With the NBA playoffs set to begin on Saturday, many current and former players are talking about some of the experiences they’ve had during their careers. Of those players, Steph Curry could bring back the worst nightmares.
Curry and the Golden State Warriors are looking to win another championship after doing so a season ago.
Leading up to his championship last season with the Warriors, Curry faced some of the greatest players in NBA history. That included the 2015 NBA Finals, when the Golden State Warriors defeated the Cleveland Cavaliers in six games.
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Curry played like the superstar he is in that series, averaging 26.0 points and 6.3 assists per game. He did it by hitting 38.5% of his shots from 3-point range.
His matchup in that series turned out to be Matthew Dellavedova. Dellavedova is still around, but she’s a bit older now. When he was with the Cavaliers, he was one of the best role players in the NBA.
Former Cleveland Cavaliers guard JR Smith opened up about what Matthew Dellavedova went through during the series on a recent “The Old Man & the Three” podcast:
“Delly almost died protecting Steph Curry. No, literally, almost died. We have footage of this man in the ice tub, literally on his neck trying to protect this man.”
JJ Redick added:
“Randomly on my Twitter account the other day, a montage video of Dellavedova from the 2015 finals popped up. Damn, she tried.”
JR Smith then gave Dellavedova the highest praise, saying she’s one of the favorites he’s ever played with and how hard it is to protect Steph Curry:
“She tried. Seeing that, Dellavedova is by far one of my biggest people to like of all time. She literally gave everything she had, and there was no excuse. There was no, like, ‘Oh, I I had going’, like, ‘I’m trying.’ No, no, no, no, it wasn’t anything like that. I could barely talk afterwards. That’s how hard I was trying.”
The kind of respect for Steph Curry is universal. Having a player mark him will usually not end well, as Matthew Dellavedova found out.
Curry and the Warriors will be looking to win another championship this season, although it might look a little different than in the past. Due to injuries and a brutal record on the road, Golden State is the No. 6 seed. They will face the Sacramento Kings in the first round of the Western Conference playoffs.