Golden State Warriors Sending Clear Message to Entire NBA Playoff Field
Don't let the single-digit margin of victory or Anthony Davis' fourth-quarter explosion in Game 1 fool you.
The Golden State Warriors treated their postseason opener the same way they approached the vast majority of the 82 regular-season contests they just finished utterly dominating.
They felt things out, blew the game open and then coasted to the finish.
If you thought the Dubs would buckle a bit under the pressure of playing their first meaningful game in months, there were some faint signs early. Golden State looked a little tight in the opening period of its 106-99 Game 1 win over the New Orleans Pelicans on Saturday.
Everyone from Stephen Curry to Andrew Bogut played carefully from the outset. Anyone who'd watched the Warriors for most of the season could see it: They weren't quite right on offense.
But the defense was as suffocating as ever, more than living up to its No. 1 per-possession rating on the year.
Golden State held the Pelicans to 13 points in the first quarter and flat out took the ball away from Davis more than once. The offense eventually relaxed and put up 28 points in the opening period.
We all know the final score wound up much closer than expected. A seven-point margin says, objectively, New Orleans had a chance to win.
But what the Pelicans' 33 points and Davis' individual contribution—20 points—in the fourth quarter actually mean depend on what parts of the game you believe offer the most predictive worth.
If you think the Pelicans discovered some vulnerability in the Warriors defense, or if you think Davis excelled in that fourth quarter because he decided to impose his will and otherworldly talent, maybe you're not overly impressed by the Warriors' win.
Maybe you think the Pelicans exposed something that gives them a shot.
But if you value the three quarters of the game in which the Warriors felt any kind of competitive urgency— "appropriate fear" is the term head coach Steve Kerr has borrowed from Gregg Popovich—then this contest was basically an extension of the Warriors' historically excellent regular season.
They found their footing on the strength of elite defense, pulled away and then couldn't find a reason to keep caring as much down the stretch.
Look, this isn't an ideal pattern if you're a Warriors fan. In a perfect world, the Dubs would be gearing up for their title run by turning every 25-point lead into a 45-point evisceration.
But that's simply not how it works, and it's not hard to understand why.
The Warriors have made a habit of definitively proving who the better team is long before the final score makes it official. When contests are effectively over and the fourth quarter is so often a formality (Curry, this year's possible MVP, sat out a whopping 19 of them this year), it's difficult to play out the final 12 minutes with the same intensity as the first 36.
Just look at how the Dubs operated all season:
That's ridiculous, right?
Feel things out. Destroy. Cruise. Repeat 82 times and win 67 games. End of recipe.
Maybe on the wrong day against the wrong team, that trend will bite the Warriors. Maybe you're thinking they can only get away with this against the Pelicans, an eighth seed with basically one exceptional player and an uninspiring supporting cast.
But the Warriors did exactly this to everyone this season.
You can't win 67 games by playing one way against pushovers and another against serious competition. This is simply what the Dubs do.
If you want to get strategically specific about Game 1, the Warriors' late-stage defensive M.O. was to prevent the Pellies from shooting threes, which allowed for some easier looks closer to the bucket, per Ethan Sherwood Strauss of ESPN.com:
"The Pelicans see their fourth quarter as something to build upon. Davis, who had 20 points in the stanza, said the comeback "showed what we can actually do." The Warriors chalked up most of New Orleans' run to a bend-don't-break defense that disallowed 3-pointers, but coughed up easy baskets. "When you're in that situation you got to take the 3 out of the game," Green said.
"
Golden State knows, as much as Davis' big fourth quarter was the product of his undeniable talent, it also had to do with the lack of urgency that naturally arose when the result was no longer in doubt.
They won't come out and say so, of course. In response to questions about whether Davis' outburst was tied to a collective relaxation with a big lead, Bogut diplomatically told Sam Amick of USA Today:
"Yeah, I wouldn't go that far. I'm not going to give them any bulletin board material—nice loaded question, by the way (laughter all around). He's going to get his points. We're not going to keep Anthony Davis to zero points or five points. He's going to get his numbers. He's an All-Star.
"
Smart.
And probably expected from a team that lost to the Pelicans in their final regular-season meeting after word reached New Orleans' locker room that the Dubs viewed the contest as little more than a scrimmage.
But from all we've seen of the Warriors this year, we know the truth is they really follow a two-step process: blow out, then back off.
Potential next-round Warriors foes (the smart ones, anyway) recognize a seven-point margin and Davis' seeming breakout for what they are: noise.
The message the Dubs sent to the rest of the playoff field in their Game 1 win was as clear as it was terrifying. They broadcast that they're the same team they were in the regular season—a top-to-bottom, wire-to-wire, no-questions-asked juggernaut.
And they still get a little bored when they're up 25.
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