Warriors Weekly: Beating Teams In Different Ways

The Week that Was:

In what looks like Golden State’s best week of the season so far, the Warriors won three games under difficult circumstances. Even though the Rockets had plenty of their own injury problems, adapting to the loss of Andrew Bogut created problems early that the Dubs eventually overcame with a small lineup to pull away with a win.

Starting out a road trip without both of last season’s starting big men looked daunting, but the Warriors pulled out a surprisingly dominant win in Dallas and a surprisingly not dominant win against a Pelicans team missing Anthony Davis.

The Soapbox: Winning Differently

Some have spent time figuring out how to apportion credit for this remarkable run. I have very little interest in that because we simply cannot know all of the contours.

To me, the more interesting question is a substantially easier one: How good are the Warriors?

While I continue to believe that the Spurs are the favorites in the West and the entire league because no team this season has matched their pinnacle of the last NBA Finals, this past week showed how Golden State can win playoff series.

On Wednesday, both the Warriors and Rockets played heavily shorthanded and had their struggles with the opposing team’s surprisingly strong defense without their rim protector. Unlike Mark Jackson’s need for necessity to be the mother of invention, Coach Kerr tried out the “five out” lineup with Draymond at center early and filed that knowledge away. Partially thanks to facing an opponent who could not make them pay for doing so, a lineup of Curry, Livingston, Thompson, Barnes and Green laid waste to Houston by leaving their opponents without an effective counter.

Despite all their success, that grouping still sits at 14 minutes together because they did not make as much sense against the other opponents for the week. In the NBA, lightning in a bottle can be just that. The presence of Tyson Chandler and Omer Asik (not exactly offensive giants but still difference makers) took some of the upside out of that five out concept though I think it could have worked without Anthony Davis suiting up for the Pelicans.

Andrew Bogut said after the close Orlando win that coming out with victories without playing particularly well is a hallmark of good teams. I will add beating good teams in dramatically different ways to that list, especially when doing so without a pivotal piece. Those kinds of victories make hosting a playoff series substantially more likely and create the possibility of hosting two or more series at Oracle this spring.

The Week to Come:

The hits just keep on coming for the Warriors. After finishing out the road trip in Memphis, the Dubs come home and face the Thunder and Kings (suddenly without former Warriors assistant Michael Malone) at Oracle.

I have predicted one loss so many weeks in a row that I will keep it up with a 2-1 this time out.