NBA Finals... News
Posted by Danny B

CLEVELAND – If Stephen Curry is tired of hearing about his recent shooting slump – and it's a safe bet that he is – no one could blame him.

But with Game 3 of the Finals coming Tuesday night in this revived city of Cleveland, the truth is that the Golden State Warriors' star should be flattered by all the inquiries. It wouldn't be a story if it weren't so rare, if he wasn't such a shooting showman that the sight of a few jumpers going astray was enough to confuse the basketball-loving world                                      

How could this happen? Why is this happening?

The investigation continued during his team's shoot-around at the Quicken Loans Arena.

The latest theory involves the night of May 25, when Curry took that frightening fall on his head in Houston and didn't look the same when he returned. Since his second-half re-appearance in that loss that was now 15 days ago, Curry has shot just 34.6% overall (26 of 75) and 26.3% from three-point range (10 of 38).

Those are shockingly-low numbers for a player like Curry, who has spent his recent seasons redefining the role of the three-pointer in today's game. He shot 48.7% overall and 44.3% from beyond the arc in the regular season, so it's more than fair to wonder what to make of the curious connection.

But Curry, who was surrounded – almost swallowed, really – by reporters and cameras like he has been so often of late, had zero interest in supporting this line of thinking.

"Uh, no. that had nothing to do with it," he said of the head contusion correlation. "I felt good … I feel fine. Just got to shoot better."

His coach, Steve Kerr, saw it the same.

"No, he's fine physically, and shots come and go," Kerr said when asked about the possible correlation. "As I said, we could have done a better job offensively of getting him some rhythm. Hopefully we can do that tonight, but it's all part of the process. Nobody would say a word (about Curry's slump) if it was the regular season. But it's not, so the focus is on that. He'll make them. He always does."

Then the recent struggles have to be credited to Curry Stopper/Cavaliers guard Matthew Dellavedova, right? The scrappy Australian who is filling in for the injured Kyrie Irving was quite a pest in defending Curry in Sunday's Game 2, when Curry not only missed 18 of his 23 shots but set a new Finals record for three-pointers missed in one game (he was 2 of 15).

As Curry's counterpart, LeBron James, can certainly tell you, there's an often-desperate need to explain the outlier performances when it come to the game's best players. These guys aren't allowed to just have a bad game or two, and they have their own greatness to blame for that sort of scrutiny. Curry has handled it just fine, patiently answering the many questions about his shooting while indulging – if not supporting – the many hypotheses coming his way.

The truth as he sees it, though, has much more to do with good, old-fashioned effort than anything else. And the shots, like always for him, will eventually fall.

"We watched some film, and I understand what we need to do better," he said. "It's nice to be able to see (what you need to do). You might think you're giving it your all on every possession, and making the extra play, but we can take our intensity to another level and that's what we're going to do tonight."

Look for Curry to be engaged from beginning to end this time, with an aggression in his game that has almost always worked wonders for these Warriors.

"Yes (he'll look to be aggressive), but that doesn't necessarily mean scoring," he said. "It's about just making plays. There have been games throughout the playoffs where I've gone eight or nine minutes to start a game without shooting, trying to get guys involved and find ways to attack. It doesn't necessarily mean I'm going to finish the possession with a shot, but I like to have an impact and getting us good shots on every possession."

And if he doesn't, of course, then the armchair explanations as to why will most certainly continue.