We often wonder what opposing teams, their beat reporters and bloggers are saying about the Celtics. Here’s a look at some enemy chatter from Golden State.
Against an elite perimeter defending team like the Celtics (or like, gulp, the Spurs), the inability of the Warriors’ supporting cast to convert open looks turns the entire offense on its head. Suddenly, one of the Warriors’ great strengths — their patience moving the ball to open shooters — becomes a weakness. All those passes are just more opportunities for the Warriors to turn over the ball (17 on the night), and there’s little upside to making the extra passes if you’re just moving the ball out of the hands of Curry and Thompson and into the hands of some lesser shooter. The Warriors’ best offensive stretches against the Celtics came when they were able to get out and run, slashing to the basket or pulling up for threes in early offense. The Celtics’ defense gave the Warriors seams for Curry and Thompson to exploit in transition, but once set in the halfcourt, Boston managed to squeeze the life out of the Warriors’ most potent offensive weapons.
While I didn’t manage to stay awake for the game, it’s encouraging to read about the re-emergence of Boston’s stifling defense. It’s been a long time coming.
Now I scoured the Warriors blogs today and expected to find a lot of hot takes about Kelly Olynyk’s career night. How could we lose to that guy stuff. I found very little.
I found a few common themes/excuses for Golden State’s loss to the Celtics:
- The Warriors were tired (a scheduled loss)
- The bench sucks
- Steve Kerr experiments too much with rotations
Go ahead, chuckle at #3.
To the Warriors credit, they just finished a 5 game road trip that took them to Philly, Washington, Chicago, New York, Atlanta and back home. In the Celtics defense, this was the 4th game of a West coast swing and 3rd game in 4 nights. Bottom line… the schedule is unkind to everyone.
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