Know your New Orleans Pelicans opponent: Stephen Curry

Apr 7, 2015; New Orleans, LA, USA; Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry (30) is defended by New Orleans Pelicans forward

(23) during the second quarter of a game at the Smoothie King Center. Mandatory Credit: Derick E. Hingle-USA TODAY Sports

Strengths: 

This one isn’t hard at all. Curry is one of the league’s most gifted offensive players and with his ridiculous shooting abilities he is able to score from just about everywhere on the floor. I mean, check out this shot chart:

There is an awful lot of green on that. The scary part is just how much better than league average Curry is at so many spots. It isn’t just one or two percentage points, but six, eight and twenty. Leaving Curry open for a second amounts to almost certain points.

The problem of course is that Curry doesn’t even really need to be open to crush a defense. This season Curry shot 50 percent from the field and 43.7 percent from three with a defender within two to four feet of him per NBA.com, numbers that weren’t too far off of his percentages from when he was open.

Making him dribble isn’t always best either as Curry shot 43.8 percent from the field on two dribbles, 46 percent from the field on 3-6 dribbles and 49.5 percent from the field on seven or more dribbles with three-point percentages of 40 or better on everything but two dribbles.

Curry is going to go nuts a time or two in this series and the Pelicans can’t do a thing about it, as he is just one of the best offensive players in the game today.

Next: That other end of the floor