NBA FINALS: CELTICS VS. WARRIORS

June 4, 2022

Stephen Curry

Golden State Warriors

Practice Day

Q. When you see Draymond have a rough game or a game that he says wasn't up to his par, how much have you grown to come to expect him to bounce back from that?

STEPHEN CURRY: That is the expectation. There's no other way. No other scenario where I see playing out any different than him coming out with great energy, focus. Just making his impact felt on the court. I know he takes all that stuff personally in terms of his standard and what he knows he can do out there on the floor. So when he doesn't meet that, he's usually pretty honest and accountable to himself first and foremost, to the team, and then you go out and hoop.

We all go through that at some point. You don't win championships and be the team that we are if you don't have that in your DNA at some point. So we got to go out and prove it, Draymond included.

Q. Where have you made the biggest growth since your guys' last championship? And after a loss, do you even get to a point where you're down about it or you move on and you know there's so much left going on?

STEPHEN CURRY: I mean, if you're not down about it, if you're not in your feelings, that's a problem because then it doesn't matter. It has to -- you have to feel it.

How much it lingers, that's the test. How do you bounce back? You go home after the game. You're probably thinking about every play that happened, when you could have done differently. A defensive rotation, shot would have went in, a decision you made, whatever it is, those things kind of circle in your head and you probably lose a little bit of sleep that first night.

And then you come back the next day and realize you have an opportunity to protect your home court again on Sunday and just keep things moving. Get yourselves back into the series.

So the locker room after Game 1 was rough. We all know the opportunity we let slip in terms of that fourth quarter. But it doesn't kill your confidence that you can't come out Sunday and win that game, and that's what we're going to do.

So not much has changed from the last -- from 2018 or any of these Finals appearances, or me personally, how I've evolved. It's just continue to try to play at a high level, understand the game, understand the things that can happen in a playoff series and in the Finals and adjust accordingly as you go through it.

Q. After going through the video of the game, what are the things you saw and what's your reaction to what you saw and do you think you played with enough defensive force over the course of the game?

STEPHEN CURRY: There were spurts. Not over the whole course of the game. They are a great team. They have a lot of different weapons, a lot of threats. Guys had some amazing nights shooting the basketball. So you understand some of the mistakes we made, they took advantage of it. We could have made the same mistakes and they miss some shots and we're having a different conversation.

But the way it played out, I think early in the game, there were some defensive breakdowns and some lack of physicality that gave some of their guys some confidence, and then that carried over to the rest of the game.

In the fourth quarter, you could just feel the momentum just shifting dramatically and the avalanche started. We have to come out with a sense of desperation in the first quarter and really cement ourselves in terms of what we are trying to do. Play with the same joy, the same aggressiveness that we always do, but have to sustain it over 48. It's crazy saying that. That's what it should be like in the Finals with two great teams going at it.

Q. You guys have had that crazy streak, I think it's like 26 consecutive series with a road win. Boston is 8-2 on the road in these playoffs. Obviously you have to be really, really good to get to the Finals, but how does really, really good become really, really great on the road? What's the defining characteristic a team has to have to consistently win on the road at this level?

STEPHEN CURRY: The ability to win games a lot of different ways. Even if shots aren't falling, you can buckle down and get stops. If shots are falling, you capitalize on that momentum, kind of like Boston did in the fourth.

And there's really no panic. I think our experience, we've been down big on the road and come back. We've won some ugly games on the road, low-scoring games. We've won some shootouts. It's a lot of different scenarios that you find yourself in, and you have to be prepared and have the personnel and the resiliency to kind of be able to live in those moments.

There's just a lot of chemistry and toughness that shows up in the biggest of moments. So like you said, it's two great teams that have demonstrated the ability to go outside of their home and get wins. We're obviously going to have to do that one time to win this series. But obviously for us, it starts with protecting our home court on Sunday.

Q. What's been your message to Jordan with what it will take to bounce back in Game 2?

STEPHEN CURRY: Be yourself. I guess feel what you -- remember what it felt like in terms of your adrenaline and your emotions coming out in the game to try to get yourself asserted. Maybe slow down just a little bit to see the pictures a little bit better.

But he doesn't have to change anything about the way he plays or the way he attacks or where he feels the most confident in terms of making an impact on the game. You just have to be able to bottle up those emotions and the adrenaline because it is different. It's a different experience, knowing it's the Finals, and you go through that in your first experience. It's a little different.

So don't want to over-communicate to him on that front and clog his mind with anything other than going out and having fun and playing basketball.

Q. I know you're probably not on Twitter after Game 1, checking what people are saying, but I'm sure some of that noise still probably seeps through. I'm curious just how much of it does seep through and how much does that affect you guys at this point?

STEPHEN CURRY: I think as much as you want it to. However much attention you want to put on whether you're reading it here or whatever it is, it comes with the experience of knowing narratives change really quickly and everybody is trying to guess what's going to happen in this series and overreacting or properly reacting to everything.

Never really gets to me as much in terms of it changing anything other than expectations that I have for myself out there on the court, or again, the standard that I set for myself in terms of how I'm supposed to play.

At the end of the day, it's just about winning the basketball game. If we go out there and do that on Sunday, I'm sure whatever the noise is will be a little bit more favorable for us. But right now, we allowed Game 1 to get away from us, and we've got to respond.

Q. Do you use it as motivation?

STEPHEN CURRY: Yes and no. It's kind of a through-line of your entire career and every year you play in this league and every experience you go through. It's not just, "Oh, now we are in the Finals and I need some more motivation to get the job done," at all.

Q. Were you surprised that Gary wasn't in the Game 1 rotation? And when he is able to get back on the court, what does he bring to a series like this?

STEPHEN CURRY: He's just a defensive menace in terms of being able to guard a lot of different positions. He gets into the ball. He makes people uncomfortable. He can disrupt a lot of different actions and different situations out there. He even has a knack on the offensive end, just being in the right place at the right time, and gives us great energy.

The fact that he's available is big just because of what he's been through these last three, four weeks. I don't know if I was surprised or anything because I don't know too much about how he really feels and what the conversation is with Coach and the training staff and all that.

But the fact that he's available, I know he has to be ready because his number could be called at any moment. He has to go be the GP that we know him to be. He can affect this series that same way. Guarding Jaylen, guarding Jayson, guarding Marcus, guarding whoever he's asked to guard and giving us a huge boost of energy because that's what he does.

Q. You've seen every defense in the course of the Finals. What are the keys for a Warriors offense to beat teams that are switching? Over the years, what have you guys found success doing when you're trying to beat teams that are switching on you?

STEPHEN CURRY: You have to take care of the basketball, because the way we move bodies and move the ball, switching is designed to keep everything on the perimeter. Keep bodies in between man and the basket. Try to force you into tough shots.

But it also allows some confusion at times, if you run your sets hard. One, if you get stops and you can run in transition, because it's hard to match up and know where you're switching and all that type of stuff.

Like I said, we've seen it before with Houston series, even OKC a little bit back in the day. And they have the personnel to be able to do it, so it's their bread and butter. That's what worked for them to be the No. 1 defense in the league.

But there are ways to attack it. Like I said, we scored 108 points Game 1; that should be plenty to win a game. We have to get stops ourselves on the other end to allow our offense to do what it does.

Q. The other day you said that you felt that this group is resilient. This is the first time that this particular team has been down 0-1. What other moments in this postseason give you that confidence of the resilience, and what did you see in the team the last 48 hours or even this morning?

STEPHEN CURRY: I think look at how we responded from Game 5 to Game 6 in the Memphis series. Game 4 to 5 in the Dallas series. Even moments throughout the regular season where things are starting to get away from us a little bit at times and kind of have your come-to-Jesus moment, like we need to play right. How are we going to flip the script and get things back on the right track? We usually responded pretty well. It's a collective effort of a focus on the defensive end first and foremost, and just an understanding of how we all work together to create good shots from the offensive end.

You said it's the first time we've been down 0-1. It's the first time for a lot of things with this particular group. We are here in the Finals for a reason, because we figured it out along the way. If we're going to get back in this series, we've got to figure it out again.

Q. Was this a come-to-Jesus moment?

STEPHEN CURRY: Absolutely.