Golden State Warriors Finding Their Best Brand of Basketball at the Perfect Time

Sitting atop the basketball world, the Golden State Warriors shouldn't have another level in front of them.

But despite having the strongest hand at this season's NBA poker table, the Dubs haven't even played their best hand yet.

There are still available avenues to improvement, ways to make the league's best team even better. It probably shouldn't be that way, considering the Warriors are pacing the NBA in winning percentage (.810) and net efficiency (plus-11.7 points per 100 possessions), but it is.

"We still have another level to get to. We know that," Warriors coach Steve Kerr said, per Comcast SportsNet's Monte Poole. "But we’ve had a great season. Hopefully, we'll keep it going."

Keeping it going requires no dramatics. What the Warriors have been doing is clearly working.

But cleaner execution and minor rotation adjustments could give this front-running heavyweight even more knockout power.

Addressing Weaknesses

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Admittedly, it isn't easy finding many areas where the Warriors are vulnerable.

Both traditional and advanced metrics place this team well ahead of the field. Golden State has the highest team field-goal percentage (47.7) and lowest field-goal percentage against (42.5). The Warriors rank second in offensive efficiency and first at the opposite end.

That type of two-way balance has historically delivered some spectacular results. And it's currently doing so for Golden State.

The Warriors are currently outscoring their opponents by an average of 10.2 points per game. As Tim Kawakami of the San Jose Mercury News noted, only seven teams have ever finished a season with a point differential of plus-10 or better. Six of those clubs captured world titles that year, and the seventh lost in the conference finals to one of those six.

Golden State is having a season for the ages. It's impossible to point out this team's shortcomings without nit-picking.

That being said, if you dig deep enough, you'll find a few nits to pick.

The Warriors can fall victim to the occasional attack from the turnover bug. They average 14.8 per game, which is tied for the 10th-highest mark in the league.

There are a few ways to explain that number.

For one, the Warriors play at breakneck speed. No team averages more possessions per 48 minutes than Golden State's 100.9. The more offensive plays the Warriors run, the more opportunities they have to cough up the ball. When looking at turnovers per 100 possessions, they are tied for 15th with 14.7.

Under Kerr, the Dubs have also placed a higher premium on ball movement. They are tossing out 314.5 passes per game, or about 21 percent more than they did last season (245.8). Playing this style requires a butcher's precision, and Golden State is still learning which passing lanes are too narrow to attack.

Ball control has been a massive factor in this team's success. When the Warriors protect their possessions, they're nearly unbeatable. They are 35-4 when they win the turnover battle and 16-8 when they don't.

"We are always talking about making simple plays and moving and cutting," Kerr said after the Warriors' 22-turnover performance in their 104-89 win over the Dallas Mavericks on March 6, per Poole. "Right now, we're dribbling into crowds, standing around and we are not cutting and setting screens."

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As the pace of play slows come playoff time, the value of each offensive possession rises. Too many empty ones, and it won't matter how much firepower this attack boasts.

Along that same line, the Dubs could close out their defensive possessions better. They are tied for 18th with a 74.1 defensive rebounding percentage. Draymond Green leads the team with 8.2 boards per game, which ranks just 24th overall.

The Warriors have survived those blemishes so far. But the combination of carelessness at the offensive end and an inability to finish plays at the other is not one they can afford to carry into the postseason.

Necessary Rotation Changes

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The Warriors have a 12-player talent pool as deep as any in the league. But playoff rotations don't typically feature that many bodies. Having the best eight-man collection can often determine which club parades down its city's streets over the summer.

Kerr is still aligning the pieces to that puzzle, but he's already dropping hints about what the future holds: more small ball, more Shaun Livingston and less David Lee.

With the league moving more toward pace-and-space offenses, there's an obvious need for all teams to get as versatile and athletic as they can. Luckily, the Warriors are built to thrive under those conditions.

"Small ball is the way everyone’s going and it’s good for us; we’re good at it," Kerr said, per Kawakami.

The smaller the Warriors have gone, the more dangerous they've become. Kerr has defined his closers, and they're all 6'8" or shorter. Andre Iguodala leads the team in fourth-quarter minutes (511), followed by Livingston (456), Green (375), Klay Thompson (372), Stephen Curry (352) and Harrison Barnes (351).

You have to get to the seventh player on that list to find the first big man: reserve forward-center Marreese Speights (240).

The numbers could skew even more toward the smaller players over the coming weeks. The Warriors have a plus-22.3 net efficiency rating with the Curry-Thompson-Iguodala-Barnes-Green lineup. That's nearly four points per 100 possessions better than their opening lineup, which is the league's most efficient high-volume group (minimum 350 minutes).

With so many long-limbed, athletic defenders on the floor, the Warriors can unleash their relentless switch-everything defense. Advantages teams typically get from setting a screen are lost, because Dubs defenders can cycle seamlessly from one assignment to the next, as ESPN.com's Ethan Sherwood Strauss explained:

"

The interchangeability of the resistance flusters offenses. Screen Iguodala, and here comes Thompson, who happens to be the exact same height. Screen Thompson, and here comes Green, who happens to be the exact same height. Golden State's defense is like the T-1000 Terminator villain who casually regenerates whatever body parts you blast off his corpus.

"

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Valuing versatility means expanding the 6'7" Livingston's role.

He can play anywhere on the perimeter and defend multiple positions. Offensively, he's the perfect piece to supplement Golden State's shooters. He's willing and able to find them with passes, and he can burn a defense for overplaying this team's marksmen.

"Shaun's an excellent passer and cutter," Kerr said, per Kawakami. "When the game goes small...Shaun is perfect, because it’s a passing and cutting game. There’s no rim-protection. He’s one of the best cutters in the league."

It took some time for the Warriors to figure out how to best use Livingston and for him to adjust to his new digs. But the comfort level is obviously growing between them, and his production has followed suit.

"It’s no coincidence that as the Warriors have played more of a small-ball lineup with great success over the last several games, Livingston has been at the very center of it, and will likely remain so until that changes," wrote Warriors.com's Brian Witt.

But with Livingston's role increasing, that means someone else's has gone the opposite direction. And Lee has been the loser of this numbers game.

He's been held out from three of the team's last seven games and only averaged 11.2 minutes when he's played. Those are jarring numbers in certain respects, given his All-Star past and gargantuan $15 million salary.

But they make sense from a basketball standpoint.

Lee missed the start of the season with a hamstring problem, and the Warriors caught fire without him. He's an awkward offensive fit for his inability to spread the floor, and his play on the opposite end has always left plenty to be desired.

As Kerr explained, per Poole, Golden State's growth without Lee has made it hard to justify forcing him back into the equation:

"

What's been tricky is that we’ve developed a formula while he was out that has been very effective for us. And you compound that with the fact that the whole league is going small at the 4-position and every night you're playing a 3-point shooter at the 4 spot. We've adapted to that. We've adapted to our early-season lineups. Draymond has obviously grabbed that position. So it's tricky.

"

Emotions and salary commitments aside, it really isn't that tricky.

The Warriors have played better on both sides of the ball without Lee.

Small ball might not work in every matchup. But when Kerr needs to go big, he has options.

Lee is the best interior scorer of the bunch, but Speights is a better athlete and more accurate mid-range shooter. Festus Ezeli gives the team rim protection behind Andrew Bogut.

Whatever the Warriors need, they'll have it. But as long as they can get by with an undersized group, that's clearly the most powerful weapon in their arsenal.

Golden State, currently riding its fifth winning streak of five-plus games, is flexing a new muscle stronger than any it has shown this season.

The Warriors were already too quick, too long and too flexible for their opponents. After moving to a smaller, speedier, better shooting group, the NBA's biggest matchup nightmare is getting even harder to handle.

Unless otherwise noted, statistics used courtesy of Basketball-Reference.com and NBA.com.

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