Sixers' Matisse Thybulle Explains His Success Against Steph Curry

When the Philadelphia 76ers would host a superstar guard in previous years, they would rely heavily on Ben Simmons to guard them. As Simmons has established himself as one of the best perimeter defenders in the NBA, it was a no-brainer to give him the toughest matchup by guarding a guy like Golden State Warriors guard Steph Curry almost exclusively throughout a game.

But Simmons isn't playing with the Sixers right now. As he remains off the court due to personal reasons, the 76ers have missed their Defensive Player of the Year nominee throughout the year. Just because Simmons isn't around, though, doesn't mean the Sixers can't get the job done.

While they are one strong perimeter defender short, the Sixers still employ Matisse Thybulle, who has also established himself as one of the NBA's toughest defenders. Thybulle might not bring the same value on offense right now, but whenever he's tasked with a challenging defensive assignment, he's always up for the job.

Thybulle nearly matched minutes with Golden State star Steph Curry on Saturday night. As Sixers coach Doc Rivers needed his defensive star to try and slow Curry down, Thybulle found himself in the starting lineup over Danny Green. Thybulle typically averages 25 minutes on the floor, but he needed to play a 33-minute shift to complete his mission of stopping Curry on Saturday. 

"Playing hard," Thybulle said when asked about what helped stop Curry on Saturday. "But seriously, just having guys willing to let me take on that one-on-one matchup and play the rest of the team four-on-four. And be able to over-rotate and get into a lot of really tough rotational situations on defense. And put out a lot of fires to allow me to just stay to the body and not let Steph get anything easy."

Shots weren't coming easily to Curry on Saturday. Although he got up 20 attempts from the field, just six of his shots went in. And as Curry was hunting threes and going for Ray Allen's record while in Philly, the Warriors guard took 14 shots from three. Only a few of those attempts dropped as well. 

"There are like no secrets to guarding people like that," Thybulle explained. "It's just you got to play really hard. You got to be willing to get scored on, and he's gonna make some spectacular plays, and you have to be able to play through that, and just trying to be a consistent force and not let his success take you on a roller coaster."

While Thybulle found himself in a tough situation early as he picked up a few fouls in the first half, he remained disciplined for a majority of the matchup, which allowed him to nearly match minutes with Curry. While Curry mentioned after the game that he had some good looks and shots simply weren't falling, nothing can be taken away from Thybulle, who helped the Sixers hold the two-time MVP to just 18 points on Saturday night. 

Justin Grasso covers the Philadelphia 76ers for Sports Illustrated. You can follow him for live updates on Twitter: @JGrasso_.