Curry makes sauce out of Chris Paul's ankles

[CarolinaSock]

 

They still have no post game. There's a difference between posting and getting layups. They have a 6'7 guy starting at PF. That won't work four games in a row against a more experienced defensive playoff team. The layups come because defenders won't leave their shooters.  Say their shooters get cold for a game or two in a series, the easy buckets aren't gonna come. (see: the Bulls game at Oracle). You could easily say that was an outlier, but think about the kind of defense Chicago plays and the intensity the have. That's what they're gonna face every game when it is ramped up in the postseason. The Warriors will jack it up. The only reason they aren't seen as chuckers is because they make most of their shots. But do you think they can keep up the top FG% (off/def) clip once defenses start to matchup with them for games in a row at a time? They are a great team.  Those numbers however, are on obvious aberration. 

 

Now you say they are deep, which is true. Lee, Igudola, Barbosa, Livingston, Speights make up a great bench. Here's the problem however;their system isn't good enough for those guys to take over games at a time.The Warriors energy and effort is completely drawn from Steph and Klay. If one or two of those guys have an off night (and Klay has proven to be very inconsistent in his playoff games) the team will fall apart because the other guys, sans Lee, aren't the type that can keep the team up in their own. They feed completely off of two guys. 

 

Look at the Spurs bench. If Parker is having an off night, Mills brings a completely different energy and game to the floor. If Splitter is off, Diaw can come in as the most versatile player on the floor and change the game. Same goes for Green and GinoblI, they bring all bring different things. Even Bellineli and Bonner can knock down shots, while Leonard and Duncan are more of the grit/grind type of players. Even Baynes is a massive body.

 

The Warriors don't have gamechangers coming off the bench. Igudola is an athlete like Barnes, only difference is Iggy is a much surperior passer with better court vision. He's a great defender too so he can have that advantage. Lee and Green are both finesse forwards. Speights is a finesse guy as well, though he does have a far different game from Bogut. Livingston and Barbosa are good players, but they're not guys that can take over games like a Spurs bench can. From the Bulls bench, Mirotic and Brooks are gamechangers with Gibson being a far different type of forward than a soft guy like Pau. All of the best benches have gamechangers. The Warriors have role players.

 

Now the obvious response is "WHAT??! LEE AND IGUDOLA ARE ALL-STARS!! HOW ARE THEY ROLE PLAYERS??!!"

 

Fact is: They have all-star talent. They are great individually. But you can't tell me that they haven't decreased their role to embrace the team concept. And that's not a bad thing or a knock on them, it's just a fact. They are not playing as effective as they were when they were starting. Now that's an obvious effect of moving to the bench, but it creates the misconception that because they are all-stars off the bench, that they're playing like all-stars. They are not playing like all-stars. They're being role players and feeding off of the Steph and Klay show.

 

Another problem is maturity. This team won a playoff series against the Nuggets and lost to SA. Last year they were ousted in a tough one against LAC. They're experienced. But they aren't mature. Watch their bench and the way they act on the court. After every made shot, it's like they won a championship. That's fine. It adds to the comradery and gets the fans going. But when those shots aren't falling, what do they do? Sulk. Moan. Complain to referees. Kerr is too nice of a coach. He allows them to get away with non-championship antics. The Spurs act like they've been there before. LeBron is humble. Pretty much every champion in history has a certain maturity level. These guys don't. They feed off of hype.

 

Those are the reasons I think they are a regular-season paper team. To sum it up:

-They are indeed, a jumpshooting team. You made the point they get layups;that's only because their shooters are so good. When defenses lock down when the lights are on, there won't be any cheating off of anyone on defense, and outside of Steph they aren't good enough one-one to beat that when the other team plays committed 5 on 5 defense

-The bench is full of role players, not game changers

-The team feeds off of two players entirely

-They have an immature mentality when it comes to playing the game

-They have no inside presence to slow down the game. San Antonio or Memphis will kill these guys because they won't let them get out and run with silly turnovers

-Can be shaky on the road at times

-Defense has a lot to prove. Obviously, they're #1 in the NBA. But how much of that is from teams pressing to play catch-up with their offense? A lot, in my opinion. Seeing as how the game will slow down come playoff time, that won't be happening and are open to being exposed.

 

And for the record, I never said the Thunder would beat the Warriors. I said Westbrook would outplay Curry.

 

 

 

Could you possibly add a few more assumptions, opinions and complete conjecture in to your post? I think almost saw a fact or two in that post so you might want to fix it. They can and have overcome cold shooting nights with lockdown defense. In fact they excel at lower scoring games considering they haven't lost this year when they've given up under 100 points. Every team that's ever had a double digit point differential has made it to the finals, and the only team that didn't win lost to another team with a double digit point differential. Your reaching badly because the numbers don't support your point of view at all no matter what stats you use.

[Montsta]

I respect what you are trying to say, but basically your entire post was *maybe* they won't shoot well in the playoffs or *maybe* this guy will be cold or that they don't have game-changers on the bench. What teams have game changers on the bench that the Warriors will face in the playoffs. Our bench does a great job of not shitting the bed while they rest the starters, which is all we need.

I guess we will just see who is right during playoff time. I'll start a thread myself called Warriors playoff thread and eat crow in there if I'm wrong. I'll be at every game so I think I'll have a pretty good understanding of what I see on the floor.

[Kakarot]

Both Carolina boys, but my allegiance will always be towards Chris Paul. He's from Winston, I'm from Winston....Winston vs Everybody.

Fug Steph for making my boy look foolish.