BREAKING:How The Warriors Lost The 4-on-3 Battle Against The Nuggets

Let’s travel back in time to 2022, when Steph Curry’s legacy was cemented by the Golden State Warriors’ incredible championship run, to relive one of the dynasty’s pinnacles.

In the final minute of Game 3 of their first-round series with the Denver Nuggets, Curry, guarding a tenuous three-point lead, made the Ruthian call:

It’s the stuff of legends: whipping out the night-night before making a layup over Nikola Jokić to increase the margin to five and win the game. It just serves to highlight Curry’s skill as a player and his status among the greatest of all time who has a comparable aptitude for “psycho” conduct, as I and others have previously put it.

But I want to concentrate on how Curry was able to get the shot rather than just the whole atmosphere and story of the shot above. The bucket wasn’t the result of a difficult half-court set or one of the Warriors’ trademark motion-offense plays.

Curry was able to enter and lay it in because it was a straightforward “Angle” ballscreen with a spread floor. More crucially, Curry practically outran Jokić by forcing the switch on him, enticing him into the action.

We can’t overlook Draymond Green’s involvement in this whole thing. He successfully placed a strong screen on Aaron Gordon, who was covering Curry, forcing Jokić to shift his attention to Curry and stop his drive. Even while Jokić isn’t the weak defender as many have made him out to be, he still lacks the rim protection that Curry possesses and is slower than Curry.

The key term about the ability to manipulate a switch like this is “screen navigation.” Jokić tries to meet Curry up high in what is usually referred to as a screen-level step-up or a “soft” hedge.