(Photo: Kyle Terada / USA Today Sports)
Throughout the season, I’ve been somewhat critical of Mark Jackson. Issues with David Lee’s productivity in certain lineups, rotations leading to underperforming offense and play-calling.
I couldn’t quite understand why a team with so much offensive firepower was unable to break the Top 10 offensively, floating around .500 and fighting for an 8th seed.
It wasn’t a situation of doom and gloom where I believed this team was going nowhere. I recognized the tough early schedule, the early injury bug to key players and the time needed to acclimate new players to the rotation.
But it just seemed off, the Golden State Warriors were, and to a degree still are, struggling to find consistent efficient offense game to game.
Even over the winning streak, barring a few games such as in Miami, the offense has been inconsistent. It’s sputtered with flurries of high production and mostly been a grind-it-out approach to each game. It almost felt as though every internal dialogue I had with myself about the Warriors turned into a bitter diatribe of flaws instead of focus on the positives.
Why weren’t they going small? They scored 10 more points per 100 possessions when they did!
Why was he utilizing a full bench unit? Those five players have a hard time scoring versus anyone!
Why is Jackson being so stubborn?
Till it dawned on me one day, listening to Jackson’s monotonous barrage of catch-phrase responses for the hundredth time to reporters, I truly wasn’t listening at all.
This simply isn’t the Warriors of the last 20 years we’ve all grown accustom to, the run-and-gun bunch looking to outscore opponents 130-120.
They are still very capable of scoring points at as fast a pace as anyone and will do it from time to time, but that’s simple not the priority or the tactical preference of the team.
The Warriors are truly attempting to be a ‘defense first team’ the way you classically associate the San Antonio Spurs or Chicago Bulls, and it shouldn’t be such a surprise.
Generally the first thing that comes to mind with anyone discussing the Warriors is the “Splash Brothers” or perhaps “Mr. Double-Double” David Lee. And yes, they are offensively talented, but beyond that every other player on the roster would aptly be described as clearly a defense-first player.
Signing players like Andre Iguodala and Andrew Bogut to long term large contracts, and picking up players such as Toney Douglas, Jermaine O’neal, drafting players like Draymond Green and Festus Ezeli, only reinforce this change in approach.
The type of player you would imagine playing on the 1990s New York Knicks or Indiana Pacers — teams Jackson played on — physical, aggressive, confrontational and perhaps even a little dirty. The type of players who would get into a physical altercation with Blake Griffin on Christmas day and not back down. That is the identity of these Warriors, not the Splash Brothers.
Jackson, who had success playing with such similar physical defensive-minded players as Dale Davis, Antonio Davis, Charles Oakley, Patrick Ewing and so on.
That’s the brand of basketball he believes wins, and that’s what is building in Golden State.
These 2013-14 Warriors rank 3rd in the NBA in defense and that jumps to 2nd when they’ve had their full starting lineup. This has come by prioritizing defense and rebounding over all else.
The coaching staff has the data; they have to know they are more likely to score when Harrison Barnes plays power forward, for example.
Jackson knows Stephen Curry finds easier shots when they go small. He just doesn’t prioritize it. And Jackson was willing to deal with the early season lumps and losses that came with the adjustment to create the culture.
He prioritizes giving players like Green or O’Neal minutes to going small with gimmicky offense first lineups. Players who play strong defense and the little plays that don’t show up in the stat sheet like boxing out or hard screens, because it sets the tempo for the team he wants to create.
That team is the one capable of handling the physical rigors and style of basketball associated with the playoffs to gain to the ultimate goal, challenging for a championship.
The numbers don’t disagree with him either.
Continually staying big has led the Warriors to currently being the league’s top defensive rebounding team, pulling 77% of defensive rebounding opportunities, and 2nd best overall rebounding team. Jackson is sacrificing offense to build a defensive unit, which controls the glass, and can stay in any game.
He’s betting that his offensive talents will find ways to score, even if it’s not as efficiently as in optimized lineups, while he concentrates on making sure that, as a unit, they are as defensively stout as possible to keep the opposition from getting what they want.
The last twelve NBA champions have all ranked in the top ten defensively, eight of which ranked in the top five, many first or second.
It’s the old adage goes ‘offense sells tickets, defense wins games,’ that Jackson seems to believe in.
And while he has tinkered with lineups and rotations to manufacture offense when needed, he’s not sacrificing the overall philosophy of the tough defensive-minded approach.
The Warriors are now relatively healthy, and finally meshing together with this approach. They just reeled off ten straight wins with this approach, a streak in which they allowed 97.9 points per 100 possessions, better than any team except for Indiana.
The early growing pains of adjustment are slowly paying off, even if it hasn’t been the Warriors we knew.
We can all bicker if he’s right or wrong. Jackson is betting this approach and the new Warriors will bring the ultimate goal come spring-time, when Warriors fans crave a legitimate chance to challenge for a championship.
keywords: mark jackson coaching style
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