Who Ya Got in a 7-Game Series: Atlanta Hawks or Golden State Warriors?
Statistics, standings and power rankings all agree: In the 2014-15 NBA season, it's the Atlanta Hawks, Golden State Warriors and then everyone else.
Atlanta owns the season's longest winning streak (19 games) and biggest conference lead (eight games). Golden State has the league's highest winning percentage (.830) and best net efficiency rating (plus-13.0 points per 100 possessions).
When these two teams take the floor for Friday's highly anticipated heavyweight prizefight, it's anyone's guess as to how the contest will play out. Strange things can happen in a single game: The Dubs have already been defeated by the bottom-feeding Los Angeles Lakers and Utah Jazz, and the Hawks have suffered losses to the Lakers and Orlando Magic.
A head-to-head tango can go so many different ways. But framing this discussion in the context of a seven-game series strips away some of those unpredictable elements.
If the law of averages wins out, which team is better equipped to survive a series with the other: Atlanta or Golden State?
Offense
Both teams hit the hardwood with a similar approach on the offensive end.
Each emphasizes movement of both the ball and its players to the highest degree. They fire off long-range shots with absurdity in both their volume and their success rates. These are by-the-numbers attacks, prioritizing the highly efficient areas near the basket and beyond the arc while largely avoiding the dreaded mid-range zone at all costs.
The game plan is similar, and so are the rosters.
Prolific point guards Stephen Curry and Jeff Teague are equal parts scoring and distributing threats. Sharpshooters Klay Thompson and Kyle Korver stretch a defense thin; bigs Andrew Bogut and Al Horford pick it apart with their passing. Versatile forwards Harrison Barnes, Draymond Green, Paul Millsap and DeMarre Carroll embrace whatever role is needed on that particular night.
Watching these teams is like witnessing poetry in motion. There is plenty of poise and, of course, copious amounts of production.
The Hawks take full advantage of every available weapon. Atlanta throws the fifth-most passes per game in the league (323.7) and assists on a higher percentage of its field goals than any other club.
"If you enjoy the aesthetic beauty of a basketball team that pings the ball around the floor quickly and decisively until it finds the open man, then you need to be watching Atlanta," wrote Sports On Earth's Brett Koremenos. "There isn't a single player on the team's roster that could be considered guilty of the dreaded 'ball stopper' label."
All five Hawks starters average between 11.7 and 17.1 points. Teague leads the team with a 25.7 usage percentage, which ranks just 36th among the 176 players logging at least 24 minutes a night.
Atlanta has scorers capable of taking over games—every starter has at least one 20-point outing, as do reserves Dennis Schroder, Mike Scott and Shelvin Mack—but it uses that quantity of threats against a defense. Teams don't know where the Hawks want to go, either over the course of a game or even in a single possession.
"When things aren't going right and you are having one of those 3-for-10 or 1-for-7 nights, you know somebody else will pick up the slack," Millsap said, per Michael Lee of The Washington Post. "This is what a full team does."
An equal-opportunity system is hard enough to defend as it is, but it grows to video-game-boss levels when it features capable shooters and willing passers at all five positions.
But the problem, as it pertains to this discussion, is the Warriors can do all those things and more. For all of the Hawks' firepower, none of their players can reach the incendiary levels of the Splash Brothers.
There have been four 50-point outbursts this season. Curry and Thompson each have one of those four, which puts them in exclusive, historic company, per ESPN Stats & Info:
Remember when the basketball world couldn't stop laughing at former Warriors coach Mark Jackson's declaration, per Monte Poole of the Bay Area News Group, that Curry and Thompson were "the greatest shooting backcourt in the history of the game"?
Well, no one's laughing anymore. In fact, voices outside the organization are now echoing Jackson's words.
"We've never seen better shooters than these guys—ever in this game," Dallas Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle said, per John Shea of the San Francisco Chronicle. "That's how good they are. They're not only great shooters, they're great one-on-one players, too, and they can both play the total game."
Curry and Thompson rank third and fourth, respectively, in made triples. But it's the strides they've made inside the arc that pushes them closer to the "unguardable" realm. Both are posting personal bests in two-point field-goal percentage (56.2 for Curry, 50.7 for Thompson) and free-throw rate (.266 and .215).
And as hard as it is to stop those two, that's only part of the battle. The Warriors have three other players averaging double-digit points (Barnes, Green and Marreese Speights) and four others posting at least 6.6 points a night (Bogut, David Lee, Andre Iguodala and Leandro Barbosa).
Over a seven-game series, the Warriors and Hawks might cancel each other out when it comes to depth. That leaves the towering ceilings of Curry and Thompson as the deciding factors in this category.
Advantage: Warriors
Defense
All the similarities that exist between the clubs at the offensive end disappear on the other side of the ball.
In essence, both are trying to do the same thing: protect the paint and limit three-point attempts. Then again, that philosophy could be copied and pasted under the goals of any NBA defense.
Despite pursuing the same results, they travel different paths to get there. Judging by the numbers each has posted, the respective methods of transportation are working just fine.
The Hawks aren't overloaded with great individual defenders. Carroll is a pest, but he's not quite on the level of the league's best perimeter stoppers. Horford is a deterrent near the basket, but there are more effective rim protectors elsewhere.
But what Hawks coach Mike Budenholzer has is a group of intelligent defenders who are willing to put in the effort needed to consistently get stops. Good defensive play starts with great energy, and the Hawks have no shortage of that.
Atlanta excels at playing good team defense. The Hawks have a genius-level understanding of floor positioning. Each player not only understands his responsibility but also knows where his teammates are and what they're doing.
Rotations are crisp and rarely even a split-second late. It's impossible to overstate the importance of that, since Budenholzer's scheme relies on his players' knowing when help is needed and who is supposed to bring it.
Again, this isn't any different from what the Warriors are trying to accomplish. But there is one major philosophical difference separating these two defenses: the concept of switching.
For Atlanta, switching is something to be avoided as often as possible.
"The Hawks try to do little switching on defense because Budenholzer says it creates just enough hesitation for the opponent to find a weak spot," wrote USA Today's Jeff Zillgitt.
For Golden State, switching is as important to its league-leading defense as Bogut's menacing presence underneath.
Outside of the center spot, the Warriors have built their defense with interchangeable parts. They have length on the perimeter, quickness on the interior and athleticism all over. That allows them to navigate screens by handing their assignment off to the next player. Guards can pick up forwards, forwards can match up with guards and Golden State's defensive machine doesn't miss a beat.
"The Warriors have multiple Swiss Army knives on the roster," an NBA scout told ESPN Insider Tom Haberstroh. "Andre Iguodala, Draymond Green and Klay Thompson have no problem guarding three or four positions seamlessly. And it's brutal to go against."
Teams looking for an advantage off a pick instead just move from one roadblock to the next.
"Switching is difficult to deal with, because it disrupts the point of each play where you're trying to get an advantage with a screen, and when you switch teams tend to stop moving the ball and the shot clock starts to wind down," Warriors coach Steve Kerr told USA Today's Sam Amick.
Switching requires a special type of personnel, but that's exactly what the Warriors have.
Bogut and Green rank second and fifth, respectively, in ESPN.com's defensive real plus/minus. Green leads all players with 3.3 defensive win shares, while Curry ranks seventh with 2.8. Iguodala was voted to the All-Defensive first team last season. Thompson and Barnes seem to be improving on that end by the second.
The Hawks have a very good defense, but the Dubs have a great one: first in defensive efficiency, first in field-goal percentage against.
Advantage: Warriors
Overall
There are far worse fates than losing this hypothetical matchup. Regardless of the outcome, there are still going to be at least 28 teams buried behind them.
The Hawks have been basically unbeatable over the last two-plus months.
They are 34-3 since Nov. 28. Budenholzer was honored as the Eastern Conference Coach of the Month for December and January. Atlanta has more All-Stars than any other team (three: Teague, Millsap and Horford). The Hawks just became the first team in NBA history to have their entire starting lineup honored as Co-Conference Players of the Month.
But the Warriors have been better longer and against tougher competition (19th in strength of schedule; Hawks are 27th, per ESPN.com).
"As good as the Hawks have been of late, Golden State is just flat-out better, and it frankly isn't all that close," wrote Bleacher Report's Jared Dubin.
How would a seven-game series play out?
Well, the Warriors are built to break down a defense like the one Atlanta presents. No switching means Atlanta's players would constantly be fighting around screens to try to keep up with Curry and Thompson. And any help defense provided would expose Atlanta to the passing that's become a staple of Golden State's attack under Kerr.
The Warriors could put up points in a hurry, too many of them for the Hawks to keep pace in the series. Golden State can limit Korver's shooting attempts by switching off his screens, throw length and athleticism in front of Teague and defend Horford straight-up with Bogut. Millsap is a nightmare matchup for most frontcourt players, but the versatile Green would be one of the exceptions.
The series could be epic, as Friday night's colossal clash should be. But regardless of which team wins this round, the numbers say the Warriors would be favored in a seven-game battle.
Unless otherwise noted, statistics used courtesy of Basketball-Reference.com and NBA.com.
