By Dylan Murphy

In Monday night’s game against the Denver Nuggets, Steph Curry faced several ball-screen traps that pushed Draymond Green into a familiar role: playmaker in space in a 4-on-3 situation.

This schematic choice by Denver largely fueled Green’s season-high 23 points to go along with his 10 assists. It was also symbolic of why a particular defensive philosophy has emerged when it comes to Curry, and specifically how teams have guarded his pick-and-rolls over the last few years.

When Curry first burst onto the scene as a prolific and accurate 3-point shooter, NBA defenses tilted their schemes to account for him. Aggressive closeouts and greater pressure on the pick-and-roll intended to drive him inside the 3-point line.

Curry, however, didn’t limit his developmental arc to only adapting his game to profit from the two-point area; he also used his ball-handling prowess to extend his range toward half-court and embarrass defenders with step-back 3-pointers.

In a pick-and-roll, this off-the-dribble 3-point shooting threat eventually struck fear into the hearts of every opponent. Conventional coverage too easily conceded space on ball-screens for these 3-point pull-ups, and switches gave him free rein to slice up bigs from deep, as well.

The only choice left was to trap Curry with two defenders and force the ball out of his hands. His range literally changed years of defensive geometry that called for contesting shots no higher than the 3-point line. Although this usually left Green, a great playmaker in his own right, with space to operate in the aforementioned 4-on-3, defenses gambled that the Warriors’ other players would be less efficient overall.

For a while, that plan worked, to an extent. Not in the sense that it stopped the Warriors, but that it produced more mathematically favorable outcomes than the outlandish 1.1 points per possession Curry recorded in 2014-2015 on off-the-dribble jumpers with historically high volume (via Synergy Sports). For every possession that produced points in these advantage situations, there were several other possessions that ended in no shot or misses by weaker shooters. In the NBA Finals that year, Cleveland had a lot of success with this strategy.

By the next season, when the Warriors went 73-9 and somehow managed to demolish opponents during the regular season with even more force, the Warriors had completely solved this final defensive riddle. Pick-and-rolls initiated by Curry generated 1.08 points per possession (via Synergy Sports), the best mark in the league among players with 100 such possessions. Having seen so many traps, the Warriors knew how to punish opponents by whipping the ball around for rim-rattling dunks or other wide-open shots.

While all the focus understandably shined on Curry, an undercurrent of off-the-dribble 3-point shooting began to spread. The likes of Kyle Lowry, Damian Lillard and Kyrie Irving followed suit on their own teams, taking and hitting these long bombs at impressive rates. And with the general downsizing of NBA lineups, the power forward position became perimeter-oriented and occupied by playmakers instead of physical brutes. More and more teams used their own Green replica to discourage opponents from trapping their own primary ball-handlers.

NBA defense has always been reactive to offensive trends, and the pick-and-roll is no exception. More off-the-dribble, pick-and-roll 3-point shooters meant defenses would either have to trap all the time or figure out an alternative. As Curry and the Warriors proved, the trap is not sustainable. Players at every position now are so skilled on the ball that its weaknesses are too easily exploitable.

Defenses, therefore, have gone back to what they were doing before: playing conventional pick-and-roll defense and sticking to the longstanding basketball theory that the rim is the most important thing to protect. This doesn’t mean that defenses are ignoring these off-the-dribble 3-point shots, but they are not selling out to stop them either. What’s left is a middle ground: play up near the 3-point line to contest a potential shot, but don’t create more cracks in the process.

Here’s an example from the Warriors’ game against the Boston Celtics earlier this year, when the Warriors were held to an uncharacteristically low 88 points. Look at how, at the point of the screen, Al Horford of the Celtics stays behind the 3-point line to guard both the roller, Green, and the ball-handler Curry, as opposed to the previously popular scheme of having Horford limit his focus to the deadly shooting ball-handler. The Celtics trust Curry’s man, Marcus Smart, to fight over the screen. He and Horford in combination hope to be enough to heavily contest a jumper. If not, oh well.

The Celtcis aren’t the only team treating Curry this way. Here are several different examples from this season of teams choosing to close down, but not completely eliminate, Curry’s pick-and-roll space.

The arc of defensive thinking in this regard has followed an interesting evolution. Defenses have largely conceded that their initial instinct to throw panic-minded traps at Curry was an overreaction. While he might be a great shooter, teams have decided that even he is not worth a complete fracturing of regular defensive principles.

This thought comes from a few places — the first of which touches on the mind of Curry and most primary ball-handlers. Although they might make shots, they are not inherently selfish and will not shoot the ball every time. The types of aggressive drops that Horford utilizes above can also help to take away enough 3-point looks to lessen their impact. Furthermore, energizing the entire team as the ball pings around the floor in post-trap ball movement is now considered far more detrimental. The idea is that it is better to allow selfishness to creep into the opposing offense, even if that means Curry knocking down a couple of shots. Finally, even if Curry does get off a few shots, they are not of great quality to begin with. A well-executed, traditional pick-and-roll coverage can drive up their difficulty to the point that they become inefficient anyway.

Of course, sometimes this strategy doesn’t work. Sometimes, Curry does what he did against the Memphis Grizzlies in his first game back from injury, essentially winning it by himself. But these changes to pick-and-roll coverage are meant to play the long game. Especially in a seven-game playoff series, the hope for teams is that this aggressive version of a more conservative approach pushes the odds in the defense’s favor.

In a lot of ways, Curry is now looking at defenses that he first faced before teams decided he was worth an all-out trap. But now that he’s an MVP-caliber player with all-time shooting ability, he must navigate this treacherous territory between what the defense gives him and what is for the benefit of the team. How he handles it will guide the success level of an important piece of the Warriors offense.

(Top photo: Andrew D. Bernstein/NBAE via Getty Images)