'... But man do I love watching him'
Boston Celtics head coach Brad Stevens had a front-row seat to the Stephen Curry show at TD Garden on Saturday night.
Despite Stevens obviously on being the opposite bench to the Golden State Warriors, he couldn’t help but marvel at the lights-out performance from Curry, who hit 11 of his 17 3-point attempts en route to a game-high 47 points.
“… The smallest part of me enjoys it. I just hate competing against him, but man do I love watching him,” Stevens said on a postgame video conference after the Celtics ultimately had the last laugh with a 119-114 win.
“He is as fun to watch as any player because of his creativity, his mastery of shooting, and you just never feel good when you’re an opponent. You always feel like you’re the next line of a fairy tale,” Stevens continued. “So, I don’t lose too much sleep over watching the ball go in over two people or seeing some of the magical shots. I lose sleep over giving up the layup, the back cut, the slip outs, the offensive rebounds and those type of things. But there’s only so much you can do. We doubled him several times and the only one it felt like he missed was the one from half court.”
Fortunately for Stevens and the Celtics, they too received a superstar performance and it came from Jayson Tatum.
Tatum finished with 44 points on 16-for-25 shooting and it helped the Celtics win their sixth straight win in thrilling fashion.