Kevin Love talked about how he stopped Stephen Curry from hitting a game-tying 3-pointer in the final seconds of Game 7 of the 2016 NBA Finals.
The star of the Cleveland Cavaliers opened up about his impressive defensive effort, which is also known as ‘The Stop’.
“We had gone over that play, I can’t tell you how many times preparing, going over film, going over walk-through … pregame, anything that we were doing we were going over it. Hundreds of times we were going over that play.
I was sitting down, I wanted to force him into … in retrospect Steph said, ‘I could have gone past him and tried to get a layup,’ I say, ‘OK, maybe.’ I would have had a lot of help down there, Tristan Thompson would have come and helped me. I switched off, I kept my feet down and actually made him give up the ball.
As a defensive possession, it was actually poor. I kept my feet down, forced him into a tough shot, but Draymond [Green] got the ball kind of in the corner and lobbed him up over the top to him so he got it back.
I was sitting there, ‘God, I’ve got to do this again? And it’s the MVP, one of the best PGs of all time, what can I do just to force him into a tough shot?’ Thankfully I was able to contest, keep my feet down, he missed,” Love said during a 43-minute conversation on NBA Twitter, per Marla Ridenour of The Akron Beacon Journal.
