Warriors Are Spurs' Biggest Threat in Western Conference
Having buried their biggest rival and claimed California supremacy, it's time for the Golden State Warriors to set their sights a little higher.
Conference supremacy is the next item of business, and that means pushing the San Antonio Spurs out of the West's top spot.
Intrastate Stomping
The Dubs smashed the Los Angeles Clippers into subatomic dust Wednesday, building a 23-point halftime lead and cruising to a 121-104 victory that wasn't as close as the final score indicates. On both ends, Golden State had its way, riding a wave of Oracle Arena-generated energy to hot shooting and shutdown D.
The Clippers continued their disturbing early-season trend of clunky offense and step-slow rotations, giving the charged-up Warriors little resistance. You can't always sense the outcome of a game is inevitable in the first quarter, but L.A.'s lack of urgency made a huge Warriors win a safe bet from the early stages.
ESPN's Arash Markazi passed along Doc Rivers' comments clearly indicating he knew his team was not playing well enough to compete with the Warriors:
Andrew Bogut, absent from last season's seven-game playoff series, was key. He neutralized DeAndre Jordan, grabbed every available board and functioned as an offensive hub. He inhaled nine rebounds and doled out three dimes in the first quarter alone, finishing with six points, 14 rebounds and five assists in 34 minutes.
Bogut's partner in grit, Draymond Green, played what might have been his best-ever game as a pro, drilling threes in bunches, bodying up anyone he came into contact with and, of course, very nearly getting Blake Griffin's sweat on his tongue.
Yeah, Green was into this one. He finished with 24 points, eight boards and five assists on 8-of-13 shooting.
Stephen Curry did his usual sniping, burying contested triples from a standstill and weaving his way into traffic—typically meeting with great results even when he didn't score. His 28 points were a game-high.
Oh, and Klay Thompson, the league's leading scorer coming into the game, quietly added 19 points on 7-of-13 shooting.
On the whole, the Warriors shot 58.1 percent from the field and 60 percent (not a typo) from three. They also smothered an already vulnerable Clippers team on the other end. Nothing came easy for L.A.'s big guns; Chris Paul and Blake Griffin were frustrated all night, finishing with a combined 29 points on 30 shots.
Griffin pulled down just a single rebound.
L.A.'s underwhelming wings were exposed, as the Warriors cheated off Matt Barnes and his broken jumper all night, gumming up every pick-and-roll with an extra defender in the middle. Nate Duncan of Basketball Insiders noted Barnes' dismal performance:
Plenty could change between now and the next time these two teams meet, and we should expect Doc Rivers to sort things out to some degree. But it is abundantly clear that, right now, the Clippers are not in the same class as the Dubs, as confirmed by a GSWStats tweet:
Aiming Higher
The San Antonio Spurs are the toast of the conference—defending champs who have been too good for too long to doubt. They don't have the West's best record (they're only 2-1), but by virtue of their perpetual awesomeness, we should all be on board with terming them the team to beat.
They've earned that.
The Dubs, for their part, have earned something, too: status as San Antonio's biggest conference threat.
Golden State has the most balanced roster in the league. Already affirmed as an elite defensive team after ranking third in defensive efficiency a year ago, the Warriors have untethered their offense. Through four games, they've cracked the 120-point barrier twice.
They only did that eight times in the entire 2013-14 season.
At present, the Warriors rank seventh in offensive efficiency and first in defensive efficiency, per NBA.com.
Not bad.
D.J. Foster feels "empowering" and properly positioning Bogut was one of Kerr's best strategic decisions:
What's particularly scary about the Warriors is their potential to get even better. David Lee, an All-Star two years ago, played just seven minutes against L.A. and hasn't been healthy all season. Adding him to a reserve corps that needs one more scorer could give Golden State what amounts to two playoff-caliber five-man units.
That may not happen right away, as Lee is slated for an MRI on Nov. 6 after tweaking his bad hamstring, according to Rusty Simmons of the San Francisco Chronicle. But at some point this season, Golden State will add another potent weapon to the mix.
We saw the Warriors hit and sustain their stride for the first time this season against the Clips. The ball moved, players cut and open shots materialized en masse. Remember, though: This is a brand-new offense under head coach Steve Kerr, which means the Dubs haven't even come close to mastering the nuances of the scheme.
It's hard to imagine, but Golden State is going to get better on offense.
Not Alone
The Warriors aren't the only hot starter out West; the Memphis Grizzlies and Houston Rockets boast matching 5-0 marks.
The new pieces fit in Houston, and Trevor Ariza has been on fire in support of a potent James Harden-Dwight Howard core. Notably, the Rockets went 4-0 against the Spurs during the 2013-14 regular season.
But if we're looking for a team to snatch the the actual top seed and figurative "team to beat" moniker from the Spurs, Houston is still a squad without a real offensive system or defensive reputation. And it lost a lot of depth over the summer, which makes it more vulnerable to injury than it was a year ago.
Memphis has plenty of stopping power, and Marc Gasol in a contract year has proved to be a very potent weapon. But even with Vince Carter and Quincy Pondexter shoring up the wings, the Grizzlies are still a team that will struggle to score consistently.
We know the Oklahoma City Thunder are in trouble because of injuries, and if you're expecting a shout-out to the 4-1 Sacramento Kings in a realistic conversation about sustainable play, keep on walking.
The West is loaded with talented teams. We haven't even mentioned the Portland Trail Blazers or Dallas Mavericks yet. But nobody—nobody—has looked better than the Warriors so far.
They boast the biggest per-game margin of victory in the league (15.8 points per game) and have the talent and leadership to keep getting better.
What they did to the Clippers was just one game, but it might have also been the beginning of something special.
Haymaker Landed
Calling the Warriors the Spurs' biggest challengers is a long-term proposition. It's not something we'll determine definitively for months. Houston could stay hot, Memphis could show more offensive punch and the Dubs could slip as their schedule toughens up.
But at this very moment, Golden State looks flat-out fearsome.
We'll see a head-to-head test of that fearsomeness soon enough. San Antonio comes to Oracle Arena on Nov. 11.
"This was a haymaker," ESPN analyst Jeff Van Gundy said in the aftermath of Golden State's dominant win over the Clippers. He was right—the Dubs knocked Los Angeles out cold.
It's time to move up a weight class.
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