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Matthew Dellavedova played a huge role in Sunday’s Game 2 victory causing Stephen Curry some serious headaches on the defensive end forcing Curry to shoot 5 of 23 from the field in one of his worst shooting nights of his career.
How much of that horrid shooting night is due to Dellavedova’s tenacious defense?
Dellavedova has received a bad wrap for his “dirty play” which caused an altercation between Al Horford and Dellavedova.
Steph Curry however does not think Dellavedova had anything to do with it.
A very vocal former NBA player agrees with Stephen Curry.
Charles Barkley joined Sirius XM’s Bleacher Report Radio’s Nicole Zaloumis and Ric Bucher Monday:
“I don’t think he’s a dirty player. I think he’s a hard-working player. And I think people need to slow down giving him so much credit because Steph Curry will kill that kid in the overall scheme of things. He just didn’t make shots last night, and I think that everybody needs to slow their roll. Steph Curry just missed some shots…This notion that he stopped him is just ridiculous. You know, when you are a jump shooter you have good days [and] you have bad days. And Steph had a bad day last night but, listen, Dellavedova wasn’t the reason he was missing shots.”
Dellavedova was a key player to the victory, but I do agree with Barkley. Curry shot at such a high level all post-season he was due for an off night at some point.
Dellavedova still deserves more credit than he is getting though. He’s fought through screens and stayed in pursuit of Curry which is no easy task and kept Curry from getting into his comfort zone Sunday.
Curry will bounce back in Game 3, but to what capacity? Both players have something to prove here and they’ll make sure to bring it Tuesday night in Cleveland.
