Golden State Warriors: 5 Keys To Beating The Thunder

5. The Bench Battle

For all the talk about how the Thunder bench rose to the occasion and outplayed the NBA’s best regular season bench — the San Antonio Spurs’ bench — in the conference semifinals, a little context is needed.

While positive X-factors like Dion Waiters, Enes Kanter and even Randy Foye were all too apparent against a Spurs bench that led the league in plus/minus during the regular season, OKC’s bench was actually outscored by 4.1 points per 100 possessions in that series.

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The only reason it wasn’t a huge issue was that San Antonio’s reserves were even worse, being outscored by 5.6 points per 100 possessions. It’s also worth noting that most of the Spurs’ reserves were unproven in the playoffs or just plain old.

OKC won’t get that same luxury against Golden State’s second unit, which, numbers aside, was probably the best in the league this year. The Dubs’ bench won’t benefit from any 40-point explosions from Stephen Curry anymore, but they do have Andre Iguodala, Shaun Livingston and a bunch of other smart, lengthy, solid defenders.

Andrew Bogut‘s health could impact this area, however, since his potential absence would move Festus Ezeli into the starting rotation and force Steve Kerr to give Anderson Varejao more minutes.

But even if that’s the case, the Dubs’ smart group of reserves is more likely to do its expected part than it is for Waiters (8.0 PPG, 44.4 3P%, great defense on Kawhi Leonard) and Kanter (8.7 PPG, 7.5 RPG) to duplicate their success from the conference semis.

Next: No. 4