Steph Curry Comments on Celtics Post-Championship Struggles

Four-time NBA champion Stephen Curry knows all about the hardships of trying to repeat.

The 10-time All-Star has appeared in six NBA Finals, including five consecutive appearances from the 2014-15 season through 2018-19.

Golden State won it all in 2015, then fell in a seven-game Finals upset to the Cleveland Cavaliers the subsequent year while expending maximal energy to break the Chicago Bulls' all-time regular season record, 72-10, by going 73-9.

The Warriors responded by adding future Hall of Fame power forward Kevin Durant, then at the peak of his power. They quickly rebounded, winning two straight titles before injuries felled them in the 2019 Finals, and they lost in six games to Kawhi Leonard's Toronto Raptors.

Curry's Warriors next returned to the Finals against the Boston Celtics in 2022, winning in six games to a perhaps more talented Boston squad that struggled in part due to youth and inexperience. Golden State's title defense lasted until the second round in 2023, when the underdog Los Angeles Lakers beat the then-reigning champs in six games.

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So the two-time league MVP surely knows of what he speaks when he talks about how tough it is to defend a championship.

Curry's Warriors got massacred in short order by the Celtics on Monday, 125-85. The win improved the No. 2-seeded Celtics to 30-13 on the year, while dropping Golden State to 21-21.

Monday's game represented the kind of victory many expected Boston to submit regularly this season, after winning it all last year. Instead, the team has struggled of late. The Celtics have gone a middling 9-7 across the last month, and seem to have lost their bid to nab the Eastern Conference's top seed.

Curry was the only Warriors starter to even score in double figures, notching 18 points on 6-of-16 shooting from the floor (4-of-12 from long range) and 2-of-2 shooting from the foul line, four assists, three rebounds, and two steals in 27:26. Golden State was without key forwards Draymond Green, Jonathan Kuminga and Kyle Anderson, plus 2024 All-Rookie Team guard Brandin Podziemski.

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After the game, Curry reflected on how just how hard it is to repeat.

“It’s a marathon of a season,” Curry said. “You do have a championship kind of aura about you, and you can kind of carry that, but you’re getting everybody’s best shot every night.

“Teams spent all summer trying to figure out how to beat you because you’re the one that was holding up the trophy," Curry noted. "And now, you’re kind of held to a championship standard knowing that you’ve accomplished it.”

In 34 healthy games this year, the 36-year-old Curry is averaging 22.9 points on .448/.409/.939 shooting splits, 6.1 assists and 4.9 rebounds.

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