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Avery Bradley: ‘I want to shut down everybody’ 03.02.13 at 1:27 am ET
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After torching the Knicks for 54 points on Wednesday night, Warriors guard Stephen Curry got off just two field goal attempts against Celtics defensive wunderkind Avery Bradley.

“He’s a very good player,” said Bradley. “I just tried to make everything hard on him tonight and tire him down.”

In the opening 10:18, Curry missed his only shot and turned the ball over twice. Meanwhile, the Celtics established a 26-15 lead and never trailed again in their 94-86 victory.

“I thought Avery set the tone for us early,” said Kevin Garnett. “Any time you’ve got a guy who’s coming off scoring a lot of points, our backcourt, our guards, they were ready for tonight’s challenge, and Avery set the tone.”

Curry scored 25 points on the night but finished just 6-of-22 from the floor.

“I thought Avery did a good job of wearing out Curry,” added Celtics captain Paul Pierce.

Yet, Bradley claimed his approach on Friday is no different than any other night. Just a different opponent.

“I want to shut down everybody every single night. If you notice, every game I play the same way. Every single game on the defensive end. That’s just my mindset. That’s how I play. That’s how I always play my whole life.”

Really? There’s not even a little part of Bradley that gets up for a guy like Curry coming off 54 points?

“I play the same every single game,” he said. “I play as hard as I can when I’m out there on both ends of the court.”

Bradley picked up his fourth and fifth personal fouls in the first four minutes of the third quarter. Thankfully, Courtney Lee picked up where his fellow “pitbull” left off, because Bradley thought he only had three fouls.

“You’ve got to just keep playing,” he said. “I got in some foul trouble, but I fought through it and just kept trying to make everything hard on him despite the calls. … I just tried to continue to be aggressive on the defensive end. I know that’s what my team needed me to do. If I fouled out the game, I was going to be fine with that, because I was just going to play as hard as I can. That’s my goal going into the game.”

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  • Baker

    I wish he was looking forward to catching an interception.

  • ChrisinDanvers

    Bradley has proven to be solid. His defensive pressure is spectacular and, when teamed with Lee, they really do slow down the competition.

    Two important notes. The referees are still learning about his play…which means he will only get better. While some of his fouls last night were legit, others were weak; not because the officiating was necessarily bad, but because Bradley is often able to stop players from going where they want to go. The officials haven’t totally caught up with his ability to do this and sometimes call him for a blocking foul.

    Second, Bradley is fast, but he plays within the confines of the defensive system, too, which makes him that much stronger. He can take the chance because his speed can get in back in position and he knows that he has teammates to back him up defensively if necessary.

    • Bruce

      Curry was getting the star treatment, don’t breath on him or get called and they didn’t call a foul on him until 35 minutes into the game.

  • Nbr1celticsfan

    Curry did a great “acting” job, that got some of those calls on Bradley. It was ridiculous some of the calls. Curry would throw his hands up in the air when he was going thru picks and such and the refs would call the foul when there was absolutely no contact. Some of his acting deserves an academy award, but only cause the refs fell for it. Watching the replay u could easily see there was nothing Bradley did to get he foul. Then on a 3 curry kicked his foot out, and should have been called for the offensive foul, cause u cannot do that anymore. Bradley didn’t get a foul called on him on that play, I’m just trying to state how obvious it was that curry could do NO wrong, and Bradley did everything wrong according to the refs. The refs were bad in general last night. Given the wrong team the ball when the ball got kicked by mistake. Calling KG on a travel call when he clearly had his left foot planted. Then on the next play curry walks and they don’t call it. I understand basketball cn b tough to call especially fouls, cause really there probably could b a foul on everyplay but I just ask u call it evenly if u r gonna call something on one end call it on the other too. That did not happen last night, and the greatest part is the Cs STILL got the WIN… Bravo guys, oh and hopefully soon Bradley will stop getting the shaft on these foul calls.

  • Js Spam

    we all know the refs are going to struggle with a player like AB because they are not used to that type of defense.. especially on star players..

    The most telling thing though was after the game, during Stephs interview he was talking about his expectation for the night and dealing with “Avery Bradley”. This tells me that the guards in this league know his name and they probably sigh when they know they have to deal with him for a night. He is already on the map.. lets hope he can stay healthy.. good job AB!

  • Yaz8

    When we play Miami in the playoffs it will be Bradley (and Green) who will lead us to victory.
    How is that for optimism?

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