Golden State Warriors: 8 things to worry about vs. Rockets in WCF
The Coaching Battle
Worry Level: Low
Mike D’Antoni is an awesome coach. He was key in revolutionizing the game, playing a huge part in creating the offense we see today from the Golden State Warriors.
And it’s not like the Rockets necessarily needed to fix their offense with James Harden at the helm. The year before D’Antoni’s arrival, the Rockets were among the top-8 regular season teams in the league in offensive rating (105.6).
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The following two years under D’Antoni: 111.8 (2nd) and 112.2 (2nd). This year in the playoffs, they lead the league in offensive rating (111.1). Their postseason defense has also been pretty solid this year, ranking second in the league (102.1) behind the Golden State Warriors (99.3).
Yet I can’t say for sure whether D’Antoni will deliberately out-coach Steve Kerr; rather, the real coaching battle will happen between Kerr and Golden State’s rotation. If Kerr tries to force matchups (ex. Zaza Pachulia vs. Clint Capela) or ends up being too hesitant to play all his cards right out of the gates (ex. not spamming the KD-Curry pick and roll), we could be in for a long series.
#StrengthInNumbers