right now. In the Warriors/Blazers series. You are watching, aren't you? The formula for having a chance to beat the Warriors starts with getting the right switches. You have to get Steph switched onto the ball. Whether it's Harden or Paul don't matter. Both of them can work him. Even Rivers can break him down. That's where it starts, the Warriors formula. Yes, you have to play boring basketball to beat them. Everybody needs to realize how good Draymond Green is. Especially in combination with Iggy and Klay. You cannot beat those guys with pick-and-roll, motion, cuts, or by, God forbid, trying to iso Green or Iggy. None of that stuff works nor will it work against them. Ever. Until they are old and stove up. That's why Kerr made a point last year that Iggy changes the series. You see folks, the real key to the Warriors is they have two of the best defenders of all time in combination with two of the greatest shooters of all time. Durant is just gravy. And Durant actually helps them more defensively than he does offensively. Their only weak point defensively when all those guys are healthy is Steph on the ball and KD on the ball against a crafty handle in space. So the ONLY FORMULA to beat them is 1. Iso Steph on the ball 2. 5 OUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You have to play 5 out with shooters everywhere off the ball. You have to spread Draymond, Iggy, and Klay out and make them stationary by making them face guard great 3- point shooters. The only motion that will work is secondary action, catching them in a hard closeout and going past them with the drive to the rim after the initial thrust. There is no other formula. You have to spread them out with max spacing. You have to attack Steph. And to a lesser degree KD. This does not preclude Harden posting up. Rather it enhances it. Harden at the FT line in the triple threat with Steph behind him with 4 shooters rectangled, are you kidding me? You just think MDA doesn't like postups. I guarantee you MDA would love those postups. It's all about efficiency. 3. You have to have great defenders that have super quick feet that can switch onto Curry and be effective. Rivers qualifies. Tucker qualifies. Paul still qualifies somewhat. Jimmy Butler qualifies. And others. And if you have a guy out there defensively that isn't a great switch defender (Harden) then he has to be a matchup problem on the offensive end for the Warriors. This is why I believe we have personnel issues, not system issues. I think we know how we have to play. Despite all the rhetoric about how great we are at Pink-and-Roll basketball and how crucial PnR is to our success, I think this organization knows how we have to play to get that top seed, have homecourt advantage and put this juggernaut to sleep. Formula: Iso with 5 out offensively and switch everything defensively with guys that can recover and still box out in space. It's the only formula.
The most important thing about iso IMO is the fact that it slows the game down. You cannot play fast paced basketball against GSW. Isoball slows them down. The 2nd most important thing is limiting turnovers. The less passes you make, the less probability for turnovers.
Yep to all points. For 5 out to be viable we probably also need some length at the 3 and 4 to help with the team rebounding. That obviously helps in other ways as well in terms of switching, and ball denial. It doesn't have to be small ball, just 5 out. Don't let Draymond roam, make sure they all have to guard a shooter. Imagine if you could play someone like Bobby Portis at Center, big enough to be a good rebounder, but also a 40% 3 point shooter this season
The Bucks will be their toughest test. We don't have the horses to finish the job. Nobody in the West does. Lebron-Kyrie got it done and I think the Bucks will too.
True facts. Throwing the ball around all over the place is playing right into their wheelhouse. They are too good defensively for that. They'll turn us over and then we're in the worst spot possible in defensive transition with Steph and Klay and KD lining up 3- balls while we're scrambling. Pick-and-roll is foolish against them. Ball movement is foolish against them.
Finally someone says something that makes basketball sense to people who complain about or ‘slow’ and ‘boring’ style. Agree with everything. Spread the floor and iso them to death and slow the game down. Exploit Steph on the defensive end and do not let them run. Cause if they do game 6 happens. They start making threes and it’s over. People underrate how good Draymond and Iggy are both as passers and defenders. And no only catch lob skilled big man. You need to spread these dudes out. Capela camping in the middle and not being a shooting threat plays into his hand so much he can play 2 on 1 very well and he can stay with the center and be around to bother Hardens drives. If we had a stretch big who can actually make consistent corner 3s Draymond would have to make tough decisions giving up layups to Harden or the corner 3.
Cavs won cos Green was suspended and Iguodala was injured. Same with Rockets last year - the series went 7 games cos Iguodala was injured. This season, with him healthy, CP3 healthy and Durant injured in Game 5, Rockets lost in 6! The bucks main advantage are their shooting bigs (Lopez, Mirotic, and Ilyasova). Bucks will have to be able to stay big to keep that advantage but I doubt it cos GSW movement will run bigs off the floor. Once Bucks are forced to play small ball, the series will be over cos they dont have the personnel to matchup. For all their size, bucks are actually on the slow side. Add the inexperience and the GSW are favored to win it again
This is why getting Butler, if possible is so important. CP is not the iso player that he used to be. As he ages he may be more well suited to just play make for his teammates and shoot more spot up 3’s ala Jason Kidd when he got older. If Harden gets trapped at half court or for whatever reason does not isolate due to some defensive scheme, who else do we have that we can trust in big moments. Outside of Butler who else is may be available that fits this bill? We love to initiate our offense late in the shot clock so we have to get someone else who can iso and get tough buckets vs man to man D. Too me getting a third big time iso player may be just as important as getting a stretch 5 due to our system and CP’s age. If we can get both, then maybe we can finally beat this team.
I agree in most points. I think there is value in running Curry through a bunch of hard screens though. It helps to punish him physically. Pick and roll with Capela was just terrible. GS has the best pick and roll defense I’ve seen. They are doing it against Portland right now. The other big weakness we had was when we switched Capela onto a guard at the 3 point line. He got abused and there was nobody in the paint who could save him. GS just has so many ways to beat you defensively and offensively, with or without KD. It’s crazy how good and versatile they are. If they are dialed in and focused nobody is beating them.
I mean there's no denying that he def would've helped the cause. It's actually crazy to think how many West teams not named the Warriors that royally fu*ked us this year. From Minnesota and Memphis holding out in trades to the teams that threw games at the end of the year to get the favorable path in the playoffs and even the Thunder who basically used all the juice they had left for the season to go all out in that 2nd half against us. I just don't get it!!!
At the risk of agreeing with Holic.... Aside from the endless vendetta on Capela, there’s a basis of truth in the ISO v Warriors scheme. #1, and foremost reason is that James Harden’s ISO is basically an elite nba offense. He might really be the best to ever hog the ball. GSW ability to not only switch the picks but HELP ROTATIONS are another level. You have to set a quality pick and ATTACK to get that switch off balance. I suspect guys feel so stifled by it that they don’t recognize immediately when they’ve got the upper hand...and it closes just as fast. Then on the rare occasion a roll man comes free, the help defense is right there in position to make a play on the roller OR to get back to a shooter at the 3 point line. It’s amazing how fluid they are from Draymond down to the last man on defense. Credit where due. So even in this b*stard blade of an offense, they’re still leaving you with choices like.... pre-determining you’re just going to attack a rim protector at the rim, forcing Capela (or roll man) to do the same, or basically dribbling out the clock making your move and burying jump shots from 25 ft. The horse got beat to death and beat some more but imposing the same thing on them takes tweener forwards who can hit 3s at a respectable rate. It takes the Arizas and Moutes of the world....and it didn’t have to be them specifically but our team was too short, too light to contest their offense AND clean up the possession with a board. TL;DR version BBholex really doesn’t like Capela. The Warriors are good and beating their switching/helping defense takes either an all time great iso player putting in like 50 a night or some even crazier, more sold out offense where the pretense of playing traditional basketball is officially gone. Like mighty ducks V offense where your entire team just bludgeons them with a 4 man OL style pick just to get harden open. We need 6’8”+ players. TL;DR version of the TLDR Drastic times call for drastic measures. But suggesting 5 out offense for real makes one look silly.
The Blazers are down their second or third best player. The 2 best players they have remaining were "meh". Their whole team looks like they are playing the second night of a back to back in January. And they lost because they crumbled down the stretch, weren't clutch, and blew it. How does that = have to play ISO? The problem with the Rockets ISO isn't in the ISO itself, it's that its ALL they have, so when things aren't going even close to perfect, they have no other options and no one else knows what to do. The Rockets play 100% ISO. They need to play 60% ISO, 40% "plays".
Whenever 'Holic starts a thread, his first post is so long, I'm not sure if I have ever finished reading it. But with that said- for this year, it doesn't matter. I don't care. We can speculate all we want, but that series is over. For next year, wait and see. We don't even know how the Warriors will look. Will KD still be there? What about Klay? Igoudala is getting older and is definitely slowing down, while he is still a good defender, he isn't what he once was. And GSW's bench has been getting weaker, is it going to be weaker next year?
Blazers just lost a game by 3 points on the road. Therefore, what they are trying to do is obviously broken and 'Holic is smarter than their coaches and entire organization.
The player you are referencing that the Blazers are down...... is a pick-and roll center. If he were playing they'd have even less spacing and shooting and would've lost both games by double digits. And you even suggesting he could possibly be their second best player destroys your credibility on this subject. You don't know what you're talking about. You Don't Get It.
Very good post, BUT I'm not sure that's the only formula. They should be very susceptible to a strong inside game, with dominant center and/or power forward play. They don't have anyone that can defend the post, really. Of course, that requires that you have a dominant center, which almost no one does these days. If they end up playing Philly in the Finals, it will be interesting to see how that works out. I would have liked to see how Denver/Jokic did against them too. Even if not dominant in the Shaq/Olajuwon fashion, I think a team that could muscle them up on the inside would still be a good formula. But the NBA is moving away from that, and very few teams have the bodies to do it. Agree...which is what Morey preaches. I think the above, IF you had the right personnel, would be very efficient. Yes. On the defensive end, what really makes the Warriors tick? They have a whole team of people (outside of Curry) who are fairly interchangeable, so they can switch all the time and be ok. Yes, Pick and Roll with their defenders is probematic. They are built to stop it. They can just switch. PnR will only work to get someone isolated on Steph. FWIW...that isn't boring basketball. It's SMART basketball. What's boring basketball? Watching the Warriors win all the time. That's boring.
