Stephen Curry vs Chris Paul Update: Steph Becoming Spicier While CP3 Recovers From Hamstring Injury

Stephen Curry vs Chris Paul Update: Steph Becoming Spicier While CP3 Recovers From Hamstring Injury (Photo: Getty Images via RantSports)

The tide has certainly changed in the Stephen Curry vs Chris Paul battle going on this 2014 NBA Western Conference Round 1 Playoff Series between the Golden State Warriors and Los Angeles Clippers.

With the idea of getting the ball out of Curry’s hands, throughout the first three games of the series, the Clippers have trapped the 6’3″ point guard. In Games 1 through 3, Curry shot just 6, 7, and 8 three-pointers.

In Game 4, going small ball, Curry found himself freer to roam beyond the arc, and got off an astounding 14 three-pointers attempted, of which he made half. He’d only made 2, 1, and 3 from beyond the arc in the first three games.

As Monte Poole of CSN Bay Area writes:

Yet Jordan alone was not responsible for the Warriors having a tough time scoring. Paul is a very good defender, too, and he’s clearly taking personally his faceoff with Warriors point guard Stephen Curry. Paul is throwing Curry off his game.
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Curry finished with 16 points on 5-of-12 shooting. Through three games, he has scored 54 points, 20 of which came in the third quarter of the Game 2 blowout.
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“They’re a little more aggressive than in the regular season,” Curry said. “But our offense is not the issue right now. We’re getting great looks. We’re getting solid possessions. But the turnovers and the defensive lulls that we have, especially tonight in the third quarter, we don’t have an answer.”
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The Warriors are getting good looks. Open looks. But sometimes they’re made uncomfortable by Jordan’s presence and other times they simply can’t hit the shot.

Aside from the 2-on-1 trap specifically designed to get the ball out of Curry’s hands, Chris Paul had put the clamps on Curry in the first three games.

Lowell Cohn of the Santa Rosa Press Democrat:

Make him defend a bigger guy like the Clippers’ Matt Barnes and hope the refs allow Barnes to elbow and bang Curry into a pudding. Which they did Thursday night.
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When Curry has the ball, give him a dose of pure Chris Paul, the best point guard in the West. Watch Paul cut off Curry and smack at the ball and worry the poor guy to death. Do all this for 48 minutes and force the Warriors to win with other guys, if there are other guys willing to take the challenge. David Lee and Klay Thompson come to mind, and they tried. And Thompson was brilliant in the second half, simply brilliant. A hero.

As Game 4 loomed in the balance, ESPN.com’s Ethan Sherwood Strauss gave us some good metaphors when analyzing this tantalizing matchup:

You adjust to him, not the other way around. When defenders chase after him, he’ll delight in slowing down to bludgeon them with his backside, or draw contact for the foul. Knowing full well he has total control of the ball, Paul operates at his own pace, probing the defense until it falters.
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If he’s the quarterback of an offense, he’s Peyton Manning — obsessively studious in the impossible pursuit of perfection. The study leads to minimized risk, meaning fewer interceptions or, in Paul’s case, turnovers.
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Like Manning, Paul’s greatest strength — that tight control — might be his greatest weakness. Similar to how the Denver quarterback has been criticized for ignoring his running backs, the ball can stick in Paul’s hands at times. While Paul tends to end possessions with brilliant passes, he can phase teammates out during the search.
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The gunslinger’s approach is most pronounced in Curry’s passing, where he’s doing some of the most daring work around the league. Two examples stick out, both from a tightly contested regular-season game against Memphis. Notice here how Curry throws Harrison Barnes open with a pass that whizzes between four Grizzlies. From the media row angle, it was difficult to see why the pass was going that particular trajectory until Barnes rose up for the dunk. To make this play, you can’t be playing scared. There’s more evidence of Curry’s “no fear” approach later in the game, when with less than a minute to go and a three-point lead, Curry threw a no-look over-the-shoulder pass to Jermaine O’Neal.

But in Game 4, the Warriors’ small-ball strategy paid huge dividends. Curry was finally able to cash in.

Marcus Thompson of the Bay Area News Group:

Now, the best shooter in the game is playing the role of elite point guard, with no backup worthy of taking the ball out of his hands.
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“I have to figure out when the moment’s right to force the issue and when I need to settle everybody down,” Curry said. “It’s a fine balance. I’m still learning it as I go along, especially with the amount of attention the defense has thrown at me. I’ll get better at it and get more comfortable.”
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Game 4 was a mental tussle for Curry. He was convinced and determined to be dominant from the outset.
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He said he figured out a better way to run Paul off screens. The Warriors also got out in transition, holding the Clippers to 42.9 percent shooting and forcing 19 turnovers, making it much harder for the defense to set up to stop Curry.
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But a lot of the difference was Curry’s mindset, his refusal to be rendered a glorified role player.

Meanwhile, “CP3” is still nursing that hamstring. As Marc Spears of Yahoo Sports reported, it was a significant development before Game 3.

Paul’s “Game Score” (a stat created by John Hollinger) has steadily decreased over the past four games: from 18.8 to 14.6 to 13.5 to 12.4.

Meanwhile, Curry’s Game Score went from just 7.0 in Game 1 to 20.0 in Game 2 when he had that 20-point third quarter outburst, to down to 17.1 in Game 3, then a 28.5 in the victorious Game 4.

We won’t know Paul’s hamstring status for Game 5 until the pregame press conference with Doc Rivers at about 5:45PM PDT (tipoff is at 7:30PM).