How the San Antonio Spurs Disrupted the Golden State Warriors’ Offense

Well, Gregg Popovich finally got his troops to respond on the defensive end. The Warriors were shut down in Game 5, and their play was impressive both early and often in slowing down the Warriors’ recently-potent offensive attack.

When I went to the video of last night’s Golden State-San Antonio tilt to analyze the Spurs’ response to the Warriors’ offensive strategy, I was overwhelmed by an early flurry of fantastic plays initiated by the Spurs’ Kawhi Leonard. Obviously, he was going to be a part of any impressive defensive showing by San Antonio, but nearly every Golden State possession was ended with Leonard-induced havoc.

Clearly, the Spurs plan was to interrupt all cuts in anyway possible, especially around down-screens, and especially when the opposing player happened to be Stephen Curry or Klay Thompson. Here is the Warriors’ very first offensive possession of the night, with a whole lot of Kawhi:

Note Leonard’s relentless pursuit of Thompson all the way around the screen, getting a hand in his face and forcing a tough jumper that was somehow still converted. Eventually, the Warriors stopped making those ridiculous contested shots, if they were even lucky enough to get them off.

Check out this fantastic defense by Leonard. He trails Thompson across the lane, staying at his hip around two screens and forcing him to shoot a contested jumper that he had no business even attempting.

The biggest effect that the Spurs defense had on the Warriors offense on Tuesday night was clogging the passing lanes, forcing the Warriors to play more isolation than they either a) like to play, or b) are capable of playing. The Spurs team defense was marvelous.

Note the trap on the left baseline by Tim Duncan and the fantastic rotation all the way around by San Antonio. By the time Barnes gets the ball, the passing lanes are all re-clogged, and Barnes engages in a fruitless isolation and a poor, fade-away mid-range jump shot.

In this last clip, pay attention to the seamless, three-man defensive rotation by Tony Parker, Danny Green, and Duncan. There is nowhere for Curry to go with the basketball, and once the taller Green switches onto him, he is forced into a difficult fall-away jumper.

These four clips are all just from the first quarter [Apologies for the quality of the last two videos. Not sure how that happened.] The tone was set early, and the Warriors were unable to get into any semblance of an offensive flow for the balance of the contest. If Popovich’s bunch maintains this exact defensive focus in Game 6, it should be enough to overcome the Oracle Arena crowd and any last push the Warriors may attempt.