Predicting the Golden State Warriors NBA Finals game plan
The Golden State Warriors are going back to the NBA Finals for the sixth time in eight years. There, they will face whoever wins in game seven on Friday between the Boston Celtics and the Miami Heat.
Both teams have an elite defense and play through their superstar wings while also bringing their fair share of depth as well.
The Golden State Warriors will get either the Boston Celtics or Miami Heat in the NBA Finals. Let’s dive into how Steve Kerr may game plan for them.
Offensively, the Warriors should have a similar approach no matter who they play, and head coach Steve Kerr will likely have one big message for the team no matter who makes it to the Finals.
Limit turnovers. The one and only weakness of the Golden State Warriors during the playoffs has been the ridiculous turnover rate that they post in some games.
This is the only thing that has allowed them to lose four games, if they don’t make silly and avoidable turnovers, they probably sweep both the Denver Nuggets and the Dallas Mavericks.
Slowing down and playing more conservatively could help this as they don’t need to make the homerun plays to win against either one of these teams. They should also continue using Jordan Poole and Andrew Wiggins driving into the paint to create offense.
Not only does it force the defense to collapse, opening up shooters, but it also gives them opportunities at the rim and potential fouls from Robert Williams or Bam Adebayo. The less minutes those guys get, the better off the Warriors are.
Poole has shown an incredible ability to finish at the rim no matter how good the defense is and also led the league in free throw percentage. Baiting Williams or Adebayo into fouling him during a layup attempt can only lead to good things.
Wiggins has also been far more aggressive, playing the best basketball of his career against the Mavericks in the Western Conference Finals. Not only did he get to the rim much more often, but he also saw an upward trend in his free throw percentage which previously hadn’t been good at all.
Those two are the biggest x-factors the Warriors have as we already know what the trio of Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, and Draymond Green will bring on a nightly basis.
Defensively, the Warriors will have to take a different approach based on who wins Sunday night. Both teams have significant weaknesses that the Warriors can exploit.
Let’s explore them.