Portland head coach Terry Stotts was in no mood to discuss his team’s defense, or lack thereof, on Stephen Curry last night. This was revealed by his response to Anthony Slater’s question about said defense postgame.
Slater: “Houston had some success trapping Steph and really getting out on him. Is it sustainable to keep dropping the bigs so far off on him?”
Stotts: “I can’t remember when he had 33 in the second half were they trapping then?”
Slater: “Yes.”
Stotts: “They were? And he scored 33 in the second half?”
Slater: “Yeah.”
Stotts: “Okay. Yeah, we’ll look at that.”
The sarcasm from Stotts is interesting, considering Houston’s strategy was largely effective, holding Curry to 26 percent shooting from deep in the first five games. Curry went 9-of-15 in Game 1 vs. the Blazers, many of which were wide open. The Warriors targeted slow-footed Portland center Enes Kanter in the pick-and-roll, leading to numerous scenarios where Kanter was still in the key while Curry drilled easy looks.
Here are three examples:
Stotts was singing a different tune on Wednesday at Blazers shoot around. To the coach’s credit, he apologized to Slater, and admitted that the defense vs. Curry was lacking.
Asked today about reconsidering their approach on pick-and-roll coverage on Steph Curry, Terry Stotts asked, “Is Anthony Slater here? I was going to apologize to him.” https://t.co/XkghpW9BXW
— Tim MacMahon (@espn_macmahon) May 15, 2019
After cooling off and reviewing the film, this is Stotts’ take on Portland’s coverages of Curry pick-and-rolls: pic.twitter.com/NATvWOzxul
— Tim MacMahon (@espn_macmahon) May 15, 2019
Respect to Stotts for the mea culpa. Not something you often see.
