Golden State Warriors: 3 takeaways from Game 7 vs. Rockets

3. Curry early, Durant late

Starting in Game 4 and continuing through the first half of Game 7, the suddenly questionable on-court chemistry between the Warriors’ two MVPs became a major storyline. For all the talk about Durant’s seamless fit into Steve Kerr‘s offense, he had become a ball-stopper under pressure.

Durant is capable of taking over games in isolation (as he did in Game 1), but more importantly, was the opportunity cost of taking the ball out of Curry’s hands. Many questioned whether or not Kerr could do anything to help his team regain its offensive flow, short of banishing Durant to the corner a la Harrison Barnes.

It turns out the answer was just as simple, but far more effective. In Game 7, the Warriors had Curry take the ball up the floor, initiate the offense and play freely. Rather than following the “go early” protocol by dumping it into Durant on the block with 15 seconds on the shot clock, Curry went early as he did in the pre-Durant days. He would survey his shooting options, drive or hand it off if none were available, and cut to get open again.

The best examples of this were two plays involving Jordan Bell, where Curry would collapse the defense, find Bell along the baseline and immediately run to the corner and receive a return pass.

When the Curry-centric beautiful game did not yield an open shot, the offense reset. This is when the ball went into Durant. That his absurd shot making returned was certainly helpful, but even a cold Durant would have not bogged down the Warriors offense as he did throughout much of this series.

Running isolations early is a decent way to get ball movement. Moving the ball early and saving the isos for late-clock situations is a better way. It also allowed Curry (19 points, 5-of-9 from 3 in the second half) and Durant (21 second-half points) to co-exist as the best versions of themselves.

That combination is too much for any team. It was too much for Houston.