Celtics: Silencing Stephen Curry no easy task
There’s an optimistic and pessimistic way of thinking about Stephen Curry’s 54-point performance at Madison Square Garden on Wednesday.
The glass half-empty Celtics fans will say that Curry is shooting better than ever and will probably torch the C’s on Friday, too. The glass half-full Boston backers know that Curry used up all of his points Wednesday night, and there’s no way he can do that again.
Doc Rivers is with the half-full crowd. Let him explain what was going through his head while watching Curry’s scoring outburst:
“Make them all. That’s what I thought; make them all. It’s like golf when a guy shoots a 61, which none of us can do, they don’t hopefully follow it up with another one. So I wanted him to just keep making all of them.”
Curry didn’t make them all – but he was close. He shot 18-for-28 from the field including 11-of-13 from 3-point territory in the Warriors’ 109-105 loss to the Knicks. But the Celtics would be foolish to focus all their attention on just one player in Curry. In fact, they’re probably focusing more attention on their own guys.
The C’s returned to Boston this week with three new faces and held their first real practice with them on Thursday. Guard Jordan Crawford was acquired at the trade deadline from the Wizards, and Boston signed two players from Chinese leagues to 10-day contracts – guard Terrence Williams and power forward D.J. White.How big those respective roles are on the team going forward remains to be seen, but captain Paul Pierce knows how important it is to get them adjusted to the team as fast as possible.
“They haven’t had much time right now (to get acclimated),” Pierce said. “Hopefully some practice time over the next few days will help implement them about what we do around here offensively and defensively. Right now they’ve been kind of learning on the fly. … It’s not easy asking new guys to come in the middle of the season and learn a whole new system with so few games left.”
Nothing has been easy for Boston this season, and it won’t change anytime soon. After Friday’s game, it’s a couple of days off before hitting the road again for back-to-back games against the Sixers and Pacers.
Follow Metro Boston Celtics beat writer Jimmy Toscano on Twitter @Jimmy_Toscano
