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That changed Sunday night in the Warriors' wild 106-105 win over the Toronto Raptors at Chase Center. Curry scored a season-low 11 points while shooting a career-worst 2-for-16 from the field. If you checked Twitter, you might have though Curry was playing like the JV version of himself. But that wasn't the case.
Shots simply weren't falling for Steph. Instead of forcing bad decisions, however, Curry grabbed nine rebounds, dished six assists and his teammates took advantage. Though he barely cracked double digits, Curry was the only starter to have a positive plus-minus at plus-seven.
Led by Andrew Wiggins' 17, seven Warriors scored in double figures in the win. Curry and Wiggins were joined by Eric Paschall (15), Damion Lee (13), Kelly Oubre Jr. (12), Draymond Green (10) and James Wiseman (10). Kent Bazemore was just behind with nine points.
Curry has been great this season. Even after his one off-night, Curry still is averaging 28.6 points per game, which is the second-highest of his career. With Klay Thompson out for the year, teams will pick up Curry the moment he crosses halfcourt. They'll double and triple-team him. They'll force other players to beat them.
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| Brooke Pryor |
| @bepryor |
Once 11-0, the Steelers will finish the season 1-5 as Ben Roethlisberger throws four interceptions for the first time in his postseason career. 1/10/21, 8:24 PM
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Saturday
1:35 L.A. Rams (11-6, NFC 6 seed) at Green Bay (13-3, NFC 1 seed), Lambeau Field. TV: FOX. Line: Packers by 6.5. The Rams’ hopes might lay in the middle of prospective Defensive Player of the Year Aaron Donald’s ribcage. He was limited to 30 snaps in Seattle because of the mid-game rib injury, and who knows how effective he’ll be Saturday in Wisconsin. “Never bet against A.D.,” Rams coach Sean McVay said. Donald had two sacks against the Packers in his most recent duel against Aaron Rodgers, in L.A. in 2018. It was 82 degrees that day. It’ll be 22 late Saturday afternoon at Lambeau.
5:15 p.m.: Baltimore (12-5, AFC 5 seed) at Buffalo (14-3, AFC 2 seed), Orchard Park, N.Y. TV: NBC. Line: Bills by 2.5. See below.
Sunday
12:05 p.m.: Cleveland (12-5, AFC 6 seed) at Kansas City (14-2, AFC 1 seed), Arrowhead Stadium. TV: CBS. Line: KC by 8. Cinderella time? Can the Browns keep the miracle alive? It’ll be tough to beat the rested Super Bowl champs, obviously. But I’m not a big fan of resting healthy players for three weeks before the playoffs, which is what Kansas City did with Patrick Mahomes. By game time, it will have been 20 days between games for Mahomes, and his last game was a 55-percent, 17-point shaky win over the 4-12 Falcons at home. Hard not to like the defending champs, but it’s also hard to love them unconditionally entering their Super Bowl playoff defense. Gambling Note of the Week: KC’s an eight-point favorite. The Chiefs have not won a game by eight points or more since Nov. 1.
3:40 p.m.: Tampa Bay (12-5, NFC 5 seed) at New Orleans (13-4, NFC 2 seed), Superdome. TV: FOX. Line: Saints by 4. All week, you’re sure to hear that the first two games this year—Saints, 34-23 and 38-3—don’t matter now. I don’t buy it for a second. The second game, when Brady threw three picks and looked very 43, is the worrisome one. It happened Nov. 8 in Tampa, and was the worst day by far this year for Brady, and gave people sincere doubts about Brady’s resurgence. He’s continued to show he can still play at a high level, but that Saints D was frightening Sunday in the beatdown of Chicago. Second plotline is the likely last meeting of the two most statistically prolific passers of all time, which Brees will be feeling this week. “The minute he signed with the Bucs and came to the division,” Brees said Sunday, “you felt like that was going to be a team to contend with, that was going to be a team that had playoff aspirations and beyond, just like us. So I guess this was inevitable.” Should be memorable, as the last game of the divisional weekend.
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| UPROXX Sports |
| @UPROXXSports |
uproxx.com/sport
| Nicole Auerbach 😷 |
| @NicoleAuerbac |
Lovely column from @bylindsayhjon
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MORE @ bardown.com/1.15
Deshaun Watson absolutely can force a trade, and here is how it could happen theathletic.com/
| Jason La Canfora |
| @JasonLaCanfor |
Had a few execs text me a siimilar trade concept regarding Texans should the situation with Watson go nuclear: Jimmy G plus several high picks for Watson. Caserio/Jimmy reunion. Gets Watson out of the AFC kinda like how Belichick wouldn't trade Jimmy within the AFC. 1/10/21, 8:58 AM
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| Among players who have come off the bench in at least 5 games this season, Eric Paschall is 8th in points per game (13.3ppg) while boasting the highest FG% (59.3%) and the fewest minutes (18.3mpg) among the top 10. pic.twitter.com/ | |||
| 1/10/21, 9:39 PM |
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| Warriors on NBCS |
| @NBCSWarriors |
Winning homestand ✅@MontePooleNBC
bit.ly/2LosEwp pic.twitter.com/
That changed Sunday night in the Warriors' wild 106-105 win over the Toronto Raptors at Chase Center. Curry scored a season-low 11 points while shooting a career-worst 2-for-16 from the field. If you checked Twitter, you might have though Curry was playing like the JV version of himself. But that wasn't the case.
Shots simply weren't falling for Steph. Instead of forcing bad decisions, however, Curry grabbed nine rebounds, dished six assists and his teammates took advantage. Though he barely cracked double digits, Curry was the only starter to have a positive plus-minus at plus-seven.
Led by Andrew Wiggins' 17, seven Warriors scored in double figures in the win. Curry and Wiggins were joined by Eric Paschall (15), Damion Lee (13), Kelly Oubre Jr. (12), Draymond Green (10) and James Wiseman (10). Kent Bazemore was just behind with nine points.
Curry has been great this season. Even after his one off-night, Curry still is averaging 28.6 points per game, which is the second-highest of his career. With Klay Thompson out for the year, teams will pick up Curry the moment he crosses halfcourt. They'll double and triple-team him. They'll force other players to beat them.
Even many Giants fans who didn’t care about Coonrod’s views will be happy to see him go. He had a 9.82 ERA in 18 games last season, and the last pitch he threw as a Giant resulted in something spectacularly strange and deflating: a walk-off home run by a visiting opponent. The Padres’ Trent Grisham tagged Coonrod in the seventh and final inning of the second game of a doubleheader at Oracle Park on Sept. 25 — a rescheduled game in which San Diego was designated the home team. It was the first of three consecutive losses to end the Giants’ season. A different result in any of them and the Giants would have snuck into the postseason as the No. 8 seed.
But set those spectacular failures aside, too. As Zaidi noted, you don’t punt on a player you like because of a handful of bad games.
“You’ve got to put the season in context,” Zaidi said. “He threw what, 15 innings? Even the best relievers in baseball have five-game, 10-inning stretches with a couple crooked numbers.”
Zaidi noted that Coonrod ranked in the 97th percentile for fastball velocity, calling him “a really big arm” and that he “certainly had games where he looked like a sure-fire closer.”
“He has end-of-game stuff, there’s no question about that,” Zaidi said. “It’s a project and the Phillies were attracted by the upside we saw last year.”
The Giants should have the patience to develop their own projects right now. They lack a reliever with closing experience and might not begin the season with a designated ninth-inning guy. You could argue that they should be grooming a pitcher like Coonrod for that role, not trading him.
But Coonrod was getting squeezed out by right-handed relievers who better fit what the front office values: dependable strike-throwers. They signed Matt Wisler and John Brebbia. They took Dedniel Nuñez in the Rule 5 draft. They added three more promising right-handed arms to the 40-man roster this offseason: Camilo Doval, Gregory Santos and Kervin Castro. They expect Reyes Moronta to be a healthy contributor in 2021, too. All Moronta did in his last full season was hold opponents to 4.71 hits per nine innings — an all-time franchise record (minimum 50 innings). And they still have Trevor Gott, another right-hander who struggled mightily in 2020 but has a partially guaranteed contract and a longer track record of big-league success.
It’s almost guaranteed that the Giants are going to need a 40-man roster vacancy in the near future, whether it’s to sign another starting pitcher or left-handed hitter capable of playing multiple positions. Rather than designate someone for assignment under duress, they proactively trimmed from their overloaded right-handed relief inventory and picked up a prospect in an area where they remain relatively shallow.
They acquired Carson Ragsdale, a 6-foot-8 right-hander whom the Phillies drafted in the fourth round this past June out of the University of South Florida. Ragsdale throws in the mid-90s with a curveball that Zaidi said “has the chance to be an elite swing-and-miss pitch for him.”
Ragsdale was a reliever at South Florida before missing his junior season while recovering from Tommy John surgery. He was moved to the rotation this past season and while he made only four starts, they were eye-openers. This part will not surprise you: he struck out 37 and walked just seven in 19 innings. His last start came against No.1-ranked Florida. He struck out 10 and walked one in four scoreless innings.
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