Six games suggest there is, maybe, a way to slow down Steph Curry

Stopping Stephen Curry seems to be something only former players know how to do.

The Golden State Warriors' superstar has taken, and run with, the advantageous rules for perimeter scorers over the past decade-plus and is now holding the NBA hostage with his play. It feels like nothing can be done to slow him down. Oscar Robertson said defenses need to pick up guys like Curry farther out, but this doesn't matter to Curry. He can shoot under duress from any distance, and he can just as easily blow by you and turn you and your suddenly depleted backside defense into a Vine.

The only question on any contender's mind in the NBA right now is how you stop Curry from decimating your team. Granted, the Warriors are so much more than just Curry going nuts on a score sheet, but to slay the dragon you have to cut off its head. Aside from kidnapping the guy and not letting him show up at the game Celtic Pride style, slowing him down seems impossible.

But is it? Really?

Yes, this is all relative. You're not going to completely shut down Curry. He's too lethal. And on some level, you just have to hope he misses a few shots on a given night. But it does happen. Curry, in fact, has had eight games this season in which he has shot under 40 percent from the field.

One of those games was against the Denver Nuggets in which he only played 14 minutes due to injury. Another was a blowout victory over the Dallas Mavericks in which he only took 11 shots as the Warriors cruised to victory. That leaves six games of real evidence in which Curry was "slowed down" considerably from his historic pace.

Is there anything to glean from those six games? I went back and watched them all. Here's what I took from the defensive efforts.

RELEASE THE HOUNDS

First off, even in these poor shooting games by Curry, he's still playing spectacular basketball. The patience he shows within the offense and not needing to be involved on every possession is what sets the Warriors up for such incredible all-around success. Also, as a front office executive echoed to me, it helps when the best shooter in the world has the second best shooter in the world on his side. With that said, nobody has defended Curry this season as effectively Detroit Pistons guard Kentavious Caldwell-Pope.

For starters, he never lost track of Curry. That sounds obvious, staying attached to the best shooter in history, but not everyone does it. Not consistently. He made multiple efforts all night to crowd Curry's space both on the catch and off the dribble as much as anyone can. Then, he got a bit of luck and Curry missed some shots, perhaps because KCP had managed to shake his rhythm, if only slightly.

Here you can see KCP showing great balance in how he chases Steph with and without the ball:

The closeouts are aggressive, but he's still balanced enough to change directions right after Curry does the same. That's the key. Balance. It's easy to close out too hard because Curry's shot scares you to death. And maybe that is the answer. Run him off the line and force anyone else, even Klay Thompson, to beat you. We've seen almost two seasons of evidence that suggests that doesn't work, and Draymond Green and Klay Thompson turned into near-max player because of this strategy. But you can try.

If you're looking for another way, however, maybe balance is the answer. Close out hard and affect the shot as much as possible, but guard against the defense-breaking penetration. And get around those screens for heaven's sake. KCP did a great job of this in the first clip below.

He doesn't go under the screen because that's a death wish against Steph. But he doesn't let himself get caught up on the screen either. He's using his arms to hook around the screener and get leverage toward recovery. But the play is never over with Steph. As you can see as this clip plays out, he continues to move and look to pop open out of congestion, which he is able to do. These are the muliple efforts. You have to keep playing. Keep defending. And then, after all, that, as he does in this clip, you sometimes have to hope he misses.

Sticking with him around the screens is impressive but rushing him into an attempt after a fly-by that would normally be a composed side-step 3-point attempt shows KCP is in his head a bit. The second play shows beautiful effort resulting in a bad pass attempt out of a shot, but he recovers late on the pass-back and fouls Curry. The third play is great effort and execution by KCP, but Curry gets bailed out with a questionable blocking call.

Caldwell-Pope wasn't the only guy doing a job like this against Curry. We also saw Avery Bradley in December toward the end of the winning streak do a great job of hounding Curry. You also have to remember Klay Thompson wasn't playing in that game against the Boston Celtics, so it skews a bit of the strategy and execution available to an opponent.

Bradley gets the benefit of some help by Kelly Olynyk at an end-of-quarter situation on the first play, and then an errant pass by Draymond Green in the second play allowed him to recover for a good defensive possession. But you have to take advantage of the miscues by Golden State when they do have a sloppy moment.

Having that man dedicated to Curry and putting pressure on him is a tough strategy to enact. The Oklahoma City Thunder can try it with Andre Roberson and the San Antonio Spurs can try it with either Danny Green or Kawhi Leonard (maybe even Jonathan Simmons in small doses?), but it takes a lot of discipline from the other four guys to make it work, as well.

STAY ON HIS HIP AND HOPE FOR DISCOMFORT

Like an agile stalker, the next step in slowing down Steph Curry is staying uncomfortably close to him around the bevy of screens the Warriors love to set for him. Curry runs on an endless loop like those Hot Wheels remote control racetracks. Maybe you'll get lucky and he'll run so fast that he flies off the tracks, but mostly he's navigating screens perfectly while reading how the defense is playing him.

For Bradley in that Celtics game, he was nearly perfect in how he chased Curry around each pick and stayed on his hip. Bradley is the best in the league at doing this because of his quick feet, wingspan to help him make up ground on closeouts, and slender but strong frame that helps him fight through or around picks.

Considering how athletic Steph is side-to-side and how quick he is at changing directions, watching Bradley stay this connected is one of the more impressive defensive efforts we've seen from any player this season against anybody. It's to the point that the Warriors were often not even able to deliver the ball to Steph in a position where he could take even a decent shot. When Curry did catch the ball and wasn't firing right away, Bradley immediately positioned himself into taking away a path to a screen and leading him toward a help defender.

Yes, there is some clutching and grabbing by Bradley on the arms and around the waist during some of these plays, but if players can set illegal screens in the NBA (and it's not just the Warriors doing it) then guys off the ball should be allowed to get away with a little grabbing.

We saw KCP do something similar as well, never being distracted by the square dance Curry and Thompson would have in the key. Then you're forcing the ball out of his hands and hoping the rest of the defense can get the stop.

The problem with this is sometimes it doesn't matter. Sometimes, Curry just takes a shot anyway -- either with enough spacing to make it an uncontested shot for him or a contested shot that he hits anyway because he's Steph Curry.

These two possessions are pretty good-to-great defense by Bradley. The first one, he allowed himself to get separated just enough to allow Curry a comfortable shot for him, despite doing a good job chasing around screens. The second play, you can only tip your cap to Curry for hitting a ridiculously tough shot.

Does anybody in the West have an Avery Bradley type of perimeter defender to make this a consistent reality for the Warriors' opponents?

SWARM LIKE KILLER BEES

There is another, sort of risky strategy for Curry: swarm him and get the ball out of his hands.

The risky part of this is the Warriors and Curry actually like opponents doing this. They've admitted the best way to defend a lot of what they do is to switch constantly, which is the strategy they employ so well on defense. Not a ton of teams have the discipline or the personnel in order to do this for 30-40 minutes against Curry. Instead, you swarm and trap Curry to force the ball from his hands and hope you can recover.

When you do this, there's the danger of this being the result of your efforts:

Soft trap on a pick-and-pop to get the ball away from Curry and then you're just scrambling to recover as they move the ball in, out, and around your defense for the best look possible. You have to 1) be content with the idea of the rest of the team beating you, which they can and will absolutely do a lot of the times, and 2) be disciplined enough to make sure you don't lose track of Curry after he gets rid of the ball, which happens an inordinate amount of time.

It's acceptable to force Curry into taking a shot while you have multiple defenders moving toward him to contain, but you want to make sure those shots are highly contested or taking him out of his rhythm and the normal shots he'd like to take.

There are a few things you see in this video. The Pistons did a really good job of containing Curry, not letting him have room to get to the basket or 3-point line, and forcing a pull-up mid-range jumper off the bounce. It's still a shot he can get, but you're lowering the effectiveness of the potential damage. You also see Langston Galloway and Robin Lopez do a great job of containing Curry. Galloway funnels him into Lopez, who has a layup attempt covered. The New York Knicks are essentially begging Curry to throw the ball out to Marreese Speights for a 3-point shot.

Against the Thunder, Russell Westbrook did a pretty good job shadowing Curry off the ball and then funneling him into that middle zone to keep the potential damage lower than normal. At one point, it forces a kick-out from a shot to Leandro Barbosa in the corner, but the defense will take that over Curry getting in rhythm.

Again, the danger in the swarm and contain is Curry likes you to do this because it challenges your defensive resolve. The funny thing about the six games I watched in order to see why Curry shot so poorly is they won all six of these games. Sometimes, shots just didn't fall, like in the victories over the Utah Jazz and Los Angeles Clippers. Sometimes, the defense took Curry out of his comfort zone. But the Warriors always won.

There is one more idea though...

WHAT IF YOU LET HIM SCORE?

Much like defenses tried to do against Steve Nash in the playoffs during those Phoenix Suns days, it's fair to wonder if a viable strategy against Curry is just eating the 40 to 50 points he's going to put up in single coverage against you and try to take away his passing. In doing this, you probably switch everything, no matter what, and you stay on shooters like Klay Thompson, Harrison Barnes, and Draymond Green. That leaves Curry in single coverage and, in theory, takes away the ball movement Curry and the Warriors thrive off of.

That takes some pride and a gut-check, as well. Curry dropping 50 points is going to be demoralizing, and that's a tough pill to swallow. A tougher pill to swallow is playing into the hands of the Warriors' read-and-react offense. So maybe it's worth trying to force Steph to be a scorer and force the rest of the teammates to be bystanders for the performance? Then if he's forcing passes, he's doing it to a defense that is blanketing help shooters and safety valves. Then you're not getting the playmaking from Green and perhaps it stifles the offense a bit?

You're probably screwed no matter what, but teams are going to have to get creative and disciplined to make this work. Good luck out there.