NBA Playoffs 2017: 5 big questions for Warriors vs. Spurs matchup
The Western Conference Finals will pit the Golden State Warriors and the San Antonio Spurs against each other. Let’s look at five big questions heading into the series.
Could this be the first of many playoff battles between the Golden State Warriors and the San Antonio Spurs? Ever since the emergence of Stephen Curry and the Dubs, basketball fans have been anticipating a showdown between the new kids on the block in the Warriors and the tried and tested formula in the Spurs.
San Antonio and Golden State have somehow avoided each other in the playoffs for the past few seasons. In 2015-16, the Spurs lost a seven-game series against the Clippers in the first round. The following year, San Antonio was ousted by the Oklahoma City Thunder in the Conference Semifinals. Each year, the Warriors held up their end of the bargain and were in the Western Conference Finals, but the Spurs will finally join them.
Golden State’s path to the this series has been anything but challenging. They cruised to the No. 1 seed and took care of Portland and Utah in four-game sweeps in the first two rounds. The Dubs have also had the luxury of enjoying a week rest in advance of their showdown against the Spurs. San Antonio has had a bit of struggle in each of the first two rounds, taking the Grizzlies and Rockets to six games each before disposing them. They have lost Tony Parker for the rest of the playoffs and Kawhi Leonard is battling an ankle injury.
As expected, the Warriors are a heavy favorite to advance to the NBA Finals, as they should be. This is the first time that Spurs’ head coach Gregg Popovich will be coaching against a team with this many regular season wins — 67. The Warriors are a different animal, something that Popovich might have never dealt with, unless it was an All-Star Game. But on the other hand, the Spurs are a veteran ballclub with championship DNA that shouldn’t be dismissed that easily.
Before this series begins on Sunday afternoon from Oracle Arena, here are five big questions that needs to be evaluated.
5. Who wins a battle between the No. 1 defense and No. 1 offense?
The old saying goes, “defense wins championships,” but will that necessarily hold true in this series? The San Antonio Spurs were the No. 1-ranked defense during the regular season, giving up only 103.5 points per 100 possessions. The Golden State Warriors feature the No. 1 offense in the league, scoring 115.6 points per 100 possessions. But here’s the kicker: typically when a team is an offensive or defensive juggernaut, they struggle on the other end of the floor, leaving them vulnerable as a whole. But Golden State happens to be the No. 2 overall defense, only giving up 0.5 more points per 100 possessions than the Spurs.
Something has to give, right? Either the Warriors will use their superstar weaponry to pour it on the Spurs or San Antonio will resist, slowing the game down and turning it into more of a defensive battle.
In the Spurs’ two regular season wins, they were able to hold the Dubs to less than a 100 points, which is below their season average of 115.9 points per game. Even in the loss, the Spurs only gave up a 110 points, but their offense isn’t capable of consistently scoring at that output in a seven-game series.
Three-point scoring will also be a major factor in this series for both teams. Will San Antonio run off 3-point shooters similar to the Houston series or will the Dubs catch fire and rain threes all over San Antonio? During the regular season, the Warriors were the fifth-ranked team in 3-point percentage, while San Antonio was the third-ranked team in opponents’ 3-point percentage.
Again, something has to give here, right? The Spurs have elite perimeter defenders in Kawhi Leonard, Jonathon Simmons and Danny Green, but will they be able to slow down the Warriors’ arsenal of superstars? It’ll become obvious in Game 1 which team is forcing their style of play onto the opponent. That’ll give us clues as to who’s winning this battle.