Golden State Warriors: 5 Adjustments For NBA Finals Game 3

4. Push The Tempo

I emphasized this after Game 1, but even with the Warriors upping their fast break output to 17 points in Game 2 (and really, it should’ve been 19 if Marreese Speights hadn’t had his talent stolen by the aliens from Moron Mountain), the Dubs really haven’t been able to dictate the tempo in these first two games.

The Dubs can play the half-court game, but they thrive in getting out in transition and breaking their opponent’s spirit with a barrage of ill-advised pull-up threes in transition. Golden State’s three-point shooting is a whole other mess that we’ll cover in a minute, but suffice it to say that Cleveland has set the tempo so far in this series and turned games into ugly, grind-it-out affairs.

During the playoffs, the Dubs are averaging 20.9 fast break points per game. During the regular season, they also averaged 20.9 fast break points per game. So far in the Finals, that number has plummeted to 15.5 per game. Two games is a small sample size, but the Warriors have to prevent this from turning into a half-court series.

With Irving out, Cleveland’s defense is a lot better in the half-court. The Warriors need to start closing out defensive stops with a rebound (they were out-rebounded 55-45 in Game 2 and gave up 15 second chance points) and pushing the ball in transition. If the Cavs are going to rely on iso-LeBron the rest of this series, the Dubs have to be able to make Cleveland pay for it when he misses.

Next: No. 3