Warriors Playoff Preview: Golden State is even more dominant than you think

Remember pre-season concerns about the ability of Kevin Durant to coexist offensively with Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson? There’s only one ball to go around, after all, and the integration of a singular talent like the 2014 MVP meant fewer shots and touches for the league’s most flammable backcourt.

Still, the assumption that Golden State’s all-for-one offensive ethos would be fractured by Durant’s addition always seemed foolish. Ball and player movement have been the Warriors’ defining characteristics ever since Steve Kerr took the reins two seasons ago, and it’s not like three of the best shooters ever actually need the ball to be effective, either. It would certainly be an adjustment for Durant, Curry and Thompson to make the most of their partnership, but that sacrifice was one they implicitly agreed to make when the Thunder’s former franchise player switched sides in July.

Some nine months later, it’s hard to believe anyone thought Golden State’s inevitable growing pains could be related to resentment. If anything, it’s a lack of self-assuredness that’s kept the Warriors from reaching their unprecedented offensive potential this season, a reality that should humble other championship contenders as the playoffs finally get underway.

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Kerr’s squad plays like one of the league’s least gifted offensive outfits. That’s a compliment, by the way. A team bereft of multiple, varied scorers has to manufacture good looks by manipulating the defense with incessant motion and leveraging the threat of its top options to find opportunities elsewhere. The Warriors do that, too, but they happen to be the most talented team in the NBA.

The Warriors rank first by laughably wide margins in percentage of baskets assisted and secondary assists, and also the fewest dribbles per touch. They end possessions via cuts and off-ball screens far more frequently than any team in the league, too, an approach that’s especially difficult to defend given the game’s increasing emphasis on spreading the floor and running simple ball-screens. Related: The Warriors, despite possessing so many natural playmakers, rank dead last in number of plays finished by a pick-and-roll ball handler.

A looming long-range barrage might be the scariest thing about playing the Warriors, but their offense wouldn’t be close to this dominant — that 113.3 offensive rating is the best of the 2000s — without producing so many easy buckets like these:

Even so, uncontested shots at the rim will be harder to come by in the playoffs. Not only do intensity and commitment reach their zenith once mid-April hits, but the seven-game series format allows teams to build opponent-specific schemes they don’t have time to construct during the regular season. Good news: The defensive strategy that nearly doomed the Warriors against the Thunder and ultimately did against the Cavaliers — all-court switching — won’t be as successful this time around. Nobody abuses mismatched defenders more casually than Durant.

Playing alongside a scorer of that caliber can make life more complicated for Curry. The two-time reigning MVP’s recent outburst makes it easy to forget that he was underwhelming — at least compared to his historic recent precedent, of course — for the majority of the season before Durant went down with a knee injury in late January. It was necessary for Curry to play alpha dog for the old Warriors to win a championship. That’s just not the case with this team, though it goes without saying that the Warriors are better off when both of their super-duper stars grab the wheel as opposed to one of them sitting passenger.

That’s a difficult balancing act to strike, but should be made easier for Curry and Durant by the former’s eye-popping play of late. This is the best he’s looked since suffering ankle and knee injuries in the first round of last year’s playoffs. Curry’s confidence, whether it was waning early in the season or not, is definitely sky-high right now.

If there’s a lasting chink in the Warriors’ championship armor, it’s definitely up front. Andrew Bogut isn’t patrolling the paint to clean up mistakes at the point of attack, which places an even heavier defensive burden on Draymond Green — and could potentially force Kerr to employ super-small lineups more often than he’d like.

The Warriors didn’t miss a beat defensively during Durant’s absence, a surprising development that might be the biggest boon to Green’s Defensive Player of the Year chances. They allow the fourth-most shots at the rim per game, but force challengers into 59.6 percent shooting once there, a bottom-10 mark that belies the team’s lack of a conventional shot-blocker. It’s not 7-footers Zaza Pachulia or JaVale McGee who account for that number, either. Green, David West, James Michael McAdoo and Durant have been more impactful obstacles at the rim than either center this season.

The defensive glass, as Cleveland confirmed in June, is where the Warriors are most vulnerable. They grab just 74.8 percent of available defensive boards, the second-lowest rate in basketball. The so-called “death” unit fares worse: Curry-Thompson-Andre Iguodala-Durant-Green has a defensive rebounding percentage of 69.3 in 224 minutes of play. That group’s defensive rating, though? 98.4, which would comfortably lead the league over the full season. Go figure.

The Warriors have other weaknesses. They rank bottom-third in both turnover rate and opponents fast break points, and don’t get to the foul line as much as you’d like. Most championship-level teams aren’t tasked with dividing major minutes between guys like Pachulia, McGee and a 38-year-old West. Kerr’s bench-heavy units can struggle offensively if forced to play in the half court. They sink offensively when Curry goes to the bench.

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But none of those aforementioned issues or any possible ones — with the exception of injury, obviously — change what we’ve known since Durant went farther west. Golden State didn’t live up to expectations; nothing short of 74 wins would have been enough to pull that off. The Warriors aren’t just a better team than they were last year, though, but they’re also an even more overwhelming title favorite.

As Gregg Popovich told reporters on Monday: “Golden State’s the best team on the planet. OK, fine. Let’s see if somebody can beat them. Portland gets the first crack.”