The Utah Jazz aren’t the first team to employ a box-and-one against Stephen Curry — and they certainly won’t be the last.
Ever since the Toronto Raptors unleashed the so-called “junk” defense during Game 2 of the 2019 NBA Finals, Curry has seen a monumental uptick of teams assigning a sole defender to guard him wherever he goes, while the other four defenders zone up in a “box” — adhering to the principle of denying Curry from touching the ball and letting his teammates beat them.
It largely worked in 2019 because of the lineup configuration around Curry.