Why the Warriors Will Seize Their Moment

Let’s begin with a question. Maybe you’ll find it foolish or obvious, and that’s fine; sport was essentially founded on the idea of disagreement anyway. Or, maybe, like me, you’ll find the question perplexing. Either way, here it is.

-== 5 Reasons Why the Warriors Will Beat the Cavaliers ==-

Let’s time travel* back to 1994. The Warriors have just been swept out of the 1st round of the playoffs, Run TMC is long gone, and Chris Webber’s about to exercise the escape clause in his rookie contract. My question to you is: would you rather the Warriors spend the next two decades as the laughingstock of the NBA but 21 seasons from now have a very good shot at a championship, or for the next 21 seasons the Warriors are consistently above 500 -sometimes decently above it, other times not as much- but no promise of even a Finals appearance. Which future would you have chosen?

*I’m open to your desired time travel method of choice: Dumbledore’s Pensieve, The Doctor’s TARDIS, or maybe the DeLorean from Back to the Future. Your call.

Credit: Derick E. Hingle – USA TODAY Sports

All the time fans say, “I just want a championship” or “I’d do anything for a title”. But really, would you? What if you knew that shot at a title was going to cost you 20 years of your basketball fandom? 20 years of agonizingly bad coaching, management, and play. It’d be so much easier just grab onto that assured two decades of winning -like the Sharks the past 15 years. It may not culminate in a parade, but at least it was 20 years of high-fives, playoff watch parties, and an ever-present hope.

I’m not going to pretend that I know which avenue Warriors fans would choose. I don’t even know the path I would choose. What I do know is that a lot of hard times have gone into this: a lot of blowout losses at Oracle, a lot of jerseys bought only to see that player soon gone (ie: Webber), a lot of “we’re looking forward to the draft”, and a lot of “what would it feel like to be good”.

The final thing I know is that it feels incredibly good to say this: the NBA Finals begin tonight, and one of the teams playing is the Golden State Warriors.

Now, to something I know significantly less definitively, how this Warriors vs Cavaliers NBA Finals is going to play out.

Since the Warriors are true favorites in this series (most sportsbooks have them with around a 66% chance of winning), I want to begin with two components of the series which could go wrong for the Warriors.
*This excludes any major injuries happening. Obviously that would be problematic.

-Possible problem: Draymond Green gets in foul trouble in multiple games. As stat nerds, Warriors fans, and the Western Conference can all attest, Draymond’s presence on the court is close to as vital as Curry’s. Plus-minus is a terrific indicator of player value, and Draymond’s reflects this. This post-season Draymond leads the NBA with a plus-minus of +167. The next closest are Steph Curry at +112, and Cleveland’s Iman Shumpert at +110. For context, according to Tim Kawakami of the San Jose Mercury News, the highest playoff plus-minus recorded since the year 2000 is Kobe’s +213 in 2001*. Draymond’s shredding up opponents like the Treaty of Versailles shredded up President Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points. Yet, foul trouble is a real concern. Cleveland has two of the best offensive rebounders in the league in Tristan Thompson and Timofey Mozgof. Draymond will need to remain vigilant of picking up cheap foul calls during those rebounding wars.

*The next highest are Ben Wallace’s +202 in 2004, and LeBron’s +199 in 2012.

-Possible Problem: Andre Iguodala and Harrison Barnes have multiple games where they both shoot poorly. The key point here being, both of them, and in the same game. The Warriors have proven they can tolerate an off night from Iggy or HB, but off nights from both will be unrecoverable against LeBron & friends. The shooting production the Warriors get from their wings will have far-reaching affects on how Cleveland can defend the Warriors. If HB and Iggy are non-factors, the Cavs can adjust their matchups to slow-down the Warriors’ go-to pick-and-roll with Draymond and Curry. They could rotate Lebron onto Draymond, with the knowledge that Tristan Thompson (who’s sneaky quick) guarding the Warriors’ small forward isn’t a concern -this is a less drastic version of what the Warriors did with Tony Allen. That’s only one small example, but the not so surprising point is that if HB and Iggy have off-nights on the same night, this series will get exponentially more difficult.

There are other concerns (like LeBron returning to his mean shooting percentage), but those are the two possible problems I can’t stop thinking about. But I’m not picking the Cavs, I’m picking the Warriors. Here are the reasons I believe the Warriors will win this series -explained in the same number of reasons that I believe there will be games in this series.

1) Pundits proclaim that the Warriors lack playoff experience. It seems they’ve forgotten that two years ago the Warriors were a blown lead away from being up 2-0 on the Spurs in the Western Conference Semifinals. Yes, they same Spurs team that should have beat LeBron in the 2013 Finals. The Warriors aren’t new to the show.

2) A short letter to those who don’t believe in the Warriors’ defense…

Dear stat ignoring talking heads who still think the Warriors’ defense is coached by Don Nelson,

You’re the basketball version of global warming deniers. In less words, you’re denying a fact.

Sincerely,

Rational basketball fans everywhere

3) The Splash Brothers are good for two wins by themselves. They’re like having Madison Bumgarner in your rotation during the playoffs; you just know they’re going to win you a couple games by themselves.

4) The Warriors are the NBA’s best fast breaking team, netting almost 22 points per game on the break during the playoffs. A catalyst of fast break points, is teams cross-matching* on defense. Cleveland will spend large portions of games in cross-matches. This will aid the Warriors’ already deathly fast break.

*Cross matching is when defensive players on one team are guarding different players than they’re being guarded by on the other end.

5) The Warriors’ bench is deeper than the Cavs’ bench. Let’s say both team’s 6th man -Iguodala for the Dubs and Shumpert for Cleveland- cancel out. After that the Warriors go Livingston, Ezeli, Speights, Barbosa, and Lee. Meanwhile, the Cavs have Dallavedova, and washed-up versions of Shawn Marion and James Jones. Kerr has a larger arsenal of reinforcements than Blatt.

6) This Warriors team is all-time great. Individual stats can be manipulated, so instead of using just one, I’ll use multiple. Statistical analysis site FiveThirtyEight ranked every NBA (and ABA) team* in the history of basketball (yes, in the history of basketball), and this Warriors team came out third in their rankings. The third best team ever. If you’re curious, the two teams they trailed were Jordan’s 96 and 97 Bulls. But if being ranked the third best team EVER isn’t good enough, you should also know that this Warriors team had the eight best regular season point-differential in the history of the NBA. If that’s not enough, remember that the Warriors won the supremely difficult Western Conference by 11 games and are currently 12-3 in the playoffs. So yea.

*They used Elo rankings, which are “a simple measure of strength based on game-by-game results”.

7) A Warriors win is a malleable event. They can win in multiple fashions. They’re the basketball version of open source software. As they proved vs Memphis, and to an extent vs Houston, the Warriors adapt and improve as the series continues.

If LeBron wins this series, it will be his greatest accomplishment yet. I don’t see it.

Warriors in seven.