For the second time in these NBA Finals, the Golden State Warriors are in a must-see situation. Yeah Al that sounds pretty crap to me, Looks like BT aint for me either. Play this card if you want. But if they lose 3-1 on Friday with another loss, this series is over, as it would have been if the Warriors had dropped the second game, as no team in history has recovered to win the final after lose the first two. home games.
The Warriors know all too well that only one team in history has overcome a 3-1 disadvantage to win the final. That was the Cavs in 2016. That won’t happen in this series. It’s already a fairly steep rise that Golden State has to win three of the next four games against a Celtics team that looks increasingly superior as this series progresses.
That said, a win in Game 4 pretty much changes the equation. It would give the local court the edge in Golden State in what would become a three-game series. Here are three things that would go a long way for the Warriors to make it to Friday night.
1. Value each possession
The team that has won the battle of staff losses has won each of the first three games of this series. Both teams have a way of shooting at the foot with sloppy losses, but the Warriors have less room for error. They don’t have the defense that the Celtics have to go through, and they don’t have several All-Star-level creators like Boston.
What the Warriors have is Stephen Curry, who is shooting 49 percent of 3 in this series in more than 12 attempts per game. Each time the Warriors spin the ball, in addition to leading to a transitional offense for a more athletic Boston team, it simply takes Curry one more chance to throw himself, and Golden State needs all of Curry’s magic. that he can muster to keep up with the Celtics.
These types of high-risk passes must be filed.
Golden State always walks a good line of risk reward, and it’s understandable that they want to push their luck in search of easy baskets against a Boston defense that turns into a monster when it settles. But these steps do not have enough advantage. The green is threading a needle that is too tight in both cases.
The Warriors are scoring 97.2 points for half-court possession in this series, by Cleaning the Glass. This is almost identical to its regular season mark. It’s not like they haven’t been able to score, especially when Curry is on the court, when they make it back and run their offense. Pushing the pace and playing free is great, but the Warriors have to value every possession as if the championship is in play, because it is.
2. Draymond must appear
Green has been downright bad in two of the three games. For the series, it has more business losses (6) than the baskets made (5). He was aggressive to score in game 1, finishing 2 of 12. He missed short throws on the paint, bands and four triples, as the Celtics basically ignored him on the perimeter to drop an additional defender on the paint, fouling the traffic lanes.
In Game 3, Green made two points, three assists and four rebounds before committing a foul. After the game, he said he played “like shit,” and there’s really no other way to say it.
With Stephen Curry doing a lot of pick-and-roll, Green would normally be making a lot of plays off the short throw, but the Celtics aren’t completely against Curry, so those 4-on-3 chances haven’t. been there almost as much as Green is used to.
When Green doesn’t facilitate the offense, his inability to shoot, or really pose any kind of goal threat, it becomes a much bigger problem, as he basically becomes a non-separator, trying to stay by the gray areas without getting too stuck, which is especially problematic when Kevon Looney, another non-shooter, is also there. There are two types that Boston can abandon for more imminent threats.
Without too much space in the middle of the court for the offensive impact, Green playing a great defense becomes even more necessary to justify his minutes, which, let’s be honest, will not be cut no matter how bad he plays. The problem is that the defense has not been so great.
Attack point defense is a major issue for Golden State in this series. They are not left in front of the creators of Boston, which is initiating the domino effect that is giving rise to all kinds of open shots, as Golden State is not equipped to protect the edge without sending several defenders in the lane and therefore out . shooters.
This is not a matter of effort. The Warriors just don’t have the perimeter defenders they used to have. Klay Thompson is a shell of himself on the defensive. Jordan Poole is a walking target. Curry is a solid defender in a fair fight, but he’s small, and the Celtics made the most of it with switches several times in Game 3 with Al Horford and Marcus Smart post-ups. Looney can take off and attack. Bjelica has held on, relatively speaking, but does not play big minutes and, at best, will be nothing more than a neutral defender.
All of this means that if Green, one of Golden State’s few truly reliable defenders, is also winning, the Warriors have no chance. Brown got any chance he wanted in the first quarter of Game 3, and many of them came at the expense of Green.
Again, this has been a terrible series for Green for the most part. But he has time to turn the script around. Just as Curry has to lead an offensive that really has nowhere else to go to get a steady production, Green has to do the same for defense. His supposed ability to do so is a big reason why Golden State was favored at the beginning of this series (not in my eyes, but at least in Las Vegas) and the fact that he has not fulfilled that responsibility is a equally great reason. who have become the underprivileged.
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3. Play Poole or Payton
Unlike the Celtics, who can play lineups in which neither attack nor defense are compromised, the Warriors have to choose. If they play Looney for his defense and rebound, his space suffers. If they play Bjelica for their shot, they lose the defense. If they are small to score, they are killed in the glass. If they play big, they are collectively slow.
No two players better reflect this compensation dilemma than Jordan Poole and Gary Payton II, who jumped Poole in the rotation in game 2 and looked great, but then only played 11 minutes in game 3. This is a fluid situation. If Poole has it up and running, he’s too valuable as a lone secondary creator alongside Curry, and obviously as the only one when Curry sits down, to dispense with. But his defense is an important issue.
For Payton, it’s the other way around. As one of the few guys able to contain the penetration and disrupt the Boston creators, his defense is vital, but he’s not a shooter that Boston will think about crawling, so he clears the space. When Payton is in his game, he takes advantage of the lack of defensive attention cutting for bands and mates and is always fantastic on the open ground.
It would be great if these guys had a great party the same night. They can reflect each other’s minutes and support each other with their proven skill sets. But at least one of them has to play on a big Friday. Poole warms up or Payton boosts the defense makes the Warriors a different team. One of those things that happens makes the Warriors a little less dependent on Curry clearing out all of these deficiencies in dealing with a nuclear exit, which could happen, but it’s not something you want to depend on.