One of the greatest moments in NBA history came on June 19, 2016, when Kyrie Irving hit a clutch three-point shot to take the lead and win against Steph Curry and the Warriors. It was a moment that created a massive domino effect within the NBA and one that both Curry and Kyrie still remember.
In an interview with Logan Murdock of The Ringer, both Curry and Irving revisited their iconic Game 7 NBA Finals moment one more time.
“I thought I was close enough that I could take away the pull-up, and then your whole goal is to just keep a body on him and [make him] drive into traffic,” Curry said to Murdock.
However, Curry made one fatal flaw and Kyrie Irving knew it. Curry didn’t know that Irving had a right stepback.
“One thing that he didn’t know was that I had a right stepback,” Irving said. “So when I dribbled and I hesi’d and I kind of got him off and I stepped right, he didn’t expect me to step right because he wasn’t close enough to my body to get a great contest.”
Curry believes he defended Irving as great as possible, and only gave Irving a couple of inches. However, Kyrie Irving is so good at basketball that he can turn inches into miles, and that was all he needed to win the game.
“There was one half step that, in retrospect, that little side step gave him enough of a distance,” Curry said. “Because a contest was there, but he was just over the top of it. I did everything, I thought. … It’s a game of inches.”
Steph Curry and Kyrie Irving have had some historic battles against each other. The nature of what makes a rivalry great is the fact that both sides have gotten wins against each other – something both Irving and Curry have accomplished.