Iman Shumpert has gone up against some of the best scorers in NBA history, but he says nothing compared to the challenge of guarding Golden State’s Splash Brothers. The former Cavaliers guard revealed that defending Steph Curry and Klay Thompson felt like a survival mission, where losing track of them for even a second meant disaster.
“Whole game I’m elbowing, hand connected, hand on back. People thought we were punking ’em,” said Shumpert on the ‘All-In’ podcast. “No, it was a real strategy. You can find plays of Klay grabbing my face like get off me. I blew my other assignments because I’m NOT letting ’em get a shot off. But I’ve never felt that kind of like ‘I’m in danger if I can’t see him.’ The danger I felt if I lost them was like no one else.”
Iman Shumpert is a 10-year NBA veteran most known for his stint on the Cleveland Cavaliers. In the 2014-15 season, he joined LeBron James and Kyrie Irving as part of a new Eastern Conference superpower. While Shumpert played a minimal role on the Cavaliers, he got to experience their most successful stretch ever: from 2014 to 2018, during LeBron’s second stint with the franchise.
They made four straight Finals during this stretch and even won the franchise’s only championship in 2016. Throughout the entire run, the Golden State Warriors were the Cavs’ biggest obstacle and the only thing that held them back from total domination.
When Stephen Curry won his first title in 2015, it marked the start of a new era in the NBA, one defined by three-point shooting and a dynasty in San Francisco. Alongside Klay Thompson, the duo made a potent backcourt that was almost impossible to defend.
As the great shooting duo in NBA history, the Splash Bros inflicted an unparalleled degree of fear in their opponents. Leaving one of them open was always punished and had teams scrambling to find solutions.
What Curry does particularly well is off-ball movement. When his defender is caught up or distracted for a brief second, Steph is great at using the opportunity to get a clean look, and it’s how he keeps his opponents on their toes.
Between Steph, Klay, and later Kevin Durant, the Warriors had an extremely effective scoring trifecta. They beat the Cavaliers three times over four years and then won the championship again in 2022 over the Boston Celtics after Durant’s departure.
While many teams have tried to replicate the Warriors’ formula, nobody has been able to replicate the level of anxiety one would feel when leaving one of the Splash Bros. open. To this day, Shumpert remembers the horrors, and it just goes to show how powerful their shooting was.
Steph and Klay were more than a test of your defense; they tested your focus, your stamina, and even your sanity. For Shumpert, that challenge was unlike anything else he faced in a decade-long NBA career, and it’s a reminder of why the Splash Brothers’ dominance will always stand out in league history.
