Draymond Green said Kevin Durant got double-teamed seven times as much as Stephen Curry did in the 2017 and 2018 NBA Finals. Durant called that “100% false” in his view.
Kurt Helin’s assessment of the disagreement was correct: The former Warriors teammates talked out their differences last year. They probably aren’t feuding over something this trivial. Kurt added: “If you’d rather re-litigate who should get the most credit for a championship four years ago, have at it.”
I would rather.
A few broad points to start:
Curry is an all-time great.
He hasn’t played quite as well in the NBA Finals as other all-time greats.
His deep-playoff struggles have been overstated.
LeBron James deserved 2015 NBA Finals MVP. If a Warrior deserved it, it was Curry – not Andre Iguodala, who actually won the award. If Curry had won it, some of the silly discussion about his legacy would have been avoided.
Durant deserved Finals MVP for Golden State’s other two championships, 2017 and 2018.
To the specific point at hand: The Cavaliers double-teamed Curry far more frequently than Durant in those series.
Unfortunately, I don’t have the wherewithal to count double-teams in those Finals. I can’t rate the accuracy of Green’s exact number (seven times as often). But there’s enough anecdotal evidence, including my memories of the series, to say Green’s general point was right.
In 2017, Eric Apricot reviewed every basket Durant and Curry scored to determine how often each star created the look for the other. Apricot’s conclusion: