Golden State Warriors: 5 Keys To Closing Out The Finals

5. Start Out Strong

For a team that can turn it on at any moment, this doesn’t seem like such a big deal. But in a potential closeout Game 6 on the road, the Warriors can’t afford the kinds of slow starts they got off to in the first three games of the series. With Quicken Loans Arena ready to go ballistic for every made basket that moves them closer to staving off elimination, the Warriors need to avoid falling into an early hole.

In this series, we’ve learned how important the process is rather than overreacting to the outliers. Steve Kerr had to adjust his defense on LeBron James when the King continued toasting the Warriors’ D, but for the most part, Golden State has taken this 3-2 series lead because of their superior depth and because they don’t have to ride Stephen Curry or Klay Thompson the way Cleveland has to ride LeBron.

In that same vein of thinking, the Warriors have figured out that they have a definitive advantage with small-ball lineups and now that they’ve perfect their process, it’s paying off.

In the last nine quarters, Golden State has outscored Cleveland by a massive margin of 240-200. But that trend has to carry over through the next two quarters in particular, given what we know about how the Dubs maintain leads.

During this postseason, the Warriors are now a perfect 13-0 in games where they are tied or leading at halftime. In the games where they trail at the break, the Dubs are just 2-5.

In that hectic Game 6 environment with their opponent looking to stave off elimination, the Dubs need to trust the process and land an early knockout punch. Doing so would demoralize Cleveland’s role players and hopefully add to Golden State’s undefeated 58-0 record in games where they lead by 15 points at any point in the game.

Next: No. 4