So how did GS do it?

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KingSpeed

KingSpeed

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In the final round, they benched Bogut who had apparently been key to their success all season, went small against a big Cleveland team, let themselves get out rebounded, and won the championship! With Draymond Green playing center! How did they do it? I'd like the experts here to explain it to me so that I can learn more about the game.

Also, as the Blazers build for next year, we should be excited to learn that you can win a championship one year after getting bounced in the first round without making any significant change to the roster. This GS team was pretty much the same roster that lost in the first round to the Clips.
 
The real question is, would this Warriors team beat any post-1975 NBA champion in a Finals series? Oh yeah? Which one?

Edit: changed ones to one.
 
Then we'll deal with 1965-1974. Then 1947-1964. Then the 1920s and 30s. Good thread ideas to keep us going through the summer.
 
Sure, I think they could have beaten some of them. I think the Mavericks and the Wade/Shaq lead Heat were weaker. But not sure who else I'd favor them against.
 
OK lets ask another question, how did they win 67 regular season games? In a year with a deep western conference...........
 
BlazerDuckSeahawkFan94 said:
The western conference was actually extremely beat up this year...
Click to expand...

Every year there are injuries, but how many seasons have we seen 9 tough teams. Hell even Phoenix and Utah who had losing records were tough. I can think of maybe two other years that were this balanced, but not many more.

67 wins is pretty impressive. That does not happen every year.

Golden State1w 67 15 0.817 0.0 42-10 13-3 39-2 28-13 8-2 W 4
Houston2sw 56 26 0.683 11.0 33-19 8-8 30-11 26-15 7-3 W 3
L.A. Clippers3x 56 26 0.683 11.0 37-15 12-4 30-11 26-15 9-1 W 7
Portland4nw 51 31 0.622 16.0 31-21 11-5 32-9 19-22 4-6 L 4
Memphis5x 55 27 0.671 12.0 35-17 9-7 31-10 24-17 5-5 W 1
San Antonio6x 55 27 0.671 12.0 32-20 8-8 33-8 22-19 9-1 L 1
Dallas7x 50 32 0.610 17.0 29-23 7-9 27-14 23-18 5-5 W 1
New Orleans8x 45 37 0.549 22.0 29-23 8-8 28-13 17-24 7-3 W 2
Oklahoma Cityo 45 37 0.549 22.0 25-27 10-6 29-12 16-25 4-6 W 2
 
With regards to health, I think its partly a byproduct of the great depth of the team and brutal western conference this year. Curry played the most minutes per game on the W's in the regular season at 32.7. They blew out their opponents in a significant portion of games and the starters wouldn't even play in the 4th quarter in a lot of games. They were giving out voluntary rest days to the older players left and right because we'd still win with Holiday/McAdoo/Barbosa as rotation players. The W's are generally an injury prone team and the last few seasons it was cited as a reason they couldn't make a deep run. Wasn't an issue this year and it ended up being a major advantage.

And no one said a word when we lost a razor close series to the Clips last year without Bogut. The year before when they lost to the Spurs in 6 it was reported that Bogut would not have been able to play game 7 and more recently its been reported that Curry may not have been able to go either. Lee barely played due to injury and he was a much bigger part of the team back then. And this year The Cavs came through the fugging east and no one said a word when they swept the demolished-by-injury Hawks.

Shit happens, tough titty. The Warriors dominated from day one until the last day of the fucking season. Clippers and Spurs were welcome to join us in the Western Conference Finals. Where the fuck were they? I acknowledge that the Warriors were fortunate with regards to health this season, but I take it as karmic retribution for decades of Warriors Basketball. You'll get no sympathy from me. We skullfucked the league this season and no one stepped up to do anything about it.
 
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Golden State did it because they were the best team in the league.

Cleveland didn't have to go through anything to get to the finals, yet no one is talking about that? I mean, they played the East, which is the equivalent to what GS went through in the west.
 
And with regards to how they did it:

They have a great player who commands a double team and an absurd amount of defensive focus. Most championship winning teams have a player like this.

They were the best defensive team in the league. They have ridiculous defensive talent. Iguodala, Green and Bogut are top 5 defenders at their positions. Klay, Livingston, and Ezeli all pretty good too. Curry and Barnes are solid at this point. They have smart players, many of whom are particularly smart defensive players. They have multiple rim protectors, a stupid amount of wing defenders, size, length, guys who get steals and force turnovers, good coaching and great schemes. There's just too many different ways they can play- and win.

They tend to play better as series go on and adjustments are made. Its concerning but a testament to their coaches maneuvering the chess pieces- and just having more, better pieces than your opponent.

And if is KS asking how they specifically did it against the Cavs: basically the Cavs were trying to milk clock, take W's out of their tempo, and were selling out to get the ball out of Curry's hands and let anyone else (besides Klay) shoot. The Bogut/Dray frontline was ineffective and getting smashed anyway and Iguodala had to be on the floor with LeBron at all times. Iguodala provided another ballhandler and he was the guy the Cavs left alone and dared to beat them, and he hit enough for the W's to win all 3 games he started. LeBron was less effective, the W's pace improved, Curry got more room to operate, and the Warriors had run them into the ground by the 4th quarter every game.
 
Run BJM, I'm curious as to what a smart fan of another organization thinks the Blazers should do this offseason to become real contenders, outside of the obvious (resigning Aldridge)
 
BRO, YOU KNOW BJM WAS OUT THERE BOOING JOE LACOB FOR TRADING HIS BOY MONTA AND RUINING THE ORGANIZATION
 
We lost all 3 games to the Warriors this season, but I was unimpressed. See under the blue tabs where it says "Shot Chart" and "Game Flow"? Click "Game Flow" to see how close the game was.

November 2: We were up 1 point with 14 seconds left, Klay made a 3, and we lost.
http://espn.go.com/nba/shotchart?gameId=400578334

March 24: Despite no Aldridge, Batum, Matthews, or Kaman, we led till the mid-3rd quarter, never got blown out, and were led only 11-14 points throughout the 4th.
http://espn.go.com/nba/shotchart?gameId=400579351

April 9: Without Matthews, we were down 1 point with 2 minutes left, then quit trying, typical of our last couple of weeks.
http://espn.go.com/nba/shotchart?gameId=400579466
 
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Aldridge is key obviously. Lillard has to continue to get better. Hes shows flashes that he can be elite, but its no sure thing. You're set at those two positions.

I'd say you're fine at C with Lopez but I say that assuming that LMA is willing to play C for long stretches. I really should't assume that, however, because its something LMA has complained about before. And he just generally is kind of soft. But he certainly has the ability to be great in that role and perhaps he can be sold on it. Leonard has value in his shooting ability as an alternative to Lopez for stints.

SG is looking obscure right now. Wes is inured and an impending UFA. I'm not sold on McCollum as a starting SG on a contender. The other middling prospects will likely amount to nothing or fringe rotation guys at best.

Batum is also looking like a weak link. But I think you want to keep him because you want players with his defensive ability, athleticism, versatility, ability to switch and guard multiple positions. I'm advocating Aldridge at C for long stretches and Batum would be great as a combo forward type in a smallball lineup like that. I think if thats the plan then the team needs one more big wing or combo forward who can also hit 3's to give them space and adequate overall size.

So that could be a target for their backup 4. They need a competent backup PG because McCollum is not to be trusted running the show and Lillard ain't exactly Steve Nash either. Oh and more wing defense and maybe another athletic, defensive PF.

Starting 5 overall was good this year but unfortunately we don't know what will happen with Wes, LMA could walk, even if LMA stays isn't Lopez an FA and Lillard soon after? If you want to be a contender LMA has to stay. After that, try to get a competent bench player with the MLE (someone better than Chris Kaman). Will you have cap room when the cap spikes up? Maybe try to get a star wing player, move Batum to the bench. And even if all this happens you'll still probably have to hit on one or two draft picks becoming competent rotation players.
 
Lillard said he'll resign, but he's a RFA anyway. We have the big combo forward in Dorrell but he hasn't made much of an impact. Well definitly upgrade backup PG, and CJ is perfect as that 6th man spark off the bench. I guess the good thing with Wes is that if he's not playing well we could give some of his minutes to CJ and still start him.
Personally I don't see LA at center because Leonard can play their in a pinch, and I think we'll still have to solid legit big men in the team. I think we can keep Kaman and use our MLE for a bigger need. if he underperforms we would give more minutes to Leonard or our starting 5 (maybe Lopez maybe not).
I dunno what it looks like from the outside but I think this teams needs guys with more passion, agressiveness, athleticism, and guys that can attack the rim. Our tip 3 big men will miss layins sometimes when they could've easily dunked and the only 2 guys that can attack off the dribble are CJ and Dame. I think that's why people want Batum gone as he plays too conservative at times, looks uninterested and doesn't attack off the dribble to score enough, especially given how athletic he is
 
jlprk said:
We lost all 3 games to the Warriors this season, but I was unimpressed. See under the blue tabs where it says "Shot Chart" and "Game Flow"? Click "Game Flow" to see how close the game was.

November 2: We were up 1 point with 14 seconds left, Klay made a 3, and we lost.
http://espn.go.com/nba/shotchart?gameId=400578334

March 24: Despite no Aldridge, Batum, Matthews, or Kaman, we led till the mid-3rd quarter, never got blown out, and were led only 11-14 points throughout the 4th.
http://espn.go.com/nba/shotchart?gameId=400579351

April 9: Without Matthews, we were down 2 points with 2 minutes left, then quit trying, typical of our last couple of weeks.
http://espn.go.com/nba/shotchart?gameId=400579466
Click to expand...

We got really fucked by the refs in that first game
 
jlprk said:
The real question is, would this Warriors team beat any post-1975 NBA champion in a Finals series? Oh yeah? Which one?
Click to expand...

Probably they would have won in '77.

barfo
 
jlprk said:
The real question is, would this Warriors team beat any post-1975 NBA champion in a Finals series? Oh yeah? Which one?

Edit: changed ones to one.
Click to expand...

I chose 1975 because these Warriors couldn't have beaten Rick Barry, Rookie of the Year Keith Wilkes, and Clifford Ray.

Man, is this 2015 Warrior team the crappiest NBA champion of all time or what.

In preseason I watched them vs. the Sonics after watching Wilkes for 3 years with Walton at UCLA, and was shocked that Wilkes' new coach Al Attles actually allowed him to dribble. Barry was that year's LeBron James.

In case I forget to mention it, this year's champ team really sucks. I'll remind you in 2055 that I was right.
 
KingSpeed said:
In the final round, they benched Bogut who had apparently been key to their success all season, went small against a big Cleveland team, let themselves get out rebounded, and won the championship! With Draymond Green playing center! How did they do it? I'd like the experts here to explain it to me so that I can learn more about the game.

Also, as the Blazers build for next year, we should be excited to learn that you can win a championship one year after getting bounced in the first round without making any significant change to the roster. This GS team was pretty much the same roster that lost in the first round to the Clips.
Click to expand...
They did it because they caught huge breaks over and over again with other teams key players coming down with huge injuries all the way through the playoffs. The Playoffs are not always about the best team. They are quite often about having a deep team that happens to be very lucky. If the Warriors had sustained even one key injury to either Curry or Thompson they would have been done. If they would have lost Iggy or even Bogut they would have been done also.
All four opponents that the Warriors faced had a team altering injury.
 
They did it because they had the MVP of the league. Sure LeBron is better, but none the less Curry is at least one of the best players in the league. One of the few who can consistently take over a game when needed. A player who demands so much attention that it allows everyone else on the team to excel. The dude is an amazing player to watch. They won because of him. He could not of done it alone, but the rest of the team could not have done it without him.

And yes they got lucky with injuries. But they still won 67 regular season games, so it was not all about luck. They have a good deep roster with a good young coach. But if Steph gets hurt next season they do not repeat. No doubt a deep roster and avoiding injuries to your stars are essential. (Steph only missed two games all year. )

But you have to have a closer, and Stephen is one of the best. We have a pretty good one too, so there is hope.
 
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It's true GSW got lucky in that every opponent they played had key players injured. And also that their own team stayed healthy; many of their players had injury histories, including Curry.

That being said, EVERY championship requires some luck. Players get hot/cold at the right/wrong time. A play that works a million times doesn't. A miracle shot goes in, right, Damian? A 95% FT shooter misses one. There are thousands of plays and any one goes right/wrong.

If it were just being the best, the A's would have taken home the World Series Trophies in 1988 and 1990. A game and a series have so many small components. Had they missed free throws in Game 1 they don't win in OT, they lose. Had they made free throws they win Game 2 without OT. Maybe one call or non call out of thousands had an impact.

Give credit. They won. They deserve to celebrate. Even though it's kind of tough being surrounded by it.
 
Andre igoudala, klay thompson, draymond green, bogut, festus. At least 4 of them are or could be defensive teamers. That's how. Jk.

In reality, I think it takes a lot of luck, being healthy, and really damn good. Also helps that steph curry didn't have to guard a half decent player...once...in the playoffs. Including Kyrie who was torching him on one leg.

You gotta play whoever shows up to play you. All credit to the Warriors.

I want to see what happens next year, before attempting to emulate them. They are bringing almost everyone back supposedly (Run JDM I'm sure knows more). Let's see how the cookie crumbles when you don't have 4 all stars injured (Love, Kyrie, Conley, Holiday), other key players (Varejao, Allen, P Bev, D Mo). I think going small woulda been a little tougher if all teams were healthy, not to take anything away from the Dubs. A strategy that worked is always well deserved.
 
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