What Makes the Warriors So Tough to Guard
The Warriors took a 3-2 lead over the Boston Celtics last night, putting themselves in the driver’s seat for the NBA Finals and forcing an elimination game in Boston on Thursday. Game 6 is not somewhere you want to be against the Warriors: Between the infamous Klay Thompson supernova that feels inevitable at this point in every series, and seeing that Steph got his one bad shooting night out of his system, the Celtics look like they’re going to be in a lot of trouble.
Most detractors of Golden State said in the beginning that Boston was going to cause the Warriors problem with their switchability. In theory, they’re the nightmare matchup, one of the teams the Dubs probably didn’t want to see in the Finals. They have two premier two-way wings in Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum, a disciplined defense captained by Defensive Player of the Year Marcus Smart, and a paint patroller that can erase the heavy diet of paint shots the Warriors try to take with Robert Williams III.
Yet, the Warriors are in position to close out the Finals on Thursday. While a lot of it has been defensive effort, forcing Jayson Tatum to defer to one of his weaknesses - that being his decision-making ability in the lane - and making anyone but him and Brown beat them, the Warriors have won their games because they have the best player in the series. The biggest factor in their 3-2 lead so far has come on the offensive end, the anchor to end all anchors…
Steph “The System” Curry has made the Warriors almost unguardable.
Through the first three games of the series, Steph was averaging 31 points per game on 48% from the field and a ridiculous 48% from the outside. The Warriors were down 2-1, but most of their mistakes through the first three made those games winnable. It was Steph who was keeping the team afloat, with his third-quarter scoring streaks blowing Game 2 wide open and keeping things competitive. And then a must-win Game 4 came, and he went nuclear.
Steph’s warpath finished with a 10-point 4th quarter to bury the Celtics and retake homecourt, which Boston had stolen from them Game 1. Curry was unstoppable for the whole stretch, and a big reason for that was how Boston’s head coach Ime Udoka decided to play him. The Celtics, instead of doing what most teams do against the Warriors, played a lot of drop coverage to eliminate the Warriors short-roll 4-on-3 prior to this game. Steph is one of the best in the league at hitting the roll man when he’s received a pick, which usually leads to easy advantage creation that gets the offense humming.
Of course, playing a drop coverage against the best deep range shot-maker of all-time doesn’t usually end well either, and it let Curry get hot and take over the game. So, in Game 5, Udoka decided that he couldn’t risk another performance like that with the series now even at 2-2, and went with the traditional Steph defense: Blitzing him.
The Celtics playing higher coverages against Curry unlocked the floor for the Warriors to get everyone some shots. It was Andrew Wiggins who capitalized the most, using his energy and athletic shot-making ability to attack the space with so many defenders keyed on staying on Steph. While the Celtics managed to hold Steph to just 16 points on 0-for-9 shooting from downtown, Curry finished the game with 8 assists and 1 turnover mostly by carefully threading passes through aggressive defensive schemes to get his guys those looks.
This is what makes the Warriors so hard to guard. In the NBA, there are two ways to guard a superstar: Make him beat you by playing looser coverages to take away space on the floor for everyone else, or make his teammates beat you by going with aggressive coverages so that he can’t get his. With the Warriors, you really can’t play the latter because of how they’ve constructed their roster and offense: High-percentage three-point shooters with high game IQ, and a feverish selflessness stemming from Curry’s off-ball gravity and willingness to take a back seat when necessary, which leads to a lot of advantage creation inside the arc.
You can’t play the former either because once he gets going, he’s possibly the league’s toughest cover when it comes to on-ball scoring. For whatever reason, the way Steph’s flurries demoralize opposing teams and either erase massive deficits or pile up mountainous leads is just different. It’s hard to explain, but when he gets going, he’ll make impossible shots and force defenses to throw the kitchen sink at him, which frees up everyone else to do their thing as well. His scoring bouts are explosive, and are often decisive moments when they happen.
Udoka and the Celtics have found themselves between a rock and a hard place heading into Game 6. While they’re playing on home-court, this is a win-or-go-home game for them, and the Warriors have already proven they can block out the noise and get the job done, as well as win with either type of coverage Boston throws at them. The Celtics have shot very well leading up to Games 4 and 5, so there has to be a question of how much gas they have left in the tank. It’s going to take a tactical masterclass from Udoka on both ends, and his guys need to fire on all cylinders if they want to swing the series to 7. The question remains: How do you guard the unguardable? Udoka and his staff are going to have to figure that out if they don’t want to be sent packing in Game 6.
(Photo credit: NBAE / Getty Images)