Warriors Cooking with Familiar Recipe to Reclaim Regular-Season Identity
The Golden State Warriors' 98-78 bulldozing of the Memphis Grizzlies on Wednesday was a study in reclamation.
The Dubs' latest win, which gave them a 3-2 series advantage, felt in some ways like an extension of the Game 4 victory that contained many elements of their regular-season dominance—but not all of them. That contest saw Stephen Curry get loose, the defense pick up and order generally restored.
But Game 4's real storyline was the defensive tweak the Warriors made to effectively eliminate Tony Allen from the series: ignoring him entirely on offense and kick-starting a swarming defensive attack that fueled the offense.
That win wasn't a top-to-bottom, signature effort from Golden State.
This one was.
Curry shook off some early gaffes to bury four first-quarter threes, three of which came in the final two minutes and 47 seconds of the period, sparking a 12-2 run that completely erased the early lead Memphis had built. When the MVP sank a trey to end the quarter, giving Golden State the lead, Oracle Arena skipped right past "loud" and locked its permanent setting on "deafening frenzy."
Curry was the catalyst, just as he'd been all year. Observers such as Haralabos Voulgaris, Diamond Leung of the San Jose Mercury News and Grantland's Jason Concepcion were among the many blown away:
"Ya. Thats an MVP.
— Haralabos Voulgaris (@haralabob) May 14, 2015"
The MVP wound up with 18 points, seven rebounds, five assists and six steals on 6-of-16 shooting. All of his field goals were triples.
Led by Curry, the Warriors crushed Memphis from long range—another regular-season staple.
On the night, Golden State hit 14 of 30 from deep, while the Grizzlies connected on just four of their 15 attempts.
The disparity pointed to the gap in offensive philosophies that has made the Grizzlies' margin for error so small all series long. In Game 5, the Warriors built a lead that always seemed bigger than it was because the Grizzlies simply couldn't generate high-percentage looks from deep.
You can't erase a huge deficit with long twos.
Especially with the Warriors defending like the top-ranked unit they were all year.
By holding the Grizzlies to just 16 points on 21 possessions in the second quarter, the Warriors seized momentum. At the half, Marc Gasol was just 3-of-11 from the field, and the Dubs had generated 27 points from distance against Memphis' three.
Zach Randolph's first-quarter triple was the Grizzlies' only long-distance make of the half.
The Warriors' role players also chipped in with timely contributions, just as they had during the year.
Harrison Barnes was particularly impressive, trying to dunk nearly everything he touched, attacking the rim and drilling open three after open three. He finished with 14 points on 4-of-8 shooting and was instrumental in harassing Gasol into an 8-of-22 effort from the field.
Most stunning of all, Barnes managed to survive this ugly spill at the end of the first half:
Draymond Green did his typical dirty work on D. But he was also a key ball-mover in Golden State's offense, which looked smoother than it had at any point in the series. His nine assists were a team-high.
Klay Thompson did his best to snipe his way out of his recent slump, finishing with 21 points, five assists and four rebounds on 7-of-16 shooting. He also hounded Mike Conley all over the floor and buried the free throw that put the Warriors up by 15 points at the 4:02 mark of the third quarter—a significant margin as explained by NBA.com's John Schuhmann:
Additional familiar elements included the Warriors' relentless pace-pushing. Even on made baskets, Golden State hustled the ball up the floor as though every possession were a transition opportunity. The persistence paid off, as the Dubs crushed Memphis in fast-break points, 29-6.
No Warriors recipe would have been complete without peppering in a few mistakes. Golden State's aggression bordered on recklessness throughout the regular season, and it made certain to step over that line a few times in Game 5.
Curry got a little careless, turning the ball over five times. The Warriors also botched three first-quarter breakaways with ill-advised passes.
In terms of reclaiming their regular-season identity, the Warriors' 16 giveaways revealed them to be completists.
All of those ingredients combined to create a wholly familiar product: a blowout win marked by a bunch of meaningless fourth-quarter minutes. Golden State's work was done after three periods, and the final 12 minutes, just like so many from the 2014-15 campaign, were a formality.
And as was the case all year, head coach Steve Kerr was quick to isolate areas the Warriors could improve after a blowout win, per the Warriors' official Twitter account:
This was as close to a Warriors' vintage performance as we've seen in these playoffs...insofar as anything reflective of a season that ended a month ago can be called vintage. All of the usual elements were present.
There just aren't many reasons to believe the Warriors will lose the form they've found.
Allen missed the game with a sore hamstring, sure, but his likely return, as Yahoo Sports' Marc J. Spears noted, won't mean much. Golden State solved him in Game 4, as CBSSports.com's Matt Moore noted:
"It’s not Allen. Quit saying that. They got KILLED the last game with Allen in. It’s not Allen, it’s no one thing. It’s everything Warriors
— Hardwood Paroxysm (@HPbasketball) May 14, 2015"
Game 6 in Memphis will be a knock-down, drag-out affair, and the Warriors are sure to meet plenty of increasingly worthy foes as their run continues beyond this series.
But something important happened Wednesday—something that might make the schemes and talent of those prospective opponents irrelevant.
The Warriors proved that, regardless of the matchup or stakes, they could play their game.
Sixty-seven regular-season wins taught us that nobody has a better one.
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