Stop displaying content of subpaths for invalid URLs
This can be achieved through views contextual filter.

As per wesleymusgrove's asnwer on drupal.org support
"Under "WHEN THE FILTER VALUE IS NOT IN THE URL", tell it to "Display all results for the specified field".  This allowed me to still see the list of all articles at the views path: example.com/articles

And under "WHEN THE FILTER VALUE IS IN THE URL OR A DEFAULT IS PROVIDED" check "Specify validation criteria", Validator "Content", Content type "Blog post" or "Article" - whatever content type it is.  This allowed me to still see a valid post at example.com/articles/my-page, but invalid links like example.com/articles/mypage respond with 404