Steph Curry curled off a powerful Eric Paschall down screen into the type of open space he’s so rarely seen early this season. Minnesota didn’t deploy a box-and-1. The Timberwolves didn’t trap. They didn’t even switch the screen, as Naz Reid sagged back even while Ricky Rubio failed to navigate around Paschall.
But it wasn’t just the initial mix-up that left Curry so open, it was the inability or unwillingness to even scatter into an attempted correction. Curry caught it, kind of peered around and even decided to take a rhythm dribble, waiting two full seconds — almost looking uncomfortable with a defense apparently so willing to give him an acre of room — before finally dropping in a practice 3.
“Nah,” Curry said when asked if he could remember being that open in a half-court set. “I’m sure they’d like to have that one back.”
The Timberwolves, without Karl-Anthony Towns…
