Golden State Warriors Need to Fix Broken Front Line in Critical Second Unit
It isn't easy finding flaws with the Golden State Warriors.
They are the NBA's best team both in terms of winning percentage (.815) and net efficiency rating (plus-11.9 points per 100 possessions). If the Dubs don't have the MVP front-runner in Stephen Curry, it's because the sweet-shooting point guard has too much help around him.
Any complaints about a team with five different winning streaks of at least four games and no losing streaks longer than two inherently feel a bit forced. But with the razor-thin margin for error at the top, the Warriors can't afford to get comfortable.
It's this perpetual effort to put their best foot forward that could lead first-year coach Steve Kerr to consider a small but significant adjustment. Something needs to give on a second-team frontcourt that features defensive liabilities at both interior spots: David Lee and Marreese Speights.
There isn't a rim deterrent in the equation.
Lee has averaged a woeful 0.4 blocks per 36 minutes in his career. Speights has allowed almost an identical conversion rate at the rim (49.1 percent) as the aging, always defenseless Amar'e Stoudemire (49.2).
Plugging Lee and Speights into the same frontcourt is an open invitation for the opposing team to attack at will. But it's a look Kerr has deployed in 23 games for a total of 196 minutes already.
Statistically, the two haven't performed poorly together. During their shared floor time, the Warriors have thrashed their opponents by 15.5 points per 100 possessions. Considering that's a better net rating than Golden State's league-leading mark, it sounds pretty impressive.
But the truth is it's hard to suit up for this team without posting ridiculous efficiency ratings.
Of the NBA's top five leaders in plus-minus, four play for the Warriors: Stephen Curry, Draymond Green, Klay Thompson and Andrew Bogut. You can throw a couple darts at this roster and probably hit an efficient pairing. The Warriors have 28 different two-man tandems that have played at least 100 minutes and posted a net rating above plus-10.
Even if the numbers aren't critical of the Lee-Speights lineup, that doesn't mean it deserves a place in Kerr's rotation.
Defensively, it makes Golden State extremely vulnerable in the middle. Both allow their matchup to shoot better than they do on average (plus-3.6 percent against Speights, plus-0.6 percent versus Lee). Speights' focus prevents him from being a better help defender, and Lee's lack of explosiveness limits what he can do around the rim.
An exposed interior puts more pressure on the perimeter defenders. If their man slips behind them, they'll likely find their way to a basket. That restricts how aggressive they can be on ball-handlers and out in passing lanes. And the Dubs can't afford to lose their aggression when they generate more of their offense in transition than any team in the league (19 percent of their points come off fast breaks).
Part of what has made Golden State such an effective, opportunistic defense is the flexibility of this roster.
"For the Warriors, positions mean so little on defense because they've built a roster comprised of guys the same size," wrote ESPN.com's Ethan Sherwood Strauss. "The players and coaches call it 'versatility,' a common set of qualities that allows the team to constantly switch on and off the ball."
The Warriors have a swarm of athletic, long-armed defenders to throw at the opposition. Green, Thompson, Harrison Barnes, Andre Iguodala, Shaun Livingston and Justin Holiday all stand between 6'6" and 6'8", and they're all capable of picking up multiple positions.
Golden State can disrupt any screening action by simply switching off the pick. Rather than losing a step trying to navigate around the screen, the Warriors simply greet the ball-handler on the other side with an active, mobile defender.
There's an art to playing this defense. It requires not only having the right physical traits to pull it off, but also the mental discipline to make the proper reads at all times. The slightest hesitation can mean the difference between smothering a ball-handler or missing an open shooter.
When the right pieces are in place, the Warriors avoid those hiccups.
"When some teams switch, there are gaps," Green told Grantland's Zach Lowe. "We don't have any gaps."
It's a brilliant strategy when executed properly, and one of the biggest keys to Golden State's top-ranked defense.
But it's also a card the Warriors have started taking out of their hand, as Bay Area News Group's Adam Lauridsen explained:
"With the return of David Lee and the resurgence of Leandro Barbosa’s offense, Kerr has gone away from his "switch everything” defensive squads. In their place have emerged reserve line-ups with two below average defenders that are constantly exploited and abused by opponents... The Warriors may be good enough defensively to hide either Lee or Barbosa — but not both.
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Add Speights to the equation, and that's another liability to cover without enough bodies to do it. It's a tough puzzle for Kerr to solve, as tweaking his starting five isn't an option.
Kerr couldn't adjust his opening lineup even if he wanted to.
This offense falls apart when Curry (minus-13 points per 100 possessions) or, to a lesser extent, Thompson (minus-eight points per 100 possessions) takes a seat. Bogut has a similar impact on the defense (5.6 points per 100 possessions better when he plays). Benching Barnes might damage his development, and starting Iguodala would take away the second team's top playmaker.
Moving Green to the reserves would help with their defensive deficiencies, but it could also create new ones for the starters.
"Draymond...is the key to our defense," Kerr told NBA.com's John Schuhmann. "He's the key figure, because as the power forward, he's frequently involved in screen-and-rolls. And because he's quick enough and active enough to switch out onto a point guard, we're able to stifle a lot of the first options out of the opponent's attacks."
That means this problem with the Lee-Speights tandem won't be solved with a promotion. Rather, it's more likely to involve lessening the load for both.
They're averaging a combined 30 minutes per game in the month of February, and that's as high as that number can climb. More importantly, their playing time must be staggered to keep a defensive presence on the floor as much as possible. The other 66 frontcourt minutes should be split between Green, Barnes and Bogut, with raw rim protector Festus Ezeli seeing some action in the right matchup.
The Warriors are going to need Lee's interior scoring and rebounding. Speights' mid-range has added to the weaponry in this potent offense's arsenal.
But those are both small pieces in Golden State's grand puzzle. And neither is powerful enough to justify the defensive problems that come with playing the pair together.
If any shuffling is needed by the Bay, it's the kind that increases the exposure of their two-way talents and diminishes the roles of their offense-only contributors. The problem isn't serious enough to spoil the regular season, but it needs to be addressed before what should be a lengthy playoff run.
Unless otherwise noted, statistics used courtesy of Basketball-Reference.com and NBA.com.
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