Making the change
“He [Dell] told a story about a game-winning shot that he had in Madison Square Garden,” Steph said. The way he described the play, he’s like somebody double-teamed the post and kicked it out to him on the strong side corner, and I’m like, ‘That hasn’t happened in like 12 years in the NBA’… So it wasn’t just about the game-winning shot but how it happened.”
“Not everybody is fanning out to the three-point line, and rather you try to shoot a shot in the paint for the game-winner instead. So the game has changed drastically; obviously, I’ve had a lot to do with that,” he continued.
Embracing the new style
“I mean, the physicality is always the one thing that everybody talks about—all the hard fouls they had back in the day,” said the four-time league MVP. It was just real, and the league adapted appropriately, but just the overall spacing. When you watch games back in the day in the 90s, at all times it looked like there was at least nine people inside the 3-point line, usually five to six people inside the paint. Just different X’s and O’s and floor spacing play calls that they did.
