NBA Finals Preview 2019: How the Raptors and Warriors create open 3s

For the first time in five years, we get a new NBA Finals matchup. Here’s how the Raptors and Warriors each work to create open 3-pointers.

For the first time in NBA history, the NBA Finals will begin outside of the United States with Game 1 on Thursday night, as the Toronto Raptors host the Golden State Warriors.  The players that had the most productive Conference Finals will square off as Kawhi Leonard (29.8 points per game, 9.5 rebounds per game, 4.3 assists per game, and 2.2 steals per game) and Stephen Curry (36.5 points per game, 8.3 rebounds per game, and 7.3 assists per game) headline the 2019 NBA Finals.

We saw in the last round that both stars will draw an enormous amount of defensive attention from their opponent. Traps, double teams, overloads, you name the coverage and it’s likely that these two players will see it at one point over the course of this series. A big component of who wins the Finals will come down to what the other eight players on the floor are able to do in absence of the defensive pressure.

Today’s NBA is powered by perimeter shooting, below, I’ll dive into how each team will attempt to attack the extra attention given to their star players. Both teams will try to exploit the resulting four-on-three scenarios to secure open 3-pointers.

I looked up the stats of uncontested three-pointers (defined by NBA.com as shots where the closest defender is a minimum of six feet away) by players who have attempted at least two 3-pointers per game in the playoffs for the Warriors and Raptors.

Along with charting the percentages and attempts, I will get into how each team tries to get those open looks for their non-superstars.

Toronto Raptors

The Raptors were led into the championship by the mercenary ways of Leonard. His ability to play both ends of the floor at an elite level have gotten Toronto over their LeBron James-sized hump—James leaving the East also helped. Yet, while a capable perimeter shooter, Leonard does most of his damage offensively in the midrange and around the basket.

As a team, the Raptors have attempted 34.5 3-pointers per game in the playoffs this year. Leonard only accounts for 16.5 percent of those — a stark difference to what we’ll see when we review Golden State — taking 5.7 3-pointers per game.

Against Milwaukee, Leonard faced sturdy one-on-one defenders in Khris Middleton and Malcolm Brogdon. Both were capable of handling Leonard alone, but the Bucks opted to send extra defenders whenever Leonard tried to attack in isolation.

The Bucks hope was that by cutting off the metaphorical head of the snake for the Raptors it would cause the rest of the team to fall apart. It’s a sound strategy especially given how the Raptors previous series against the Philadelphia 76ers ended (Leonard attempted 39 shots in 43 minutes).

Yet, thanks to some timely makes, the supporting cast was able to do enough to get Toronto into the NBA Finals.

With Leonard always attracting extra attention, the main way that Toronto took advantage was off drive-and-kick situations. Leonard is such a controlled attacker that once he gets a step on his defender he has the strength to absorb contact or make the corresponding pass to the open man the defense rotated off.

As the series went on, Toronto didn’t just rely on Leonard making the right read in these situations. As great of a player as Leonard is, he is not the greatest playmaker. He’ll often see the right pass a beat too late. To nullify that, the Raptors would have players set flare screens whenever Leonard or any ball-handler picked up their dribble.

In the first play of this video, you also see a Nick Nurse staple. Kyle Lowry sets an on-ball screen for Pascal Siakam and pops out to the 3-point line. Here both defenders stay with Siakam and Lowry gets a wide open look.

Player movement isn’t the only motion that Toronto uses in these situations. The 2014-15 San Antonio Spurs perfected the beautiful game and with their international-rich roster and the Raptors try and replicate it at times with their ball movement. As the Bucks attempt to rotate out of their traps and double teams of Leonard and others, Toronto has enough smart players to whip the ball around the court to find the open shooter.

Overall, the six players tracked see most of their attempts through catch-and-shoot opportunities; only Fred VanVleet has a ratio under 2:1 in catch-and-shoot and off-the-dribble 3-pointers (36 catch-and shoot 3s and 22 off-the-dribble 3s).

The player from this grouping to keep an eye on is Danny Green. He is coming off a slump, went 6-of-32 from downtown against Milwaukee, and now will likely be tasked as the primary defender against Curry. With Kevin Durant out for at least the first two games, Curry will be moving around the court and be a much more focal point of the Warriors offense. Can Green get his touch back with presumed tired legs hampering him on top of the shooting funk he’s currently in?

Golden State Warriors

With Kevin Durant’s return date unknown, for now, the Warriors are once again relying on the shooting prowess of the Splash Brothers to claim the title.

As a team, the Warriors are nearly matching the Raptors 3-point output (32.4 3-pointers per game), but their star (Curry) is responsible for 34.3 percent of his team’s total number — Curry is averaging 11.1 3-pointers per game in the 2019 NBA Playoffs.

It has been written and discussed at length how Curry’s ability to hit regularly from distances beyond 30 feet have warped the way opposing defenses have to guard Golden State. The Warriors use this to their advantage by stationing players around the arc to provide spacing for Curry to operate. When defenses overplay Curry for his 3-point shot — or he gets a favorable switch — Curry can leverage his above-average finishing around the rim.

In order to keep Curry from getting open layup after open layup, teams will have help defenders rotate off of a weaker shooter (Andre Iguodala and Draymond Green usually) to wall of the paint. When this happens, Curry has the requisite skill and faith in his teammates to make the right play. When these shots are falling, Golden State becomes impossible to guard.

Some have taken that narrative and proclaimed that without Durant, the Warriors are a better team. The additional movement — and overall commitment and intensity from the whole team — and screening away from the ball that the Warriors use without Durant’s singular talent could be perceived as a more appealing brand of basketball.

However, these drive-and-kick opportunities don’t disappear when Durant is on the court. As long as Curry or Durant are on the floor defenses are going to have to stretch themselves to account for the singular shooting talents of two of the premier offensive talents in the NBA.

The numbers bear out the same story, according to ESPN’s Kevin Pelton, Golden State assisted on 68.5 percent of their baskets in the 38 games Curry has played without Durant since he joined the Warriors. That number when Curry and Durant have shared the floor? 68.5 percent.

Nowhere is this sameness more realized than in Klay Thompson. Teams are always hyper-aware of Thompson’s presence on the floor as he is one of the best perimeter shooters in the game. However, Thompson is most often sprung free from open looks via screens. The videos below both show the Warriors manufacturing open looks off screens with and without Durant. The only difference in the two videos is the appearance of Durant in the second.

The player to watch for Golden State will be Draymond Green. He’s coming off arguably the best playoff series in his career (16.5 points per game, 11.8 rebounds per game, 8.8 assists per game, 2.8 blocks per game, and 2.3 steals per game). Over the course of the Warriors run, Green has always been the player teams choose to leave open, but his aggressiveness vs Portland showed that he is capable in exploiting this in other ways besides shooting 3-pointers. If that continues against the Raptors, the Warriors should easily pull off the three-peat.