The Warriors have made Kevin Durant even more dominant in transition

Kevin Durant has become a new kind of monster in Steve Kerr’s system. Already one of the most efficient volume scorers the NBA has ever seen, his field goal percentage, true shooting percentage and Player Efficiency Rating (PER) are hovering around career-highs in his first season with the Golden State Warriors. It doesn’t even matter that his scoring has dipped from 28.2 points per game to 25.9. With the amount of talent they have on the roster, there is less of a need for Durant to average close to 30 points per game like he has in the past.

To put it simply, the biggest reason for Durant’s jump in efficiency is he has turned good shots into great shots. He’s scoring a smaller percentage of his points in isolation and in the pick-and-roll while scoring a greater percentage in the post and off of cuts. As you can see in the table below, he’s also getting out more often in transition. The only players currently generating more points per game than Durant on the break this season are LeBron James, Russell Westbrook and Giannis Antetokounmpo, according to NBA.com.

Durant making 0.4 more field goals per game in transition when compared to last season might sound insignificant on the surface, but he’s doing it with greater overall frequency. When you account for how dominant he is in the open court, it’s scary how he’s gone from scoring one in nearly seven of his baskets in transition to one in five as a member of the Warriors.

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There isn’t much teams can do to slow Durant down, either, considering Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson also score a large amount of their points in transition. The combination of Curry being able to pull-up off the dribble on the break and Thompson sprinting to the corners for spot-ups created easy baskets for them last season. Now that they’ve added the most versatile scorer in the NBA to the mix, who almost becomes the forgotten option when he’s running the floor with them, the possibilities are endless.

Consider the video below. Following a turnover by Russell Westbrook, Andre Roberson is put in a tough position by being the lone defender standing between Thompson on the 3-point line and Durant underneath the basket. While he’s doomed either way, he chooses to leave Durant underneath the basket to close-out on Thompson.

Luol Deng makes the same decision on this possession, leading to an easy putback for Durant when Curry misses the 3-pointer.

They’re extreme examples, but think about it like this: Roberson and Deng would rather give a four-time scoring champion a layup than leave two of the most accurate outside shooters ever open for a 3-pointer.

They’re certainly not alone in preferring to give up two points over three points. Just look at how the Milwaukee Bucks are spread out in this sequence when Curry and Thompson are involved in the play.

Curry creates a mismatch because someone has to pick him up before he gets to the 3-point line. With that someone being Bucks center Miles Plumlee, all of their rotations are forced out of whack. Meanwhile, Thompson draws Tony Snell away from the basket by spotting-up in the corner. Durant forces them to make a decision between guarding the shooter and helping the cutter by running directly in between Plumlee and Snell, and Matthew Dellavedova finds himself as the last man standing between Durant and the rim.

Here’s another example, this time without Curry on the court and just Thompson.

Players are taught from a young age to stop the ball handler in transition, which is what makes the Warriors terrifying in transition — they have a number of players who can push the ball themselves. It has a way of creating openings when defenders panic over who should stop the ball and who has a better shot at staying in front of Durant or Curry.

The problem is if Damian Lillard picks up Andre Iguodala, Allen Crabbe then has to make a decision between running Thompson off the 3-point line and sticking with Durant on the cut. If Crabbe is the one to pick up Iguodala, then Lillard’s only realistic option due to his positioning is to close out on Thompson.

Lillard and Crabbe end up creating a wall in front of Iguodala, and Durant saunters in for a layup. As a bonus, check out how open Thompson is in the corner. It takes an incredibly disciplined team to stand a chance of slowing down the Warriors in these 3-on-2 situations.

This happens all the time for the Warriors, and not only for shots around the rim. The beauty of Durant’s game is he’s perfectly content hanging around the perimeter to space the floor everyone else. If Curry draws a help defender on a drive to the basket and kicks it out to Thompson in the corner, Durant will spot-up for a 3-pointer at the top of the perimeter. Similarly, if nobody picks him up when he has the ball in his hands, Durant will walk into a 3-pointer of his own.

Sometimes something as simple as having Curry cut to the paint is enough to draw a defender away from Durant on the perimeter despite the fact that he ranks in the 96.1 percentile in spot-up opportunities this season. Pay attention to how Nick Young helps Jose Calderon contain Curry in the following clip.

Durant uses the threat of Curry and Thompson to his advantage when he puts the ball on the floor, too. By dribbling in their direction as opposed to someone like Iguodala, he knows their defender won’t dare help off of them, which means he has one less help defender to worry about. It’s just another example of how teams tend to be more concerned about limiting Golden State’s open 3s than shots around the basket, even if Durant walks away with uncontested points to show for it.

All statistics are up to date as of January 2, 2017.