5 Reasons Stephen Curry Is Criminally Underrated
Heat Checks
This kind of goes hand in hand with our last point, but it’s worth noting that even when you think you’ve got Curry right where you want him, all it takes is one single lapse on the defensive end for everything to unravel.
Suns head coach Jeff Hornacek was fully cognizant of that fact heading into Monday night’s game.
“Just trying to sustain that and do it for 48 minutes and against a team like Golden State, you can’t have lapses,” he said. “If you have a three-minute stretch where you fall asleep, all of a sudden, Curry and Thompson make three or four three-pointers.”
But even with that frame of mind, the Suns were still powerless to stop Curry from burying them under his second half avalanche. To be fair, the Suns didn’t do a great job locking him down in the first half either, but how many times have we seen Curry turn a poor shooting night into an excellent one where he singlehandedly swings the tide of a game?
Take, for instance, his recent game against the Milwaukee Bucks. Curry missed eight of his first 10 shots in the game before knocking down three straight three-pointers in a span of 65 seconds to help push his team’s lead to 10 in the fourth quarter. The Dubs never looked back and it took a grand total of 65 seconds for him to change the outcome of the game.
Come playoff time, that ability has got to terrify the opposition, and it’s yet another reason Curry is so underrated: even on nights when he’s having a bad game, he’s fully capable of shaking it off on a moment’s notice and knocking down the most important shots of the night. How many other players in the league can boast that ability to become the game’s most important influence in such a limited amount of time?
Some people call that irrational confidence, some call it “good shooters keep shooting.” I think it’s just Curry’s ability to go from ice cold to supernova in an instant’s notice. Say what you want about Drake, but his decision to reference “Chef Curry” in his song “0 To 100” is looking smarter and smarter every day.
Next: Closing Argument