Last night in San Antonio, the Spurs turned in a stifling defensive performance, holding the explosive Warriors to a mere seventy-nine points, over thirty-five below their season average.
LaMarcus Aldridge had a spectacular game, scoring twenty-six points while grabbing thirteen rebounds, and there was nothing Golden State could do to stop him. That’s what happens when Andrew Bogut is out. Draymond Green is a great player, but he never got a break from defending San Antonio’s big men. Furthermore, while Green’s low center of gravity allows him to capably guard much bigger players, it does nothing to stop them from shooting fadeaways over him, as Aldridge did repeatedly last night.
Still, that clearly wasn’t the problem last night, as the Spurs were able to score only eighty-seven points. The Warriors’ problem was that they were unable to score. More importantly, Stephen Curry was shut down and held to fourteen points on eighteen shots, an abysmal 34.7% true shooting percentage. For context, Curry’s TS% on the season is a league leading 67.5%, while players not noted for their sharpshooting, such as Rajon Rondo (49.8%), Kobe Bryant (46.3%), and Emmanuel Mudiay (42.7%, the worst mark in the league), have shot better over the course of the season than Curry did last night.
Now, the Warriors had lost six times before last night, but how repeatable are those losses? The Blazers beat the Warriors by shooting 17-30 from three and the Lakers beat them when they shot 4-30 from three. The Mavericks beat the Warriors when they were without Curry and Harrison Barnes and the Nuggets beat them by two when they were without Green. The Bucks beat the Warriors when they were coming off a double-overtime game the night before and the Pistons beat them by eighteen in the only game that there wasn’t a clear reason for why they lost.
None of these games, other than the one against Detroit, provide any valuable insight into how to beat Golden State. At first glance, last night’s game looks very similar to the Lakers game: the Warriors shot 25% from three, with Curry and Klay Thompson combining to go 2-19 from deep. Is that really something the Spurs can count on in the playoffs?
Here’s where the eye test comes in handy. Last night, Curry and Thompson weren’t missing wide-open shots; the Spurs didn’t give them any space. San Antonio hounded the Splash Brothers both on and off the ball, not giving them any room to operate. Helped by Kawhi Leonard and their league-best defense, the Spurs only allowed twenty-nine combined points from Thompson and Curry.
As always, the important question is whether or not this game provides a blueprint for how to beat the Warriors. To me, it’s somewhere in the middle.
On one hand, playing close and physical with Curry and Thompson is a recipe for success. However, not every team has the reigning DPOY on it.
I think it’s fair to say that last night’s game provided a way to beat the Warriors, but one that only the Spurs can follow. It’ll be interesting to see whether or not San Antonio will be able to maintain its defensive success in its next meeting with Golden State, on April 7th in Oracle Arena.
Just over a week ago, on NBA Countdown, Jalen Rose was discussing the upcoming game between the Warriors and Bulls. While doing so, he asserted that Klay Thompson is the best catch-and-shooter in the NBA. Is he right?
Before we can answer that question, first we need to determine exactly what a catch-and-shooter is.
The NBA defines a catch-and-shoot attempt as “any jump shot outside of ten feet where a player possessed the ball for two seconds or less and took no dribbles”. That’s a reasonable definition. To ensure that only real catch-and-shooters showed up in the rankings, I tweaked the requirements; this list is limited to players who play at least twenty-four minutes a game while attempting at least three threes per game. This leaves us with fifty-eight players in the NBA who qualify as true catch-and-shooters.
How does Thompson rank under those parameters?
The answer? Very well, but not the best.
He’s eleventh in effective field goal percentage (eFG%) with 61.4%. He’s behind superstars such as Stephen Curry, Damian Lillard, and Kawhi Leonard, well-known three-point specialists including J.J. Redick, Khris Middleton, and J.R. Smith, and guys who you wouldn’t expect to be there like Jerryd Bayless and Patrick Beverley.
Thompson is tenth in catch-and-shoot three point percentage, again behind Curry, Leonard, and others. Again, he’s in the top fifth of the league, but he’s not quite the best.
However, Thompson is able to maintain his efficiency over far more three-point attempts than others. He leads the league with 6.3 catch-and-shoot attempts per game, 0.9 more than his closest competitor, Wesley Matthews. Matthews is closer to ninth place Curry than he is to first, showing how efficient Thompson is.
Similarly, Thompson leads the league in catch-and-shoot three-pointers made per game, with 2.8. This time, second place Curry is closer to eleventh place than he is to first.
Although we can’t say that Thompson is the most efficient catch-and-shooter in the NBA, his ability to maintain a relatively high level of efficiency over so many attempts speaks to his immense proficiency at catch-and-shooting.
In the end, while it’s not cut-and-dried, it’s a reasonable assertion to make that Klay Thompson is the best catch-and-shooter in the NBA.
Tonight, the Spurs and Warriors will meet for the first time this season, in Oracle Arena. Not only are these teams the two best in the NBA this season, they’re also two of the best in NBA history. In fact, here’s a list of every single team that has ever posted a point differential above plus-12 like the Spurs and Warriors have so far this season:
So yeah, that’s ridiculous. Even better, the three other teams on that list all went on to win the championship. The problem is that the Spurs and Warriors can’t both win the championship. In fact, as both teams play in the Western Conference, only one team can even make it to the Finals. Accordingly, the Western Conference Finals (assuming both the Spurs and Warriors make it) will be the de facto NBA Finals, as the winner of that series will go on to the real NBA Finals to demolish whichever flawed team emerges from the East.
Tonight’s game is truly a clash of titans, one that is quite possibly the greatest regular season matchup in the history of the NBA.
In honor of tonight’s game, it’s time to figure out which team is better and should be considered the favorite to take home the Larry O’Brien Trophy in June.
Offense
The Warriors lead the NBA significantly in points per game. They score 114.7 points per game, 6.2 more than the second place Thunder. The gap between the Warriors and the Thunder is the same as the gap between the Thunder and the ninth place Pelicans. To illustrate this point, here’s a graph of the points per game totals among NBA teams:
That star in the upper right hand corner is the Warriors. Look at how far they are away from everyone else. In fact, they’re 3.27 standard deviations above the mean, meaning that, assuming a normal distribution, one would expect an offense to score as many points per game as them .05% of the time. That’s about once every sixty-seven seasons. Wow.
However, that point total is skewed somewhat by Golden State’s pace. They play at the second fastest pace in the league, averaging 101.75 possessions per game, behind only Sacramento. Meanwhile, the Spurs play far slower, at the sixth slowest pace in the league, averaging 95.91 possessions per game. That’s a difference of nearly six possessions per game, allowing the Warriors to average more points than the Spurs.
If, instead of points per game, we use points per hundred possessions, the gap between the Warriors and the rest of the league shrinks significantly:
Here, the Warriors still lead the pack at 112.7 points per hundred possessions, but the Thunder (second at 109.2) and the Spurs (third at 108.8) follow close behind them.
Although Golden State’s offense is clearly the best in the game, the San Antonio’s isn’t all that far behind.
Edge: Warriors
Defense
The Spurs, similarly to the Warriors on offense, lead the NBA in points allowed per game by a significant margin, allowing a stingy 89.8 points per game. In fact, San Antonio’s defense (the star in the lower left corner) is nearly as far away from the rest of the league as Golden State’s offense:
Golden State, on the other hand, ranks a mere eighteenth in points allowed per game, giving up 102.6 points per contest.
However, in addition to offensive numbers being skewed by pace, defensive numbers are skewed too. After all, it’s a lot easier to give up fewer points when you don’t have to face as many shot attempts.
To combat this, like we did with offense, let’s use points per hundred possessions:
This change actually doesn’t affect the Spurs at all; in fact, it might even increase the gap between them and the rest of the league. However, the Warriors vault from eighteenth all the way up to third, a sizable jump.
Similarly to offense, while San Antonio’s defense is clearly the best in the NBA, Golden State’s isn’t too far behind.
Edge: Spurs
Chemistry
Golden State leads the NBA in assist percentage, as 68.5% of its field goals are assisted. San Antonio isn’t far behind, sitting in sixth place with an assist percentage of 61.7%. In addition, the Warriors are the proud owners of six of the eleven games this season in which a team accumulated thirty-five or more assists.
There are plenty of stats that I can use to show how great the Warriors’ chemistry is, but they can’t compete with the Spurs. No one can. A couple of years ago, San Antonio had this video made about them:
Sure, plenty of other teams pass, but have any of them had videos like this one made about them? I actually looked; there are none.
If you want something more recent, here are the Spurs earlier this season, destroying the Timberwolves:
I mean, just look at how disconsolate the Timberwolves are after the Spurs finally decided to score:
That’s what the Spurs’ passing can do to a team.
Last of all, and best of all, who can forget the famous Spursgasm from a couple of years ago?
Good lord.
Big Edge: Spurs
Coaching
This might be the tightest category yet. Steve Kerr took over a Warriors team and, with largely the same roster, turned a 51-31 sixth seed into a 67-15 juggernaut. This season, with Kerr sidelined, Luke Walton has led the Warriors to a 39-4 start.
The Spurs have Gregg Popovich, the best coach in the league hands-down, and one of the best coaches of all-time.
No matter how good Kerr and Walton have been while helming Golden State, no one can equal Pop, but at least they’ve been able to come close.
Slight Edge: Spurs
Star Power
You’d think that this category would be an easy Warriors victory, but it’s a lot closer than you’d think. Each team has a superduperstar, Stephen Curry for the Warriors and Kawhi Leonard for the Spurs. Each team has a superstar, Draymond Green for the Warriors and LaMarcus Aldridge for the Spurs. The intrigue comes in the various supporting players.
San Antonio has so many good, solid players, from Tony Parker to Manu Ginobili to Tim Duncan to Boris Diaw to Danny Green. Even players buried a little deeper on the bench are still capable, like David West and Patty Mills.
On the other hand, Golden State has a far top-heavier rotation. Andrew Bogut is a solid center, Shaun Livingston is a good back-up point guard, and Harrison Barnes and Andre Iguodala are very good small forwards. Deeper on the bench are players such as Festus Ezeli, Leandro Barbosa, and Marreese Speights, three players who are all decent, if unspectacular.
In the end, the Spurs’ superior depth doesn’t matter as the Warriors have a third star in Klay Thompson, giving Golden State the advantage in the final category.
Edge: Warriors
Verdict
No matter which team is better, the Warriors should be expected to win tonight due to their immense home court advantage, but, in the end, by the tiniest of margins, the Spurs are the superior team.
Last night, in addition to the Knicks-Jazz game, I watched the Warriors and Bulls square off in Chicago. Here are a few observations from the game.
Derrick Rose looked spectacular. His performance hearkened back to his MVP season in 2011, not only in what he did, but in how he did it. His first four baskets came on a twisting layup, a wild bank shot, a floater, and another banker.
Rose finished with twenty-nine points, many coming on those same sorts of ridiculous shots that barely anyone else in the NBA would even bother attempting.
The Warriors have become a spectacle. Throngs of fans show up early to games when the Warriors come to town, hoping to see magic happen. Stephen Curry is at the center of it all, but even so, it was surprising when the Bulls fans filling the United Center let out a mildly disappointed “Oh” when he missed his first three-point attempt.
The Bulls did one particularly strange thing early in the game. Many teams like to trap Curry on pick-and-rolls, knowing that to let him free is an invitation for a swished three-pointer. That trapping leads to four-on-threes for Golden State, but those are preferable to giving up an open shot to Curry.
While it makes sense to trap Curry, the Bulls strangely decided to trap Klay Thompson off a pick-and-roll, leading to a four-on-three led by Curry. Why in the world would they choose to do that? One has to assume that it was a gaffe of some sort, perhaps a miscommunication between the two defenders.
Shaun Livingston had a very nice game. He shot six-for-eight, scoring twelve points with five assists over sixteen minutes. Livingston, despite being a point guard, is 6’7″, and he used that size to his advantage last night, posting up smaller guards with ease.
Adding to his value, unlike most 6’7″ players, Livingston can defend point guards. Even better, he fits in well with Golden State’s whirring machine of defensive perfection as he’s able to switch seamlessly with all the other similarly sized players the warriors have (click here for a breakdown of Golden State’s switching capabilities on defense).
Midway through the second quarter, Rose dove at Curry’s knees on a closeout, leading to three free throws. I don’t know about you, but I never realized that Steph Curry was actually Rob Gronkowski.
The Warriors ended up destroying the Bulls 125-94. This win is a big boost for Golden State; after smashing the Cavs apart in Cleveland on Monday by thirty-four points, beating another top contender in the East by thirty-one is a something to be proud of. Even better, it comes on the heels of a poor three-game stretch consisting of a pair of road losses to the Nuggets and Pistons sandwiching a home win against the Lakers.
This victory sends the Warriors home for a three-game stay at the Oracle Arena against three playoff teams, including Monday night’s matchup against the Spurs, which promises to be one of the best games in the NBA this season.
As Golden State nears a record-breaking 16-0 start to the season, it’s time to ask: Can anyone stop the Warriors?
In last night’s game against the Nuggets, the Warriors went to their super-small lineup. According to NBA.com, in two minutes, that lineup scored fourteen points. So, yeah, that’s pretty unstoppable.
That lineup consists of Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Harrison Barnes, Andre Iguodala, and Draymond Green and it’s unstoppable. All five players are capable three-point shooters, creating pristine spacing that they then take advantage of thanks to their unselfish passing. That’s what makes the Warriors so impossible to guard, and that’s how they’re able to score fourteen points in a mere two minutes.
However, many other teams could put out these sorts of lineups with five three-point shooters sharing the floor at once. What makes the Warriors unique is that they’re able to play five three-point shooters while surviving on defense.
How are they able to do this? Well, Green is the linchpin of the defense. Despite being only 6’7″, Green is capable of playing center. Without him, the rest of the scheme wouldn’t work at all.
Outside of Green, this lineup’s success stems from its incredible flexibility as all five of its members are between 6’3″ (Curry) and 6’8″ (Barnes). This similarity in size allows the team to switch at will, closing out on three point shooters, rotating around the floor to prevent drives to the basket, and being a whirring machine of defensive mayhem.
So many conversations concerning Golden State are about its offense, so to be contrarian we’ll focus on its defense. Let’s break down one crunch-time possession from Game 1 of last year’s Western Conference Finals that exhibits the system played to perfection, with Shaun Livingston in place of Andre Iguodala.
With twelve seconds left on the shot clock, James Harden drives down the middle of the floor against Thompson. Notice how all possible passing lanes are walled off.
Next, the ball gets poked away and Thompson and Green converge on Harden, trapping him in the corner. Barnes shifts off of Trevor Ariza in the opposite corner to guard Josh Smith next to the basket.
Harden manages to pass it out of the double-team, into the middle of the floor, creating a momentary four-on-three advantage for the Rockets. However, while against a lesser team, Smith would have been left open in the middle, against the Warriors, Barnes is already there, stopping him from getting an easy shot off.
Smith passes it out to Ariza in the corner, but Curry switches onto him, closing off a clear path to the rim. Livingston leaves Jason Terry (#31) alone to cover Curry’s man, Corey Brewer.
Ariza drives to the rim, Curry hot on his tail, but Barnes is at the rim to meet him. The shot clock is down to four seconds, which pressures Ariza to attempt a shot. At this point, Terry is open, but if Ariza managed to somehow thread a pass through across the floor while in mid-air, Thompson would be able to close out on him.
Ariza then fumbles the ball away and the Warriors close in. The ball gets knocked out of bounds and the Warriors get the turnover.
Just in the last twelve seconds of this possession, the Warriors are able to snuff out four threats (plus countless potential ones) by switching seamlessly.
It’s plays like these that great defenses excel at, all five players switching in unison, playing ferocious defense while still remaining under control. There’s nothing the Rockets could do to penetrate the swarming defense of the Warriors.
Even in the team’s starting lineup, with Andrew Bogut at center and Iguodala on the bench, the loss of some flexibility doesn’t prevent Golden State from keeping up the elite defense that was the best in the league last season by points per possession.
So far this year, Golden State has slipped all the way down to fifth in points per possession, and its offense is the best in the league, scoring 111.8 points per 100 possessions.
When a defense like this is paired with the best shooter in NBA history and a roster full of players who complement him perfectly, it’s hard to imagine the Golden State Warriors being beaten any time soon.
Sushi on Sports 
