Defense Key to Golden State Warriors’ Finals Success

If I were to tell you prior to Game 5 of the NBA Finals that the Golden State Warriors would win despite Steph Curry shooting 0-9 from three, you’d call me crazy.

And if I were to tell you that the Dubs would shoot 22% from three as a team with over 30 misses, yet still win?

Even crazier.

How about if I said that on top of those two stinker stats, the Warriors would also be outrebounded by 8 and shoot 16 fewer free throws than the Celtics?

That sounds like an automatic loss.

I can already hear one of Bob Fitzgerald’s patented lines like “just start up the bus.”

Yet despite a stat line that indicates a sure-fire loss, the Warriors won.

How?

While it’s easy to glamorize the Golden State Warriors’ offensive performances, their defense has been the base of their winning formula.

An excellent offensive night from Andrew Wiggins certainly played a role, as well as an uncharacteristically low 6 total turnovers from the Dubs.

But what about the Dubs’ defense? That was — and has been — the secret sauce. Steve Kerr called it the “key” to their Game 5 win.

The Warriors have held the Celtics to less than 100 points three times in this finals. That’s more than the last three teams the Celtics played in this postseason were able to muster combined.

The Warriors’ defense is holding the Celtics to 103 points per game on 43% shooting. Compare that to their regular season stats of 111.8 points per game on 46.6% shooting and you can see the havoc that the Warriors have wreaked on the defensive end.

FiveThirtyEight, the same people who famously predicted the Warriors would miss the playoffs this year, also gave the Celtics an 80% chance to win this series. They cited, among other things, the Celtics’ league-leading defense.

Yet, flipping the script, the Warriors’ defense has gained the edge thus far. Did their algorithm overlook that, or what?

And the pundit takes have been hilarious.

ESPN’s Brian Windhorst watched this defensive masterclass and all he could say is that it was a “checkbook win.”

Skip Bayless watched game 5 and all he could think about is that Steph Curry’s legacy should be in jeopardy.

What a joke.

It is true the Celtics have an elite defense, and this series is far from over, but does no one realize the masterpiece that the Dubs defense has put together?

The discourse has largely been around how easy it is to expose Curry and Poole, or how bad Draymond — their defensive anchor — has played.

But the conversation should be about how, as a unit, the Dubs have been largely baffling the Celtics’ offense.

Wiggins has been incredible on Tatum. Draymond seems to be back in his groove. Looney has been sensational. GPII has been GPII. Steph has taken a clear step into a new echelon of defensive skill (at 34 years old!). And Klay has started to show flashes of the top-tier defender that he was pre-injuries.

The Warriors have been an up and down team all year, which has been frustrating knowing that they aren’t living up to the tremendous potential that they have. Perhaps because of these postseason nights that they don’t show up, like the 40-point loss to the Grizzlies, or the Game 3 finals blowout to the Celtics, it’s easy to lose sight of the big picture: the defense has been great besides those big outliers.

The Warriors’ 3-2 lead has been anchored by their grit and cohesiveness on D. And if they are going to close this series out with one more win, you can bet that their defense will be the driving force.