Many felt the Warriors underachieved last year despite winning 51 games. The complaints about Mark Jackson's system were merited, but his supporters raised a good question: How can a coach really be holding back a team that won 51 games in a brutal conference?
Golden State Warriors playoff preview: Can the league’s best team finish the job?
The Warriors were dominant during the regular season, but there’s still a healthy amount of skepticism of whether they can win the title. Perhaps there shouldn’t be.
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We now know the answer. A brand-new coaching staff took the same core Jackson had and turned it into one of the best regular-season teams this league has ever seen. The Warriors didn't just win a league-high 67 games. They won by blowing teams off the floor, nearly becoming the first team to finish No. 1 in both offensive and defensive efficiency since the 1996 Bulls. Klay Thompson and Draymond Green emerged as stars, Harrison Barnes was rescued, the veterans accepted and thrived in bench roles and Stephen Curry put together an MVP-caliber year tying everything together.
Golden State thus enters the postseason as one of the biggest title favorites in recent memory, even if some are slow to accept their dominance. The Warriors lost seven times all year with their normal starting lineup, and two were after they clinched the No. 1 seed. Good luck beating them four times out of seven.
How they beat you
Steve Kerr’s greatest accomplishment was turning Jackson’s isolation-heavy sets into some of the most beautiful basketball the league has seen. The Warriors zip the ball around at dizzying speeds and use an endless variety of baseline screens, high-post splits and dribble hand-offs to get their amazing shooters open. Even their basic pick- and-roll plays are set up by other motion or feature decoy action on the opposite side. The ball never stops.
They’re somehow even more dangerous in transition. Curry can pull up from anywhere on the court, so defenses chase him like mice trying to find the cheese in the middle of a maze. The Warriors take advantage of his shooting by having their big men dribble the ball up the floor, allowing Curry to run the wings. Teams already struggle to match up in transition, so forcing them to stop ball and stay attached to Steph is just rude.
Lest we forget, the Warriors are also the league’s second-best defensive team, with no weak links in the bunch. They have an endless supply of long wing players, each of whom possesses the intelligence to switch assignments on and off the ball. That makes it difficult for opponents to set screens to free their best player. What’s the point when this happens?
Did we mention that they have the league's best shooter and pick-and-roll player in Curry? If the Warriors are in a tight spot, they'll spread the floor, put Green at center and watch defenses weep if they are a centimeter out of position. Lineups with Green and Curry in and Bogut, David Lee, Marreese Speights and Festus Ezeil out are outscoring opponents by over 23 points per 100 possessions, per NBAWowy.com.
How you beat them
Nobody's been able to fully figure it out yet, though some teams (especially Western Conference foes that wear black uniforms) have come closer than others. One school of thought recommends sending hard traps at Curry for 48 minutes in an attempt to slowly wear him down. The Clippers are the main practitioners of this strategy and did it well in a Christmas Day victory in STAPLES Center. But Curry passes the ball out of traps better than anyone in the league and the Warriors have the kind of shooting, passing and spacing to move the ball quickly in the ensuing 4-on- 3 situations.
The other play is to largely single-cover Curry with an elite wing defender and play conservatively on everyone else. The Spurs have done that twice this year, while the Hawks got a victory in February by isolating Curry and Thompson from the rest of the team. The problem is that not everybody has Kawhi Leonard.
A mix of the two strategies is probably what’s necessary. Having a mobile big man that can step out on Curry ball screens is a must, as is a great wing player that can stay in Curry’s grill.
Most important player
Curry is the Warriors’ best player, but Green is the team’s backbone. Moving him into the starting lineup fundamentally changed the Warriors from a run-of-the-mill good team to a unique great one. It turned them from a club that played two traditional big men to one that played four shooters while still getting much better defensively.
There are several reasons why Green isn’t a typical Stretch 4, though. He’s fearless defending bigger players and willing to throw his body around. He makes immediate decisions, whether it’s a laser-quick three-point release or a quick pass after teams trap Curry. He makes the Warriors’ transition game more dangerous because he can grab a rebound and go, allowing Curry freedom to wiggle away from the defense off the ball.
All this makes Green a situational superstar. He may not be a maximum player on another team, but he is on this one.
Cool story, Glenn
Here is a list of people Draymond Green has feuded with this year:
And that’s during the regular season. Imagine what’ll happen in a prorated playoff series, where familiarity breeds contempt.
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