CLEVELAND (AP) – Stephen Curry’s only basket in the first 30 minutes came off a broken play. He found himself in foul trouble again. His jumper was nowhere to be found until it was essentially too late.
So much for that NBA Finals sweep.
So much for this looking like an easy repeat title for the Golden State Warriors, too.
The MVP’s struggles were of the epic variety, the best regular-season team in NBA history found a way to fall to 0-4 in Game 3’s during this postseason, and suddenly it’s a series again. Down by 20 at one point in the opening quarter, the Warriors never fully recovered and lost to the Cleveland Cavaliers 120-90 on Wednesday night.
Golden State still leads the series 2-1, and Game 4 is Friday in Cleveland.
Curry scored 19 points, the third straight time in this series that he’s been held under 20. It’s the first time he’s had three consecutive under-20 games since March 2015, and matches the second-longest “slump” – such as it is – that he’s endured in the last four years.
By the time Curry got going, the game was all-but decided. He had 13 points in the third quarter after managing just two in the first half. He was struggling so much at one point that Warriors coach Steve Kerr asked him “You all right?” when he arrived in the bench area during a stoppage in play.
Curry nodded quickly.
His play suggested otherwise.
Out of sorts on one second-quarter possession, Curry was making a cut off the baseline when he apparently never saw a pass that bounced off him and sailed out of bounds. In the third quarter, the game still somewhat in the balance and with the Warriors on a break that could have gotten them within 12, Curry chose not to lead Klay Thompson with a pass that would have set up a layup. Instead, he wound up leading Thompson toward the 3-point line.
Thompson got set and fired. Clank.
Neither sequence cost Golden State the game – an inability to guard Kyrie Irving and J.R. Smith was far bigger than any botched possession – but neither was also the sort of play one would expect from the first unanimously selected MVP, either. And that’s especially so on a night when the Warriors got to face a Cleveland team that scrambled to change its lineup because Kevin Love was sidelined by a concussion.
What the Cavs wound up deciding to do worked wonders: They went big at times, really big (playing Channing Frye and Timofey Mozgov together briefly) at others, and dictated play from the opening seconds.