do. Curry is capable of exploding regardless of how he is being defended but fortunately for the Lakers, he was ice-cold against them in the second half. The 36-year-old went 0-8 from the field after halftime and it was the first time in his career that he had taken that many shots in a half and failed to score a point.
Curry finished with just 13 points (4-17 FG), one rebound, nine assists, and two steals against the Lakers. It was one of his worst games of the season and LA does deserve a lot of credit for keeping him in check. While James didn’t shed much light on how the Lakers defended Curry, head coach JJ Redick did speak a bit on the subject postgame.
“Just staying in front, having a stick hand up, not allowing separation,” Redick stated. “We did a great job on and off the ball and I thought our guys again for the second straight game, just the game plan discipline and trusting the game plan and then going out and executing at an extremely high level was really good.”
Curry was also asked about that second half in his press conference and he explained what the Lakers did to bother him.
“I mean one, I just gotta play better,” Curry said. “Had a couple of good looks but they were trying to funnel us to crowd. Use their length, their size and it really bothered us. Any game where I play like that, it’s gonna be hard for us to win. At the end of the day, you got to make adjustments, find space, and knock down the shots that you’re supposed to. And I didn’t do that tonight.”
The Warriors clearly failed to make the right adjustments and that’s not ideal. You’d still expect Curry to find a way, but he just didn’t have it on this night. As the 10-time All-Star stated, the Warriors aren’t going to win too many games when he plays this poorly and they have now dropped to 22-23 on the season.
While the Warriors are in a downward spiral, the Lakers are very much trending upward. They have won five of their last six games to improve to 25-18 on the season.
James had a fine outing against the Warriors, finishing with 25 points (12-25 FG), five rebounds, 12 assists, and a steal. It wasn’t a vintage performance but he just didn’t need to don that Superman cape, as Anthony Davis dominated with 36 points (13-23 FG), 13 rebounds, three assists, three steals, and one block.
This was a great way to start the Grammy road trip for the Lakers and they’ll be confident of getting another win when they take on the Charlotte Hornets at Spectrum Center on Monday at 7 PM ET.
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