Golden State Warriors: Only The OKC Thunder Stand A Real Chance

The Golden State Warriors are as good at basketball as anyone’s ever been. By season’s end, they may even prove themselves to be better. Their 56-6 record has them currently aligned with where the 72-10 Chicago Bulls were at this point, and we have to travel a full 20 years back to those Bulls to find a team that’s lit up the league to the extent that the Warriors are now. And for many contemporary fans, Golden State’s game-breaking, history-chasing brilliance is spectacle enough for the 2015-16 season.

But for those aching for a heavyweight bout between the Warriors and a worthy foe, the team’s showdowns with the Oklahoma City Thunder can’t be plentiful enough, and can’t come quickly enough.

The most recent game between the two Western Conference titans came this past Thursday, and ended as the other two have: with a Warriors win. Golden State pulled away for a 121-106 final score, marking their most comfortable victory over the Thunder of the year, despite their trailing for most of the game.

Their 121-118 overtime win against OKC came less than a week prior. That sensational contest showed us perhaps the best, most advanced basketball ever seen, featuring a court rich with men who are offenses unto themselves, culminating with MVP frontrunner Stephen Curry casually draining an improbable game-winning shot, just a few strides past the halfcourt line as the extra period expired.

Curry’s shot caused a ruckus rarely seen over a regular season game, turning Twitter into a roaring pub on a Saturday night when it would otherwise be dead. Steph is amidst what could turn out to be the single greatest offensive season in NBA history (his Player Efficiency Rating is currently 32.4, edging Wilt Chamberlain‘s single-season record of 31.82) and watching him has become appointment viewing—but this shot was something else entirely.

This was the result of the Warriors’ tightest competitors forcing Curry to take his game even further into the stratosphere, and start making shots that aren’t reasonable even by make-believe standards. To say that Curry is making video game imaginations come true would fall short of hyperbole; he is transcending your hoop dreams, and expanding the space that basketball fantasies can live in.

For those drunk on the Warriors’ dominance and moxie, their more recent 15-point win against OKC might register as a sign that they’ve “solved” their closest foe. But the loss should come with the caveat that the Thunder were on the second night of a back-to-back on the road, against another tight conference enemy in the Los Angeles Clippers. And it should also be noted that Russell Westbrook had an uncharacteristically paltry stat line for the night, shooting just 8-of-24 from the field—Westbrook is second to only Curry in overall efficiency this season, coming in at 28.3.

If we’re lucky enough to see these teams meet again in the playoffs, it will still be the case that their collective talent is so overwhelming that the ensuing games could produce any number of previously unseen feats, and challenge understood notions of basketball.

CANCELLING DUOS

The Warriors will probably beat the Thunder (or anyone) in any seven-game series, and you’d probably be a reckless person if you laid more than a few of your own dollars down on another outcome. But to say that OKC has been figured by Golden State, or by anyone else, is wrong. Though the Thunder don’t come close to matching the Warriors’ nightly excellence (they’re a full 13.5 games behind them in the standings) or that of the San Antonio Spurs, who they also trail in the West, they’re still so disgustingly talented that any given evening can see them pulverize whoever’s in front of them.

And the Thunder are the epitome of big game hunters; their defensive efficiency, 14th in the league at 102.9 points allowed per 100 possessions, ratchets up considerably when they face off with the Warriors, as OKC summons powers that usually lie dormant. Regardless of what their metrics may say, this is a team that clearly grows upon contact with the brightest of NBA lights.

In Westbrook and Ibaka, the Thunder have the most compelling answer for the baffling combination of Curry and Draymond Green, who has established himself as the most singular frontcourt man in basketball this season. Green’s speed, intelligence, playmaking, and maybe most of all his intangible hubris push the Warriors into a sun-eating vengeance mode, shrinking the court—and redefining basketball time—to a level that can be hard to comprehend.

Serge Ibaka’s length, energy, and mobility frustrate Green, though, and the wars he’s waged with Westbrook and Kevin Durant have made the three a terrifying trio for any team, anywhere, to try tackling.

Durant himself is responsible for some of the most transfixing mismatches in basketball, and on his better nights, one might describe him as a much taller version of Curry. The Warriors, for their part, have the deepest assemblage of wing defenders in the league, and can throw Andre Iguodala, Klay Thompson, Harrison Barnes, and others at Durant all night. Throw in the matchup between the team’s two nefarious foreign centers (OKC’s Steven Adams, from New Zealand; Golden State’s Aussie Andrew Bogut) and you’ve got can’t-miss basketball porn.

Ultimately, though, the Thunder likely aren’t a match for the Warriors because of one boring reality: they don’t have a bench. While Golden State’s best thrown up against Oklahoma City’s best is a dogfight the likes of which we’ve never seen, the Thunder’s core talent will always be playing catch-up after their unreliable subs—including the mercurial Dion Waiters and the clueless Kyle Singler—flub things up in transitive minutes.

While the Thunder’s best lineup (Durant, Westbrook, Ibaka, Adams and Andre Roberson) is third in the league in five-man point differential at 5.0, most of their bench lineups fail to net even a positive differential. That gap has been the story of Golden State’s 3-0 season conquest of the Thunder, and the same would almost certainly be true if the two meet heads in the Western Conference Finals. While the Thunder might be able to close that gap by riding on close to 48 minutes of jaw-dropping superstar play per night in a close series, fatigue would likely get the better of them against the loaded Warriors.

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What’s more certain than any of this, though, is that you’d want to apply your eyes to the TV with adhesive for such a series.