Stephen Curry still vividly remembers his championship experiences, but instead of looking at the three rings he has obtained in the past four years, he's quick to recall the one that got away. The 2016 NBA Finals, especially Game 7, is a memory that still haunts him to this very day.
Curry still recalls hunting for the Kevin Love matchup and rushing through the infamous possession late in the game, launching an ill-advised contested 3 that clanked off the rim, costing the Golden State Warriors the championship:
“I'm like, ‘I just need a little space' — and that's where I started to rush,” said Curry looking back on the experience, according to ESPN's Jackie MacMullan. “I look back and think I could have easily gone around [Love] and gotten a two, and we could have gotten a stop, and then I could come back down and hit another shot, and we win another championship, instead of me going for the hero shot, which I felt like I could make.
“That was a shot where I was not under control. And it cost us a championship.”
As the clip above shows, Curry was already past Love before he chose to go for a potential game-tying 3-pointer while off balance, instead of penetrating and finding a wide-open pull-up jumper with no one around to contest it.
Nearly every play can be approached better in hindsight, but Curry has taken that as a lesson learned, now a master at playing at his own pace and making the smart play, rather than the one for the storybooks.
The Cleveland Cavaliers would soon celebrate their first-ever NBA championship, while Curry exited Oracle Arena with his head down with only one thought in mind:
“Don't ever make the mistake of rushing like that again,” he said.
Curry and the Warriors are now trying to three-peat after that disappointing defeat.
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