Mavs & Curry: A Tasty Mavs Dish For NBA Playoffs
The marriage of Seth Curry’s talents as a shooter with Rick Carlisle’s talent as a coach speak volumes about the old adage of “putting players in position to succeed.”
And Curry and Carlisle speak positive volumes about one another.
Said the Dallas Mavericks coach of Seth: “He’s a historically elite shooter in this league.”
Said Curry of Rick: “I think coach just puts me through a lot of positions to use my shooting ability to spread the floor, and also he gives me the ability to make plays with the ball in my hands.
“It’s a free-flowing system.”
The system is among the reasons Dallas is 40-27 and in seventh in the NBA West as the league re-boots in the Orlando Bubble. And the much-traveled Curry - in his second stint with the Mavs as he continues to work his way into a spotlight dominated by brother Steph Curry of the Warriors - is pivotal to Dallas’ hopes to make some playoff noise.
“It might be different here, but in the normal playoffs the environment is so electric,” said the 6-2 guard, who last season helped the Blazers to the Western Conference Finals. “Every game is very important, and ... the whole world is watching.”
Curry will generally come off the bench and bring those “historic” numbers to the floor when he does. He’s averaging 12.6 points in 24.5 minutes, with career-highs in both field goal accuracy (50 percent) and 3-point shooting (45.3 percent). He also brings enough experience to be heard when recently urging Carlisle’s staff to ramp up Bubble practices with more 3-on-3 and 5-on-5 work.
“Just getting that playoff experience last year was key for me,” he said. “It gave me a lot of confidence to play well throughout these playoffs and make a big run. ... I think all the young guys on this team are going to benefit from that playoff experience coming up.”
And Carlisle and Curry are going to benefit from each other.
“He just gives me a lot of opportunities and a lot of minutes,” Curry said of the coach. “He’s given me the most minutes of my career so far, and it allows me to get better as the season goes along. So it’s been a great fit for both of us.”
