"I'll start laughing to myself" - Stephen Curry on how unreal it feels when entire defenses are built just to stop him

Steph Curry has seen every defensive scheme known to man in his famed 16-year NBA career. A threat to launch and make a three-pointer the moment he hits the vicinity of the arena, defenses are wary of giving him a sliver of space, lest he makes another absurd, long-range bomb to the Golden State Warriors‘ frenzied attack.

This late into his career, one would think Curry has grown weary of battling defenses geared toward stopping him from doing what he does best. On the contrary, he admitted that he takes pride in making opposing teams adjust and, at times, even create defenses designed to slow him down.

Conventional defenses won’t cut it

Throughout the course of NBA history, the league’s all-time greats have proven that conventional defenses won’t work against them. Allow Shaquille O’Neal to set up on the block and post one defender up and as he succinctly always points out, “barbeque chicken!” Let Michael Jordan get into his spots and he’d slice through any defense like a hot knife through butter.

Though only 6’3″ and weighing under 200 pounds with his jersey wet, the same can be said for the Baby-Faced Assassin, who sometimes faces double- and triple-teams, even when he doesn’t have the ball in his hands.

“I get a kick out of during games, where you want to see just how outside the box people will go to defend you different types of ways,” Curry shared.

Although Steph is aware of where he stands in the NBA’s pecking order, there are moments when he’s in disbelief that other teams are selling out their entire defensive scheme solely to stop him from shooting.

“Almost using that as kind of like entertainment in the game, where I’ll start laughing to myself,” he continued.

The other Warriors benefit from this

Instead of complaining about the type of defensive focus he receives nightly, Steph not only embraces such efforts, he even invites them, knowing full well how having all the defensive attention unlocks his teammates’ games.

“I’m standing around halfcourt, and somebody is just face-guarding you, not really caring about anything else going on behind them. And the gravity then helps everybody else get open shots,” Steph remarked.

This was clear in the Warriors’ victory over the second-seeded Houston Rockets in last season’s playoffs. With Amen Thompson and Fred VanVleet taking turns hounding him, Curry still managed to average 24 points on 47.1 percent shooting. At the same time, his teammates Jimmy Butler, Brandin Podziemski and Buddy Hield also got in on the act, savoring the open looks they got from Curry’s mere presence on the floor.

“He creates space totally different from anyone else, in large part because he does it a lot without the ball,” Green opined. “The way he creates space off the ball, finds angles, gets himself open, never stops moving.”

While other superstars may get frustrated or try to force shots whenever defenses collapse on them, Steph relishes these situations, knowing that somewhere on the floor, a teammate is open and ready to knock down the shot when the ball comes his way. But make no mistake, when defenses back off even slightly, he will make them pay.

This story was originally reported by Basketball Network on Sep 24, 2025, where it first appeared in the Off The Court section. Add Basketball Network as a Preferred Source by clicking here.

“I’ll start laughing to myself” – Stephen Curry on how unreal it feels when entire defenses are built just to stop him

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