Golden State Warriors challengers, Part 3: Shooting, scheme and a good first half give Spurs hope
Welcome back to the Golden State Warriors challengers series. Over a two-week span, I will make the case for six teams that can prevent the Dubs from staking claim to a dynasty. In Part 3, we take a look at the San Antonio Spurs, and whether their ultra-brief conference finals success is worth holding onto.
Maybe the Golden State Warriors were going to come back. They usually do. It isn’t just the way their defense feeds chaos to their offense, or their offense brings order to their defense. It’s their mindset, their will. Most NBA players hate to lose, but few channel that hatred as a collective like Golden State.
The way Kawhi Leonard was playing, it probably wasn’t their night. He had completely taken charge of the game’s tempo with his deliberate command of San Antonio’s offense. His shot was falling (7-of-13 from the field), but more importantly he was getting to the line (11-for-11). He was not wreaking havoc on defense so much as he was simply stonewalling everything.
When he exited Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals after re-aggravating his injured ankle for the second time in two minutes, the Spurs were up 78-55. For the remaining three games and change of the series, they were outscored by 87 points.
What should the Spurs do with this information? On the one hand, they were resoundingly swept. On the other, their best player was on track to singlehandedly make that not so. Would a healthy Leonard push the series to six? Seven?
It has been three years since the Warriors became kings of the NBA, and we still have yet to see them in a proper showdown with the league’s second-best team over that span. Since 2014-15, San Antonio is 183-63, outpacing the Cleveland Cavaliers (161-85) by a healthy 22-win margin.
Whether that translates to playoff success is another matter.
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The idea that San Antonio is a better regular season than postseason team blossomed after its 2015 first-round loss to the Clippers. The theory grew in 2016, when the 67-win Spurs fell in six games to the 55-win Oklahoma City Thunder. Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook proved too athletic for a Spurs team that relied on size and scheme.
Many mistakenly applied this lesson into picking the Houston Rockets to upend the Spurs in Round 2 last season. Mike D’Antoni‘s Rockets play fast, but that’s a wholly different thing from being athletic. A battle of pace is push and pull, and the Spurs pushed harder.
How this applies to a matchup with Golden State is unclear. The Warriors have Durant, but the Spurs have Leonard. While Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green are all better than any other player on San Antonio, none are Westbrook. They cannot stormtrooper their way through a tight-webbed defense.
The Warriors were and still are significant favorites against San Antonio. Even if the Spurs can frustrate Golden State offensively, the Warriors have the defense to do the same right back. We’ve seen the Spurs have offensive success in this matchup, but that has usually been due to unsustainably hot shooting. They shot 50 percent on threes during their 129-100 opening night win last season, and were at 46.6 percent when Leonard went down in Game 1.
When they blitzed the Warriors with a 22-point first quarter lead on March 29, they were 5-of-8 from three. They went 4-of-16 for the rest of the game, and lost by 12.
Generally, the Warriors make teams miss threes. Opponents shot a league-low 32.4 percent against them last year. If the Spurs’ only winning path involves a sustained outside barrage, their chances are slim to none in a seven-game series. It will always be a matter of time until they start missing, and the Warriors turn those stops into scores.
Leonard is a great equalizer. He is a tier below Curry and Durant offensively, but a tier above Thompson and on the level of Green on the other end. His defense is such that if his offense is clicking, he can be the best player on the court, even against the Warriors.
He has room to improve. Growing up in the Spurs system has made him a a solid ball mover, but he still needs to learn how to create great shots for his teammates. That wrinkle would likely make him the league MVP next season (his lack of assists was the one weakness on his 2016-17 resume). More importantly, it would make him even tougher for Golden State to deal with.
A playmaking Leonard would not be dissimilar to LeBron James. As we’ve seen, that type of player can push the Warriors, even with an inferior team around him.
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Leonard still needs more help, though. When the Cavs play James and Kyrie Iving with shooters around them, even the vaunted Warriors defense looks pedestrian. Without Irving, James’ hands would be an easy call.
Put an Irving-like player next to Leonard, and something similar may happen. It is unlikely to be Irving himself, despite the point guard’s wishes. San Antonio has little to offer Cleveland outside of Danny Green.
This summer’s free agent market presented other options, all of which the Spurs passed on. Chris Paul went to Houston, presumably because the Spurs had no interest in him opting in and facilitating a sign-and-trade. Paul will hit the market next summer, and Houston will have to pay a five-year super-max to keep him at age 33. Based on how Gregg Popovich and R.C. Buford run things, they were likely cold to the idea.
Kyle Lowry returned to Toronto on a three-year, $100 million deal. Jrue Holiday re-signed with New Orleans for five years and $126 million.
Perhaps the Spurs were wise to avoid the market’s elite point guards. Each is either old, injury-prone or both, and all are now handsomely paid. Still, there were secondary options that made sense. Jeff Teague went to Minnesota for three years and $57 million. Former Spur George Hill signed with Sacramento for the same amount.
Perhaps the $7 million saved and extra year of team control the Spurs got by retaining Patty Mills (four years, $50 million) was worth it in their minds. But Mills was completely erased from the Western Conference Finals by Klay Thompson, and is too small to guard Stephen Curry. Unless the Spurs have another wing to draw Thompson away, Mills will be a zero in this matchup.
They are hoping that Rudy Gay is that guy. They got him at a low-risk price (two years, $17.2 million, with a player option for Year 2), and he has the skill to reward them.
He is also coming off a torn Achilles, the most devastating injury in the sport. If the recent returns from Wesley Matthews, Brandon Jennings and Kobe Bryant are any indication, do not expect the same Gay that averaged 18.7 points, 6.3 rebounds, 2.8 assists, 1.5 steals and 0.9 blocks while shooting 45.5 percent from the field and 37.2 percent from deep.
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Gay has underrated strength and length (7’0″ wingspan), and relies on his athleticism less than one might think. That’s a good thing, since that athleticism is likely to dwindle. For him to make an impact against the Warriors, though, he’ll have to create from the perimeter, shoot well from deep and defend in transition. If he moves into the mismatch-exploiting 4 phase of his career (think Joe Johnson, Paul Pierce), his usefulness in this matchup will still be limited.
Even a great season from Gay may not make up for the losses of Jonathon Simmons and Dewayne Dedmon. Simmons’ Tony Allen-esque approach to defense gave the Warriors major problems, and he always seemed to hit them with his best offensive efforts. Gay will bring a more reliable scoring spark, but cannot guard like Simmons.
Popovich was averse to playing Dedmon against the Warriors, but his pick-and-roll finishing and rim protection made him the ideal 5 next to shooters and ball handlers. A Mills-Danny Green-Gay-Leonard-Dedmon lineup would have been dangerous.
Instead, Pop enters the season with LaMarcus Aldridge and Pau Gasol as his only playable bigs (and even Gasol’s playability against the Warriors is questionable). With Tony Parker‘s career in jeopardy, the Spurs are looking thinner than they have in some time.
Derrick White was a fantastic draft pick, and may have some Malcolm Brogdon in him. Dejounte Murray gained valuable playoff experience at just 20 years old last year. Maybe Kyle Anderson finally puts it together, and one of Joffrey Lauvergne or Davis Bertans becomes a rotation player.
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If the Spurs believe that all of this will happen, that Gay will bounce back and that Leonard will make the leap as a playmaker, more power to them. If not, and if they hope to contend in 2017-18, they are putting quite a bit of faith in one half of one basketball game.