I have no idea if this true, but heard on the radio that Curry is the only player on a winning team to go for 25/5/5 in the Finals and not win the Finals MVP and he has done that 3 times.
EDIT: Kobe did it one time with Shaq. But that's it. 4 times in history and Curry has 3 of them.
Iggy absolutely robbed him. That was Curry's award IMO
My hazy memory of that Finals was that Curry didn’t play well. Looking at his stats, they looked pretty good. My next assumption is that he didn’t play well in the games they won, but that wasn’t true either. Was Iggy matched up on Lebron a lot and that’s what skewed it? Lebron only shot 39% from the floor for the series, so the defense on him obviously played a factor, but I would’ve assumed Draymond would’ve matched up with him a bunch
As the world's biggest Iggy fan... He was deservedly the MVP. He came as close to shutting down a Prime Lebron as anybody I've ever seen.
https://www.espn.com/blog/statsinfo/post/_/id/106613/iggy-makes-lebrons-shooting-iffy
Also:
Iguodala was the Warriors' best player by a large margin, averaging 16.3 points, 5.8 rebounds, 4.0 assists and 1.4 steals, all while defending the game's best player, LeBron James. James had a monstrous series, but finished shooting under [40] percent from the field and was held to a minus net-rating when on the floor -- largely thanks to Iguodala.
When Iguodala was in the game, LeBron James shot 38.1 percent from the field, scoring 26 points per 36 minutes with 2.9 turnovers. With Iguodala on the bench, James shot 44 percent, averaging 35 points per 36 minutes with 2.2 turnovers. With Iguodala as the primary defender, opponents shot 37.2 percent overall, and he gave up free throws the same percentage of time (10.8 percent) that he forced a turnover, via Synergy Sports. Those are steller defensive numbers.
Iguodala on Bench: 44% FG, 82% FT, 47% eFG, +30 +/-, 107.4 offrtg, 88.6 defrtg, +18.8 netrtg
Iguodala on Court: 38% FG, 66% FT, 41% eFG, -55 +/-, 94.1 offrtg, 109.7 defrtg, -15.5 netrtg
Iguodala on Bench: 91.2 offrtg, 100.2 defrtg, -8.9 netrtg, 83.8 pts per 48 min
Iguodala on Court: 108.8 offrtg, 91.6 defrtg, +17.2 netrtg, 101.9 pts per 48 min
I firmly believe that Iggy was the difference maker in that series. He stepped up his offensive game significantly, and he played the best defense on Lebron I'd seen to that point. Meanwhile, Curry's play took a large downward deviation from his regular season production and his overall playoff stats.
But he stepped up his offensive game because the Cavs left him wide open and dared him to shoot. Similar to Grant Williams in game 7 against Milwaukee. The Cavs strategy was to double Curry and always keep a man on Klay, which left Iggy, Barnes, and Draymond wide open all series long. Iggy hit his shots, but he only had them because Curry was drawing so much attention. Curry's GmSc was 17.9, BY FAR the best on the Warriors as Iggy was 13.6 and Dray was 12.1. Curry averaged 26 ppg, 5.2 rpg, and 6.8 apg with a TS% of 58.5 (Iggy's TS% was basically the same at 58.
. Curry was responsible for so many more points in that series for the Warriors. He was pretty clearly the Warriors best player.
And yes, Lebron didn't shoot well but he averaged 35.8 ppg, 13.8 rpg, and 8.8 apg when his teammates (after game 1) were JR Smith, Tristan Thompson, Timofey Mozgov, Matthew Dellavedova, Iman Shumpert, and James Jones. Think about that, the Cavs won 2 games with that lineup (they lost game 1 in OT, which is the game Irving played but got hurt in the OT). That is why I think Lebron should have been the MVP in the losing effort, but Curry was the clear choice if you give it to a Warrior. Their entire offense was based on Curry. Without him drawing doubles all series long, guys like Iggy don't score at all.
