Golden State Warriors: 3 takeaways from Game 1 vs. Rockets

2. Warriors play brilliant road game

The best thing about the Warriors is their limitless versatility. They can play whatever brand of offense or defense you want them to, and play it better than you can. They can also adapt their style based on the location of a given contest.

In Game 1, the Rockets controlled tempo. They took good care of the ball (until the end), used clock and largely choked off Golden State’s passing.

In the pre-Durant days, this would have almost certainly led to a loss. The Warriors’ offense would have suffered without transition or ball movement, and they themselves would have started coughing the rock up and fueling the opposing crowd. Think back to Games 3 and 4 against the Oklahoma City Thunder during the 2016 Western Conference Finals.

With Durant on their side now, things are different. Rather than forcing passes into tight windows, they simply gave the ball to Durant in Game 1 and let him go to work. It helped that he had a monster night, but even colder shooting would have made the strategy successful. Golden State only turned the ball over nine times, keeping the Rockets out of transition and forcing a pure isolation battle.

The Warriors won that battle (more on that later), but they did not have to. They closed out to shooters, lowering the odds of a patented Rockets 3-point storm. They were extremely disciplined overall defensively, not reaching in and putting Houston on the line. The Rockets shot 21 free throws to Golden State’s 25.

Winning on the road requires weathering early storms, staying close and turning an energized crowd and team into a nervous one. Remember Game 6 against the Thunder in 2016, when the Warriors hung around long enough for OKC to tighten up? They forced a late flurry of turnovers, and Thompson delivered the knockout blow.

Game 1 of this year’s Western Conference Finals went quite similarly.