SAN FRANCISCO — The Indiana Pacers snapped a two game losing streak on Tuesday night as they managed to keep Steph Curry in check. They beat the Golden State Warriors 104-95 to keep from losing back-to-back games for the first time all season.
Edmond Sumner got the rare start and his immediate assignment was to guard the best shooter in the history of basketball. Well…he and his teammates successfully held the two-time MVP to a mere 20 points. Curry was 7 for 17 from the field and only made three shots from behind the arc.
Indiana caught him in a cool zone as he only managed 11 points in a win against Toronto on Sunday night. However, in the previous four games he’d scored 143 points including a career-high 62 a week before against Portland. NUTS!!!
The Pacers showed up with a box-and-1 defense to keep ole boy from going NUTS!!!
“People are going to throw everything at Steph,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said. “That’ll be a big theme this season and we’ve got to do a better job of attacking what people are throwing at us, and we’ll get better at it.”
It will be much easier to defend Curry this season because the Warriors can’t spread the floor as easily as they’ve been able to do over the previous season because Steph doesn’t have the other shooters in tow. Before he had duns like Klay Thompson and Kevin Durant which made it deadly to key on one guy like that. They shared the ball very well and they all could score at will. Now Steph is out there alone. Look for everybody to play him the same way from now on.
Sure, he’ll get buckets because he’s Steph “freakin'” Curry! However, it’s going to be much more difficult against the better defensive teams.
Myles Turner led Indiana with 22 points and 12 rebounds. Domantas Sabonis dropped off his usual double-double finishing with 18 points and 14 rebounds. Aaron Holiday came off of the bench with a strong 16 points and 12 assists. Malcolm Brogdon came through with 13 points and 8 assists as Edmond had 12 points.
Indiana did an excellent job of sharing the ball finishing with 26 assists.
Up next Portland on Thursday.
