The playoffs are officially here, and the Warriors have managed to duck the play-in game with a strong end to their season. Golden State beat down their long-time conference rival turned possible rebuild candidate, the Portland Trail Blazers, by over 50 points yesterday to punch their ticket into the 6th seed.

Had the Clippers lost to a shorthanded Phoenix team, the Suns would have ended up as the Dubs’ first round opponent, but the Clips fought their way through an early deficit to set the Warriors’ date with a few old friends at their cross-NorCal division leaders: The Sacramento Kings.

The “Beam Team” has been on a roll this season, housing two of the game’s upper-tier offensive players in De’Aaron Fox (the NBA’s leader in clutch scoring this season) and Domantas Sabonis (a double-double machine who’s unlocked their offense as a play connector as well) and Steve Kerr’s former right hand man, Mike Brown. Brown’s job in Sacramento has landed him as a possible favorite for the Coach of the Year award, and deservingly so: The Kings broke their 16-year playoff drought, the longest-standing record of its kind in American professional sports, with him at the helm.

The Kings were largely considered the ideal first-round opponent for the Warriors, but their expectations may be marred a bit by their history. Here’s a preview of Golden State’s first-round matchup.

Tale of the Tape
The Sacramento Kings are, this season, the NBA’s offensive juggernaut. They ranked in first in points per game (120.7), second in field goal percentage (49.4%), and third in assists per game (27.3). They also boast the best offensive rating in the NBA at 118.6, and have the second-best assist-to-turnover rate at 2.02. It’s hard to determine who exactly their alpha is, but both Fox (25 points per game and 6.1 assists per game on 51/33/78 shooting splits) and Sabonis (19.7 points per game and league-leading 12.3 rebounds per game on 61/37/74 shooting splits) have put together excellent seasons as aforementioned, and are inarguably the engines that drives the offense.

The Warriors, of course, have some comparable team stats. They rank second in points per game (118.9), first in assists per game (29.8), and shoot the most threes in the NBA (43.2 attempts a game) while also leading in percentage made (38.5%). It’s only natural that they just set an NBA record for the highest number of threes made between three teammates at 779 between Stephen Curry (third in made threes with 273 despite missing 27 games), Klay Thompson (first in made threes with 301 after a struggling start) and Jordan Poole. Golden State’s lethal-shooting back court is shored up defensively by Draymond Green, and they roster the NBA’s leader in offensive rebounds, Kevon Looney.

So with the basic stats out of the way, let’s get into the routes each team will need to take to take the series.

How the Warriors Win
The name of the game is composure. The Warriors we’ve come to know in the past who were sitting their guys in the 4th quarter because they were racking up insurmountable leads are almost nowhere to be found nowadays: They’ve tricked so many late leads that it’s almost a miracle they dodged the play-in. Golden State was a historically-great defense when Draymond played last year and have their whole playoff roster from last season minus Nemanja Bjelica and Otto Porter Jr. ready to go, in addition to Donte DiVincenzo and Jonathan Kuminga who have both been excellent in their respective defensive roles. Gary Payton II’s return makes the Kings an ideal matchup because they have a matchup cover for Fox. The trick will be for the whole team to remain disciplined on that end of the court.

Sacramento’s biggest weakness, however, is their defense: While Fox and Davion Mitchell are certainly forces that can’t be ignored, the Kings have a hole in the center that they can’t afford to take off the floor: Sabonis. The Dubs have become notorious for killing drop coverages with their shooting, and they run the deadliest pick-and-roll game in basketball between Steph and Dray. It can be expected that Curry and Poole will hunting plenty to get Sabonis involved in perimeter actions where they can exploit his poor PnR handler and isolation defense, which will force Sacramento to adjust their gameplan to A) Blitz the handler or B) Play more drop… And we saw what happened when the Celtics were forced to make that choice in last year’s NBA Finals.

The goal for Steve Kerr and his staff should be to emphasize defensive-minded effort and attentiveness while trying to make Domantas Sabonis as much of a net-negative on that end as he is a net-positive on offense. Neutralizing either his or De’Aaron Fox’s impact as much as possible will be the key to winning the series.

How the Kings Win
They’ve gotta want it more. It sounds cliche to say, but the Warriors’ biggest weakness this season is their effort: They haven’t shown enough care and poise that one would expect of a team that’s been to the Finals and won so many times. Sacramento has to capitalize whenever the Warriors’ defense looks lackadaisical and try to force a high-octane series where they get a plethora of points in transition and off turnovers to boot. Ensuring Sabonis’s defensive weakness are well-hidden will be certainly a part of their best route to a victory.

The Beam Team also has to take advantage of, well, the Beam. The Kings will be playing in front of a crowd that hasn’t seen the playoffs in 16 years and has looked every bit as hungry as the players themselves have to end that: They’ll have homecourt advantage to the fullest extent. The Warriors having such a short travel to Sacramento (it’s a 2-ish hour drive from San Francisco to the state capital) will mean plenty of Warriors fans will be trying to make their way to Golden 1 Center for the game. It’ll be in part on Sacramento’s fans to bring the noise, but also on the team to ensure they maintain homecourt advantage throughout the series against the NBA’s worst team on the road.

Mike Brown knows the Warriors and what they’ll plan to do. He’s had a big hand in helping craft the dynasty we’ve seen: Brown knows where the holes in their armor are. Forcing Jordan Poole to be a primary defender and exploiting his team’s superior size are the best candidates for success.

The Series Prediction
This may be a bold take given how bad the Warriors are on the road, but it’s impossible to count a team that’s been known to have an extra gear in the postseason out. The Dubs have shown that defensive versatility is more important than just having size, and with Andrew Wiggins looking to be a go for Game 1, they’ll have the best lineup measured by net rating in the league once again. Assuming the defense-first mentality returns and they can put the locks on Brown’s high-speed offense, it’ll rely on two of the game’s most reliable playoff risers to win it on the other end…

…And I can’t think of anyone who would want a shootout with the Splash Brothers.

The experience of a finally-healthy championship roster, peaking at the right time wins, out in this series against a young (if hungry) team, especially with minimal travel time and a lack of back-to-backs which have cost them all season. They also own the season series against the Kings 3-1.

The Golden State Warriors will beat the Sacramento Kings in 5 games.

(Photo credit: Lachlan Cunningham / Getty Images)