Here's To Hoping The Western Conference Finals Lives Up To The Hype
Before the ball is even tipped tonight in Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals, we already have history. As I’m sure you’ve heard by now, the Curry brothers will make history as the only two brothers to face each other in a conference finals, and their parents are going to flip a coin to decide who to root for. But that’s just one of then many storylines of this series, and while we all expected GS to be in this position with or without Kevin Durant, the Blazers are certainly a surprise. I feel like POR is a team that everyone was sort of waiting to believe in given their spotty postseason history, and while their backcourt is every bit as lethal as the Splash Brothers when they’re in a groove, there were plenty of questions about the Blazers depth and if they had enough to get over the hump in this brutal conference. All they did was snag the 3 seed and knock out two Western Conference contenders so at this point you better respect the basketball that’s being played by this team.
But the Warriors are a different animal, we all know that. You can play perfect basketball and still be subjected to a Warriors third quarter bukkake and the next thing you know you’re down 15 points. That’s true whether Durant plays or no. So before the action starts in what is hopefully a drama filled long series, let’s take some time to set the stage and take a look at how these teams match up.
It’s no surprise the best offense of this entire playoffs belongs to the Warriors, they lead the field in offense (117 rating) with the Blazers not too far behind in 5th (110). Here’s where it gets interesting though. If you were to look at the last two games for each team, it’s actually the Blazers who have the better offense (116.5 vs 115.0). It’s a super small sample size no doubt, but given that this is the Warriors team that will start the series there’s a chance the offenses may not be that far apart to start. It also helps that the Blazers own the 9th best defensive rating in the playoff field, with GS 12th. The biggest difference in my mind between these two team has to be their style. The Warriors will test that defense through great ball movement and an offense that isn’t exactly isolation heavy. They want to get the defense moving. Their 66.1% assist percentage is miles ahead of POR who lives around 45%, and that’s largely in part to how each team plays offensively.
For the Blazers to have a chance in this series, they are going to have to continue to dominate the P&R. No ball handler scores more than POR off this set, it accounts for 24.2 points a night and they rank in the 86th percentile as a team with one of the highest scoring frequencies of anyone left in the field. Testing Curry on that end is their biggest advantage, not because he’s a bad defender but you’re going to have to make him work on that end to hopefully take his legs out from under him. Between P&R and Handoffs, another mainstay of the POR offense, it’s going to be fascinating to see if the Warriors perimeter defenders are up for the challenge. Klay Thompson is no joke defensively, so if the Blazers can’t score efficiently and consistently in those two sets they’re kinda fucked.
On the flip side, the Warriors are going to run you off screens until your eyes bleed. It’s a huge part of their offense, they average the most points in the field off screens, shoot 56% off that set and have by far the best scoring frequency. It will be interesting to see if they adjust that at all and instead choose to attack someone like Enes Kanter in the P&R since he’s horrible at defending it, even if it’s not a huge part of what GS has done all year. I’d almost prefer that if I was POR, because the screen approach is a dangerous thing for POR because they sneaky struggle guarding off screens, allowing opponents to shoot 47% ranking them in the 57th percentile defensively. History tells us to believe more in the Warriors ability to execute their style under this amount of pressure, but who knows. The Blazers are on a roll right now and playing some of the most confident basketball of their season.
During the year these two split the season series 2-2, and each team won in a wide variety of ways. Both sides had big blowouts, the Warriors by 29 in the first meeting and the Blazers by 22 in the final meeting. POR showed the ability to win close, with their first win of the matchup coming by just 1 point which also happened to take place at Oracle. This is not exactly a Blazers team that is going to be afraid of the Warriors, especially with Lillard leading the charge. If they are able to steal one of these first two games I think this suddenly becomes a very interesting series, but I also think it would surprise nobody if the Warriors took care of this thing in 5 games.
As a casual fan, all I want is a competitive series. The second round lived up to the hype and I need the good times to keep on rolling. I need Dame/Curry to both go crazy and I need this thing to go the distance. It’s only right.
Greenie Prediction: Warriors in 7