It is just two games into their first-round playoff series, but the Golden State Warriors and Houston Rockets are already ingrained in a highly competitive and somewhat nasty affair. Both sides have shown their aggressive flair, unsurprising for a matchup featuring the likes of Draymond Green, Jimmy Butler and Dillon Brooks.
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The rosters involved make it easy to predict an intense affair. But the two teams also have an extensive, emotionally-charged recent history, which even led to an instance when Steph Curry’s wife, Ayesha Curry, faced the brunt of the rivalry. This is from the time when James Harden attempted to bring down the Warriors’ dynasty.
The Warriors-Rockets matchups often got chippy, sometimes even extending beyond the court. The Rockets’ best chance to win a title under Harden’s leadership came in 2018, when he and Chris Paul managed to lead Houston back to the Western Conference Finals.
A stacked Dubs team looking to repeat stood in their way. But this Rockets squad put more of a scare into the Warriors than arguably any other team during their run. Emotions ran rampant in that series, which notably lasted seven games after Houston managed to miss 27 straight threes in Game 6.
Ayesha Curry was eight months pregnant at the time, but still managed to make the trip to Texas to support her husband on his quest for his third championship. Following a game in Houston, when tensions were at their highest, an obnoxious Rockets fan bumped into Ayesha.
The fan attempted to intimidate and elicit an angry reaction from the expectant mother. “Doesn’t losing feel like getting punched in the gut?” the fan questioned after running into Ayesha.
She originally attempted to walk away from the situation, not looking to give the troll what he wanted. However, once the fan started claiming she was acting bitter and rude, Ayesha took exception to his comments, turned around, and calmly roasted the fan.
Considering Ayesha’s father-in-law and NBA legend, Dell Curry, was standing nearby, the fan was lucky he could walk away with only emotional scars. Steph was notably absent from the scene, which was captured on a video and seemed to show the spectator verbally attacking his wife without much pushback.
Ayesha later brought the incident to light, posting about the interaction on X, then called Twitter.
“The fact that you have the audacity to post this after this man bumped me in my 8-month pregnant belly … And continued to follow me and taunt me with his camera is beyond me … but ‘This is America’ right,” she commented under a now-deleted post.
As the wife of one of the NBA’s greatest players, Ayesha is no stranger to hearing inappropriate jabs. In 2022, Boston Celtics fans took their rivalry with the Warriors by taking a dig at the Currys opening a new restaurant.
Outside Cisco Breweries, they slammed her with digs such as ‘Ayesha Curry can’t cook’ and ‘Steph saying his wife can cook is like your mother telling you you are handsome’.
In response, Steph was fired up. In Game 4 of the Warriors’ series against the Celtics, he played a role in his team making it 2-2 with 43 points and 10 rebounds. He wore a shirt too, which read ‘Ayesha Curry can cook’!
With Ayesha being a strong, independent woman she is, and Steph being her biggest support, she knew exactly how to push back and hold her own.
