Golden State Warriors Offense Is Currently The Best Defense
After a tough loss to the Lakers, the Golden State Warriors have won four straight games against mid-to-low range teams — but the wins have allowed the Warriors to reject the criticism after an inconsistent start.
After 10 games, the Golden State Warriors’ record stands at 8-2 and they now embark on a four-game East coast swing. It’s a road trip that starts against the Toronto Raptors.
Over their last few games, the Warriors have shown the array of offensive weapons at their disposal. Golden State has based their schemes on some basic principles: speed, passing, spacing, and shots from long distance. After the poor performance against Los Angeles,
After a poor performance against Los Angeles, Stephen Curry hit 13 three-pointers against New Orleans — an NBA record from behind the arc. Against the Dallas Mavericks a couple of nights later, the long shots again made all the difference. All of Golden State’s starters — except for Zaza Pachulia — tossed in four three-pointers, hitting on 16 of 28 attempts.
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Against the Suns this past weekend, the Fab Four (Curry, Kevin Durant, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green) combined to score 103 of the Warriors’ 133 total points. The players are starting to come together, getting to know each other better, and perhaps more important, they’re understanding the timing of switching and executing their plays.
As we said the last time, it is all about rhythm, spacing and passing. And the numbers certainly seem to bear that out.
Analyzing the thirteen triples scored by Curry against Pelicans, the MVP scored nine of them in the first ten seconds of the action. In the Steve Kerr playbook, it is essential that the action is fast and the offense already prepared the moment they snare a defensive rebound.
The Warriors can take advantage of Curry’s skills to move as quickly as possible into the offensive zone. The team is ranked fourth in average speed offense, an interesting stat in understanding the offensive approach of this team.
The Warriors built the offense with pieces that allow the shooter to have the time to coordinate and take his shot. That is why they lead the league in assists and secondary assists (number of passes made by a player to the player who earned the assists on a made shot) and assists points created.
After ten games, both Curry and Durant are averaging more than 50 percent of the team’s shot attempts and are both scoring more than 27 points per game. Durant is definitely finding his pace and the infamous Death Lineup is making a difference.
In fact, the Death Lineup is outscoring teams by 25.2 points per 100 possessions — and the team is 13.2 points better overall per 100 possessions with Durant on the court.
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However, the defense has to improve to help augment the offense. Against the Phoenix Suns, Steve Kerr said that communication was the main problem that allowed the Suns to score on 51.1 percent shooting in the first half of their game.
The connectivity, the timing and feelamong this team has to improve. Switching requires everything to work in sync — something the Warriors do not have yet. It is especially obvious on the perimeter, as any good guard with some handles can get inside Golden State’s defense.
Without the excellent offense that always seems to score more than 100 points with ease, the team would likely have more losses on the season.
"When you’ve got this much firepower, defense is less a priority than a situational device. That could be a part of how this team conserves its energy over 82 games. – Ethan Strauss, ESPN"
This issue will be analyzed and developed over coming weeks. The primary need was to find their footing on offense, because these players have to be able to score a lot to overcome certain deficiencies. There is still a lot of work to do on the defensive end, but we are only in November.
Meanwhile, the Warriors continue to win thanks to their amazing, high-powered offense.