For the second time in these NBA finals, the Golden State Warriors find themselves in a situation where they have to win. Yes, I understand, they are not technically facing elimination. Play this card if you wish. But if they fall 3-1 with another loss on Friday, this series is over, just as it would have ended if the Warriors had missed Game 2, as no team in history has recovered to win the finals after losing to the first two games at home.
The Warriors know all too well that only one team in history has overcome the 3-1 deficit to win the final. These were the Cavs in 2016. This will not happen in this series. It’s already a steep enough climb that Golden State has to win three of the next four games against a Celtics team that looks more and more excellent as the series progresses.
However, winning Game 4 changes the equation quite a bit. This will restore the advantage of the home court of Golden State in a series of three games. Here are three things that could help the Warriors finish it on Friday night.
1. Evaluate each possession
The team that won the battle for revs won each of the first three games in this series. Both teams have a way to shoot in the foot with careless turns, but the Warriors have less room for error. They don’t have the protection the Celtics have to give up, and they don’t have as many All-Star creators as Boston.
What the Warriors have is Stephen Curry, who has shot an incredible 49 percent of the 3 in this series with over 12 attempts per game. Every time the Warriors roll the ball, in addition to leading to a transient offense for a more athletic Boston team, it just takes another opportunity from Curry to start, and Golden State needs every bit of magic. of Curry, which she can muster to keep up with the Celtics.
These types of high-risk omissions must be postponed.
Golden State is always on a good line of risk-reward and it is understandable that they would like to push their luck in search of easy baskets against the defense of Boston, which becomes a monster when set up. But these passes just don’t have enough reverse. Green cuts too tight a thread in both cases.
The Warriors scored 97.2 points in possession of a half-field in this series for Cleaning the Glass. This is almost identical to their assessment for the regular season. It’s not like they failed to score, especially when Curry is on the court, when they pull him away and carry out their attack. Pushing the pace and free play is great, but the Warriors should value every possession, as if the championship is on the line, because it is.
2. Draymond must appear
Green was downright bad in two of the three games. For the series, it has more revolutions (6) than baskets made (5). He was aggressive to score in match 1, finishing 2-for-12. He missed short paint strikes, layups and four 3-points as the Celtics largely ignored him on the perimeter to throw an extra defender into the paint, polluting the roads.
In Match 3, Green scored two points, three assists and four rebounds before being eliminated. After the match, he said he played “like hell” and there really is no other way to say it.
Because Stephen Curry runs a lot of pick-and-roll, Green usually makes a lot of short-roll games, but the Celtics aren’t completely brilliant Curry, so these 4-on-3 features haven’t been there nearly as much as Green is used to.
When Green doesn’t facilitate the attack, his inability to shoot, or really pose a threat to the goal, becomes a much bigger problem, as he essentially becomes a non-spacer, trying to hang around the gray areas without drowning out too much. which is especially problematic when Kevan Looney, another non-shooter, is also there. These are two guys that Boston can give up to make more immediate threats.
Without much space in the middle of the field for an offensive effect, Green’s great defense becomes even more necessary to justify his minutes, which, let’s be honest, won’t be cut short no matter how badly he plays. The problem is that the defense was not so good either.
Defending the point of attack is a major issue for Golden State in this series. They are not facing the creators of Boston, which starts the domino effect, which leads to any open blows, because Golden State is not equipped to defend the edge without sending many defenders down the bar and thus withdraw. archers.
This is not a problem with effort. The Warriors just don’t have the perimeter defenders they had before. Clay Thompson is a shell in his own right. Jordan Poole is a walking target. Curry is a solid defender in a fair fight, but he is small and the Celtics have taken full advantage of this on switches several times in Game 3 with Al Horford and Marcus Smart. Luni can be taken out and attacked. Belitsa endures, relatively speaking, but does not play big minutes and will certainly not be more than a neutral defender at best.
All this means that if Green, one of the few really reliable defenders of Golden State, is also defeated, the Warriors really have no chance. Brown got all the shots he wanted in the first quarter of Game 3, and many of them came at Green’s expense.
Again, this was a horrible series for Green for the most part. But he has time to reverse the script. Just as Curry needs to commit an offense that really has nowhere else to turn to for consistent proceedings, Green needs to do the same for defense. His supposed ability to do this is a big reason why Golden State was preferred at the beginning of this series (not in my eyes, but at least in Vegas) and the fact that he failed to fulfill this responsibility is just as great a reason to be turned into outsider.
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3. Play Poole or Payton
Unlike the Celtics, who can play in teams where neither attack nor defense is compromised, the Warriors have to choose. If they play Looney for his defense and rebound, their distance suffers. If they play Bjelica for his shooting, they lose defense. If they get small to mark dots, they kill them on the glass. If they play big, they are collectively slow.
There are no two players who better reflect this compromise dilemma than Jordan Poole and Gary Peyton II, who jumped Poole in the rotation in Game 2 and looked great, but then played only 11 minutes in Game 3. This is a smooth situation. If Poole succeeds, he is too valuable as the lone secondary creator next to Curry, and apparently as the only one when Curry sits to be without him. But his protection is a major problem.
It’s different for Peyton. As one of the few boys capable of holding back intrusion and destroying Boston’s creators, his defense is vital, but he’s not a shooter Boston will consider tracking, so he’s polluting the distance. When Peyton is in his game, he takes advantage of the carelessness of the defense by cutting for layups and dunks and he is always great on the open floor.
It would be optimal for these guys to have a big game that night. They can reflect each other’s minutes and support each other with contrasting skill sets. But at least one of them has to play big on Friday. Poole gets hot or Peyton strengthens the defense making the Warriors a different team. One of these things that is happening makes Warriors a little less dependent on Curry erasing all those flaws of a nuclear-powered match – which can happen, but it’s not something you want to count on.
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