Golden State Warriors: Three takeaways from round two of the playoffs

The Warriors are still the best team in the world

Throughout the regular season and first round, there was a small bubble of doubt starting to farm around the Warriors. The team had stumbled across the finish line of the regular season, due to mounting injuries and lackadaisical attitude throughout the team, and the Houston Rockets were taking the league by storm.

Golden State Warriors

These factors, combined with the fact that the basketball world tends to grow tired of teams who dominate for a long period of time and look to find the next best team to replace them constantly, created a feeling that maybe this wasn’t the Warriors’ year.

The team has since completely shut that theory down with their dominating play in round two. The return of a healthy Stephen Curry to the lineup has catapulted the team’s play back to a state of being nearly unstoppable, such as we’ve seen them in recent years.

In round one against the Spurs, we saw the team’s defensive intensity return. The team’s elite defensive ability has been a major factor in their success throughout the years, so seeing them begin to play with the effort required to meet their potential on that side of the ball, something we didn’t see for much of the regular season, was a great sight.

While the defense was there in round one, the team’s offense was not up to par with what we’ve seen in years past. This was in part due to the team being without Stephen Curry, but also because of the Spurs defensive ability. Both of these problems were no longer a problem in round two, and because of this we saw the team return to form on the offensive end.

Now at full strength in every aspect of the game, the team has once again made it clear who the team to beat in the NBA is.