“Terrified of Steph (Curry)”: Steve Kerr Reveals Key Strategy as Details on Olympic Debutant’s Mental Battle Emerge

Team USA smoothly leaped past Serbia and ignited their run for Gold. The win was led by LeBron James and Kevin Durant, who is playing his first game back from a lingering injury. KD did not play a single exhibition game, still, the Slim Reaper led the Hoopers, dropping 23 points. However, his former teammate, Steph Curry, looked pretty slowed down, putting up 11 points and three triples, and wasn’t as present on the defense. Making his Olympics debut, the Chef got a wake-up call right in the middle of the game.

We’ve seen Steph Curry in trouble during the exhibition games. However, we’ve also seen him dominate during the same stretch. But against Serbia, it wasn’t quite his night. Now at a point, the Serbians were up 10-2 in the first. This included a Serbian scoring over Curry on a back-cut. Steve Kerr wasn’t happy at all, as he made it clear during the timeout.

Though Steph knocked down a high-arcing three right after the timeout, which started a run for Team USA. “Thankfully, I hit that shot coming out of the timeout, and then we were off to the races,” Steph said. But Kerr is also aware of the fact that Steph is the biggest threat on the floor. During the third quarter, Holiday tried to set up the Splash Brother for a three, which required him to help the latter with a back screen.

Both Serbians chased Curry, who again, wasn’t having a great night, leaving Jrue with a wide-open layup. “LeBron throws it to Jrue for a layup because they’re terrified of Steph. The beauty of Steph is he impacts the game whether he makes shots or not,” Kerr revealed via the San Francisco Chronicle. The fact that the Chef’s scoring consistency doesn’t directly impact his on-court effectiveness is what makes him different from other elite players.

Kevin Durant, LeBron James, and others may not have a great night and their defenders would notice it. But with Stephen Curry, the Warrior can knock down the wildest of shots and the smallest of the mistakes can cause havoc. From his recent performance, it is pretty clear that the Splash Brother is one of the biggest threats on the squad, but wasn’t as present on the defensive end.

Steph Curry needs to cope with “muscle memory” setbacks and be attentive down the floor

In these international games, teams mostly rely on some of the traditional plays. But this won’t require feeding the ball to the big man. Instead, the big man sets up multiple screens for the guards to either cut to the bucket or shoot a triple. Also, the court is quite smaller in size when compared to the NBA standards. Things are quick and sometimes tough to react to.

While Curry makes up for his defense up the court, he still needs to balance defending off-ball in this new Team USA setup.

Notably, just on the gameday’s eve, the Splash Brother was in the media talking about the adjustments that he needs to be making. “You talked about muscle memory and I know where I am in relation to the line on NBA courts and have a certain relation to that, a certain familiarity. It’s a little bit different. Or has been, I should say,” he told NBC.

Well, considering his legacy in the basketball world, no one is really in a position to question his intent. However, quoting the sharpshooter from a few days ago, “Execute the details, just playing solid, hard-nosed basketball,” this is all we, the fans, want to see.

It will be interesting to watch him play against South Sudan on Thursday, as Kevin Durant hopefully joins the starting lineup. What are your thoughts on Curry as a threat off the ball? Let us know in the comments.

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