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NBA Finals – Warriors Key Before Game 2: Why Draymond Green’s Defense Against Boston Was A Problem

For the second time, the Golden State Warriors lost an opening game of the Finals under coach Steve Kerr. The pressure is mounting on the Bay Area team. What do the dubs need to do better in Game 2 vs the Boston Celtics?

1. Warriors: The green problem in defense

Without a doubt, it was the statistic of the day: 21/41 – that was the result of the Celtics from Downtown. In the fourth quarter, the guests netted seven triples in a row, in the end it was 9 (with twelve attempts), which represented the lion’s share of the impressive 40:16 final quarter.

The Warriors didn’t seem worried about that and Draymond Green explained this in the subsequent PK: “Marcus Smart, Al Horford and Derrick White hit 15 of them. They’re good shooters, but they hit 15/23. I think it’s us goes well.”

One would agree with Green here, at least with White and Smart, who didn’t even hit a third of their attempts in the playoffs. Horford is different, he’s at a whopping 46.3 percent (4.6 tries) this postseason, even though six hits in his 15th NBA season was a new playoff record for Big Al.

And yet Horford’s statline wasn’t really surprising. In seven of 18 playoff games, the Big Man netted at least three threes, four times it was at least four. Horford is a good shot and also benefited from Green being his opponent. It may sound strange, after all, the Warriors forward was arguably the best defender of the season, but sometimes he is his own greatest opponent.

Green is one of the best help defenders in the NBA, but when he’s playing a stretch big, problems can arise. It remains Green’s instinct to help as quickly as possible and then trust his teammates to rotate accordingly. Sometimes green helps too much, like in this example, when he left Horford far too early and Horford was then able to easily hit from the corner when the kick-out came. It wasn’t the first time here is another scenein the Green Horford allowed far too much space.

Sometimes a question of mathematics

Horford quickly found his rhythm, which was not surprising for a shooter like Klay Thompson. “When you get open threes, everything else feels easy,” explained one of the greatest shooters of all time. “Then if you hit a few, it doesn’t matter later if you have a hand on your face. You’re in the rhythm and it feels easier.”

So it certainly went in addition to Horford, as did White and Smart. According to NBA.com/stats, 38 of the 41 attempts were “open” or even “wide open” (15 and 23 respectively), with the “wide open” hitting the Celtics at a rate of 56.5 percent (13/23). With such a success rate, it almost makes more sense to just give up a layup. But that doesn’t correspond to the Warriors’ style of play.

“They have players who can attack and provide rotation on defense,” says Green. “We have to think about how we can rotate differently and better.” Another option would be to pit Green against Jaylen Brown instead, although he’s also a good shot.

Either way: The warriors have to prevent drives better in order to collapse less often. Klay Thompson and Jordan Poole, who have repeatedly been successfully attacked by the Celtics, are in demand here. Even Stephen Cury seemed frustrated at timeshow easily Poole, for example, could be beaten one-on-one.

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