Lu Dort defends Steph Curry for first time in Thunder loss to Warriors

Oklahoma City Thunder wing Lu Dort got the first test against Steph Curry in his young career on Thursday.

It wasn’t the custom defensive performance from Dort. After picking up three fouls in the first quarter, he entered the second quarter at the 3:59 mark. He committed his fourth foul exactly a minute later and was subbed out.

As a result of foul trouble, lingering injury issues and the Thunder falling behind by so much so early in the fourth quarter, Dort only saw 22 minutes of play in the 118-97 loss.

“He battled through to play tonight, which I credit him for,” said head coach Mark Daigneault.

It’s surprising that Dort hasn’t matched up with Curry, but it’s true. All three games the Thunder played against the Warriors last season were before Thanksgiving. Dort debuted Dec. 6. And even if those matchups had been spread out, Curry was injured for almost the entire season due to a broken hand suffered four games into the season.

This season, Dort missed the matchup on April 14, a game in which the Warriors won 147-109.

He has put up impressive performances again some dominant offensive players, most notably James Harden in the playoffs last season, but Curry was a new test for him.

“You develop a feel for really good players. that’s one of the things I learned from (Andre) Roberson, he had a great feel for individual matchups,” Daigneault said. “Lu’s gaining that with all these players, but tonight was his first crack at Curry, and that’s obviously a really different preparation from any other player in the league.”

Curry finished with 34 points, 17 of which came in the third quarter.

Dort has minimal time to prepare for the next matchup against Curry. The Thunder face the Warriors again on Saturday.

Jerome, Maledon stand out

If there was one specific bright spot in this game for the Thunder, it was Ty Jerome, who had 16 points at halftime on 6-for-9 shooting. Take away his numbers, and the Thunder shot just 12-for-35 (34%) from the field in the first half. "Last matchup I didn't think I did a great job of it, I didn't think I did a great job of controlling the game," Jerome said. "This time I wanted to make a point of that for sure." Fellow guard Theo Maledon also finished with a solid stat line, scoring 15 points and dishing eight assists. Daigneault said both guards played with poise and handled pressure that the Warriors threw in their direction. "Something that we saw too from our previous game against the (Sacramento) Kings -- we were not doing a good enough job of ball security," Maledon said. "It's something we put a lot of focus on (this game)." Darius Bazley scored 22 points, his seventh time reaching the 20-point mark in his last 15 games since returning from a shoulder injury.

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