HOUSTON — With his right thumb wrapped in ice postgame — as it often has been during the second half of the season — Steph Curry shrugged off questions about how the Rockets are swiping down on his shooting hand on jump shots.
“You don’t think about it, and if it’s a foul, they should call it,” Curry said.
On at least two of Curry’s nine 3-point attempts in the Warriors’ 131-116 Game 5 loss to Houston, Rockets defenders appeared to smack his shooting hand as or after he released the ball. One play was whistled for a foul, but others were not. Neither Curry nor the Warriors are accusing the Rockets of acting maliciously. But they’ve recognized a pattern.
“Yeah, I’ve noticed it,” Draymond Green said. “I think it’s pretty obvious. But it is what it is.”
Curry sprained his thumb in late December and re-aggravated it in mid-March. The 37-year-old has also dealt with a pelvic contusion and, earlier in the season, bilateral knee tendinitis.
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Curry said his thumb isn’t affecting him. Shortly after he initially injured it last winter, he went 8-for-8 from the 3-point line. This series, he dropped 31 points in Game 1 and 36 in Game 3.
One of the reasons Curry’s thumb is back in the spotlight is because a popular Warriors fan social media account zoomed in on a photo of him from Wednesday, which showed swelling.
“You got the feds on me?” Curry said with a laugh. “I love this league so much.”
Here are three examples of Houston’s closeouts. These were all deemed legal, though each bordered on the edge of the rule book.
High-fiving a shooter after he releases the ball is legal. But Warriors head coach Steve Kerr isn’t a fan of the rule and its enforcement.
In fact, Kerr called the rule “the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard,” and said all 30 coaches in the league would agree that it’s “idiotic.” He predicted that the competition committee will fix it this summer.
“The rule in the NBA is once the shot has been released, you’re allowed to hit the guy’s arm,” Kerr said. “So what’s happened in the league this year is players are always going to outsmart the rules, they know what they’re doing, so players all over the league are just taking shots at guys’ shooting hands after the release.
“Because they know it’s not going to be a foul. I’m very confident that next year the league will fix it, because it’s only a matter of time before somebody breaks a thumb or breaks a hand, whatever. But these are the rules. I do believe they’re allowed to call a flagrant if they want, if a guy winds up and takes a shot.”
No play this series would fit that description — winding up to take a swipe at Curry’s hand. The Rockets are merely taking advantage of what Kerr deems a faulty law, just as other teams do.
“Eventually we’ll get it fixed,” Kerr said. “But right now, this is how the league works: whatever the rules are, the players are all really, really smart. You can’t blame them at all for doing whatever it takes to win the game. It’s the highest level of competition on earth, so it is what it is.”
That the particular play was such a talking point postgame traces back to Warriors TV broadcaster Bob Fitzgerald accusing Brooks of committing the act.
When Ime Udoka was asked to respond, the Rockets coach said, “I wouldn’t.”
But Brooks himself didn’t exactly shy away from an inquiry.
“No, I’ve been playing the game,” Brooks said. “Shoot, if you’re going to come play the game injured or whatever you’ve got, it’s all about the game — if I had an injured ankle, I would attack that ankle every single time. So whatever they’re saying on the broadcast, they can keep saying it.”
Curry finished Game 5 with 13 points in 23 minutes, shooting 4-for-12 from the field as the Warriors got blown out. He asked the training staff for his ankle braces back and slid them on as the Warriors’ bench cut a 29-point deficit to 13 in the fourth quarter, but Kerr kept his starters on the bench as Houston held on.
With his thumb wrapped in ice, Curry wasn’t hot-headed — about the officials or the defeat.
“It’s hard for a ref, I get it,” Curry said. “You’re trying to look at the body, look at the release, where contact is. There’s a subtle difference in how certain people do it. When I say it’s a foul, it’s a foul.
“But other than that, as a player you can’t worry about it too much because whether you get the call or not, if you dwell on it and get distracted by it, then you’re not worried about making shots. I’m trying to do both: make shots and, if I get fouled, I let them know I got fouled.”