Stephen Curry, LeBron James and the 'too small' action that unlocks Team USA's offense (2024)

PARIS – LeBron James and Stephen Curry run a play they call “too small.”

It’s an action where Curry, Team USA’s shortest player at 6-foot-2, sets a screen for James, one of the greatest drivers to the rim of all time because of his 6-8, 260-pound frame and stunning athleticism. Often in this play with Curry, the defender who switches onto James is “too small” to stop him.

This is an enormously successful play for Team USA this summer, as Curry explained Monday.

“I’m a good screener and can cause some confusion for a guy like (LeBron) having the ball,” Curry said, before the Americans’ practice in preparation for an Olympic quarterfinal against Brazil Tuesday. “We do it a little bit in Golden State where you have somebody else having the ball and me setting it, and I have a lot of different actions you can run, but if you get (LeBron) going downhill, good luck to anybody trying to stop him and having me come off into space.

“Just try to make teams make decisions and the more decisions you can make a defense make the better chance you have to create confusion,” Curry continued.

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In eight games this summer, James is leading the USA at 14.6 points per game, but is also tops with an astounding .627 shooting percentage. At 39, James is getting to the rim and otherwise into the lane with relentless precision, as only seven of his 47 field goals have been 3s.

James hasn’t scored every bucket off of the “too small” play, but it is certainly a factor in the ease and consistency with which James is getting to the rim and scoring. Players closer to his own size haven’t been great guarding him, and mismatches have been devastating.

For Curry’s part, the screens for James and the secondary action of Curry popping out onto the perimeter after setting the screen is a prime example of Curry’s impact on Team USA’s offense while he isn’t really scoring at the rate people would expect him to. Nor is he shooting particularly well.

Through five exhibition contests and three Olympic games, Curry is averaging 10.5 points but is shooting .391 from the field. His 19 3s lead the team, but his .339 percentage from deep does not. Curry has had one game this summer, a friendly against Serbia on July 17, where he got loose for 24 points and six 3s. He’s shot 8-of-25 so far at the Olympics.

Curry said the goal for not only him, but the rest of the Team USA All-Stars on offense, is simply to be ready for the “moment” when their turn arrives.

“The whole challenge for our team is everybody to remain locked in on when your opportunity comes, whether it’s a flurry of shots and a short segment of the game or whether you don’t touch it or get a shot off for a whole quarter, you still got to be ready for your next opportunity because you don’t know where it’s coming from,” Curry said. “For me, I want to shoot the ball better obviously, but you just still have to be a threat to space. … I know at a certain point somebody’s got to get hot in a close game, and whoever that is, you got to be ready for your moment. So whether that’s me, whether it’s whoever, that’s the challenge of this team, to be ready because every other team has a pretty much defined pecking order of scoring.”

The U.S. plays Brazil in an Olympic quarterfinal at 3:30 p.m. ET Tuesday. The Brazilians won just once in pool play, but they have seven players with NBA experience and will look to put pressure on the Americans’ perceived weakness of offensive rebounds.

As Curry pointed out, the U.S. has enjoyed a balanced scoring attack on offense at the Olympics, with a different player each game (and none of them were James) leading the team in scoring. Kevin Durant came off the bench for 23 points against Serbia; Bam Adebayo led with 18 points against South Sudan; Anthony Edwards was the high man against Puerto Rico with 26 points.

The James-Curry action was still an integral part of all three of those games (James is also leading the team with 5.1 assists), and it’s led to some wide-open 3s Curry has attempted on passes from James. A few have gone in, more have not.

As the stakes get higher and the quality of play improves, allegedly, in the knockout stages of the Olympic tournament, one way to look at it is the American offense heads into those games rolling, averaging about 106 points per game while one of the great offensive players ever (Curry) is struggling to shoot. That “Curry game” is still out there.

“Yeah, but I’m not sitting here with bated breath thinking, ‘Oh my God, this has to happen,’” USA coach Steve Kerr said. “We know what wins a FIBA game — it’s defense. We are just completely focused on our defense and part of defense is finishing the play with rebounds.

“The beauty of our team and the depth of our talent is that from one game to the next, we’ve got lots of guys who have the ability to get rolling (on offense),” Kerr said.

Kerr said Curry has held up well defensively for the most part, but in answering a question about Curry’s defense, he mentioned the minutes Derrick White has taken off the bench. White is averaging 18.3 minutes at the Olympics, and Kerr said of him: “Part of the formula is to use our depth, and one of the reasons Derrick White is playing the minutes he is, he’s a great on-ball defender and (at) point-of-attack defense. That’s where it all starts.”

Kerr said Brazil would “try to maul us on the glass — they’re going to send a bunch of guys just to try to steamroll us in there and get offensive rebounds and kick out 3s, that sort of thing.”

With the overall focus on defense, and preparations for Brazil’s perceived plan of attack, there are actually two scenarios for Curry. There is the one he laid out, about being “ready for the moment” when clutch baskets are needed, and he gets hot with his number called.

Or, if his shots aren’t falling and the situation calls for heightened attention on defense, Kerr could go away from him for longer stretches, especially if Durant, or Edwards, or James is rolling on offense.

It’s unfathomable to imagine choosing another player in crunch time over Curry, but it’s both a luxury and a challenge of coaching USA Basketball. Coaches have the privilege of choosing among an embarrassment of riches, but must have the courage to choose wisely.

Of course, if “too small” is working for the U.S. on offense, it makes Kerr’s decision to stay with his man Curry or go away from him an easier one.

“It’s something we thought of immediately when we put the team together because Steph is like the modern-day John Stockton,” Kerr said. “He’s the best screening point guard in the league in my mind. He’s so physical, he’s so strong. People don’t really think of him for that, but teams are terrified of leaving him. So if he can set a screen and hold it, it’s going to free somebody up. And then obviously LeBron is LeBron, so it’s a good action for him.”

And a great action for the U.S. at large, which looks for points on talent while pledging itself to a full defensive effort with three games left to win in this Olympic tournament for a fifth-consecutive gold.

(Top photo of Stephen Curry and LeBron James during Team USA’s game against Serbia: Jesse D. Garrabrant / NBAE via Getty Images)

Joe Vardon is a senior NBA writer for The Athletic, based in Cleveland. Follow Joe on Twitter @joevardon