NBA Finals Game 4: More than Just Curry's Greatness

There are few things I love more than Game 4 of a 2-1 series. It's underrated how massive of an inflection point this is for any series. If the team down 2-1 loses, all of a sudden their back is against the wall needing to win 3 straight games to win the series. If the team down 2-1 wins, all of a sudden the 7 game series shifts to a best of 3. In the all important Game 4 while down, Steph Curry had arguably the best game of his career. He posted 43 points on a ridiculous 72% True Shooting.

The Curry masterpiece will get most of the attention (as it probably should), but it was not the full story on the Warriors victory. Per CleaningTheGlass, Golden State only posted an offensive rating of 111.5, good for the 49th percentile. In the halfcourt, their first shot offensive rating was just 83.9, good for the 18th percentile. It was their defensive adjustments combined with the Celtics taking a step back in their offensive process that turned the game just as much as Steph's individual greatness.

It's also important to remember that Boston was in fairly good shape for most of the game. As late as 4:57 remaining in the 4th, the Celtics had an 82.2% chance to win the game per Inpredictable.

The reason I show this is because each team still has areas to improve in. This was not a convincing blowout, but rather a back and forth battle. Below, we'll discuss the two way performance of the Warriors that led to the victory, some qualms with the Celtics, where each side can improve, and what happens next.

The Celtics defensive strategy and the unreal God-like performance

We need to have a discussion about the Celtics defensive strategy, because I don't think many people fully understand why they are doing what they're doing. They are playing drop coverage against the best shooter ever, which many are criticizing. Yes, it looks bad when Curry is hitting shots at a ridiculous rate, but the Celtics aren't stupid. They're playing that way for a reason.

The Celtics strategy is not to stop Steph Curry, it's to beat the Warriors.

The Celtics drop coverage has taken the Warriors completely out of their offense and has put almost everything onto the plate of Steph Curry. Remember the dominant Warriors offensive performance against the Mavericks? They were doing that with endless motion resulting in layups and 3s. This series, things have been different. It's much harder for the Warriors to get anything, and the best way for them to score is unlimited Curry ball screens resulting in contested 26-footers.

When most teams guard the Warriors, they send two to the ball. That's been the strategy against them for years. Teams are terrified of Steph Curry shooting it at all, so they'd rather give the 4 on 3. That's what the Warriors want. Allow fellow basketball analyst Admiral Akbar tell you what bringing two to the ball against Curry is:

After Curry was putting on a ridiculously unfathomable masterpiece offensively, the Celtics decided to mix it up and show two to the ball. This is what happened:

The drop is what's taken Draymond Green out of this series. The drop coverage literally sent Draymond to the bench with under 7 minutes in the game. Draymond is one of the best decision-makers ever in this short roll, and in the play above it results in a layup. By dropping, the Celtics take away the roll man completely since he isn't a lob threat. The drop combined with aggressively not guarding Draymond on the perimeter, elite guard defenders blowing up handoffs, and staying home on drives has taken Draymond out of the game and their defense out of the typical Warriors offensive blender.

A thought I had before the series is that Boston could experiment with switching against Curry. He hadn't been quite as good against switches before this series, but against the Celtics big men he has been getting paint touches at will. Admiral Akbar, what do you think of switching against Steph Curry?

The Celtics switched a couple of times against Steph down the stretch while throwing out the kitchen sink in an attempt to stop him. Al Horford and Robert Williams simply aren't able to stay in front of him.

So, now let's discuss the drop. There literally is no worse ball screen coverage to play against Steph Curry than drop. He has been torching it all series long. However, against the Warriors you have to give up something. The Celtics have adjusted their drop coverage to bring it higher, generally having the centers with their heels on the 3-point line.

It's not like Curry was walking into open shots at the same rate he has been at times in previous games. The Celtics were much more locked into their higher drop against his tonight. Out of his 14 3-point attempts, only 2 were uncontested. He shot 1/2 on those looks. Where Curry has revolutionized the game of basketball is with his ability to shoot contested 3s off the dribble. Curry made 6 of 12 contested 3s last night, which is something you might have to live with if you're the Celtics. What else are you supposed to o against this?

This one right here is a 33 FOOT PULL UP JUMPER! I'm not sure what you can do about this one...

You can't chase over a screen and get a much better contest than this:

There are no good ways to defend the Warriors. At the end of the day, the God-like performance from Curry ended up in a below average offensive rating for the game for the Warriors (although it's fair to point out they only shot 3/17 on uncontested 3s as a team).

At the end of the day, this strategy is built to defend the Warriors as a whole even though the hole it creates is the Steph Curry stuff. The Warriors assist rate is way down from the season and previous Playoff series. Draymond Green is almost unplayable on offense. Looney is close to being played off the floor. The support players have struggled throughout. The Warriors offense generating enough points to win Game 4 was a testament to the ridiculousness of Steph Curry rather than an indictment on the Celtics defensive strategy.

The Celtics reverted back offensively

The overall Celtics offensive performance wasn't great, but they were especially bad down the stretch. The Celtics scored 6 points in the last 7:32 of the game while only attempting one shot in the paint. These possessions were highlighted by stagnation and poor process.

Here's an example of poor process, with the Celtics continuously going at Nemanja Bjelica when Jordan Poole was standing right over there:

The possession outlines the regression in process from Boston down the stretch. They don't really get into their Strong Flare action until 10 seconds have run off the shot clock. Tatum attacks with very poor spacing, as Derrick White is in the dunker spot and Smart doesn't relocate up. He then pulls it out a fires up an airball with time running out.

This next clip points out Klay's defense (we'll get to that) but also highlights the poor process. General stagnation combined with Marcus Smart in the dunker spot with Draymond Green on him is going back on what they figure out in the last game.

While the Celtics did their fair share of shooting themselves in the foot offensively, the Warriors were also much better defensively. The timing of the help combined with more crisp recovery was much better. The anticipation on meeting driving players was improved. The Celtics were in their attack mindset through much of the game, still posting a significant number of drives, but the help was generally a half step early leading to slightly more difficult finishes.

The Celtics had a ridiculous finishing game in Game 3, but that did not carry over quite as much. Some of this was just more timely help preventing the shots from taking place at all. While the Celtics still finished at a high mark against contests within 6 feet of the rim, they did not shoot nearly as many shots. The best defense against high EV locations is prevention instead of containment.

A key for the Warriors was that Draymond was much better in help in Game 4. After a mistake early, he was much higher when helping on drives to thwart potential rim attempts. Watch these two clips of Draymond helping up earlier, preventing shot attempts at all. Also note how much better the Warriors did on helping the helper, with the weakside corner coming over and getting into the lower body of Robert Williams thus preventing the lob.

Something else the Warriors did that wasn't necessarily an adjustment was to simply guard the ball better. Wiggins was much better on the ball, as was Draymond Green. Bjelica held up, Curry gave his usual effort, and Klay Thompson was great in the 4th quarter. The Warriors also knew what was coming. There is a fine line with being intentional and being predictable, and I think the Celtics were on the wrong side of that in Game 4. The rotations were there because of how slowly the Celtics were getting into their predictable attacking. However, even though Boston lost sight of why they were successful in Game 3, part of that was improvement from the Warriors defensive execution.

One of the drawbacks of ignoring some Warriors

The Celtics have not been defending Draymond Green and Kevon Looney very much, which has generated plenty of good results for their defense. One negative of that strategy showed in Game 4, which was offensive rebounding. The Warriors grabbed an offensive rebound on 37.3% of their missed shots, good for the 93rd percentile per CleaningTheGlass.

The reason this is a drawback of not guarding players is because if an offensive player is detached from a defensive player, it makes it much more likely the offensive player will grab a rebound. Within an offensive possession after a shot goes up, most of the time the defensive player will be positioned inside the offensive player, making it much more likely they will grab the rebound. However, in the context with how the Celtics were defending, many of the rebounds were players running in free after their man helped from somewhere else.

The Warriors grabbed 16 offensive rebounds in the game, but effort was not the issue for the Celtics. Overall, the Warriors collected 18 of the 34 total contested rebounds, just barely over half. The Warriors did a much better job of crashing after missed shots, but were helped by some bounces that went there way (although they were constantly putting themselves in position to get the ball after the bounces).

For the Celtics, the adjustment may just be to send a body or two to the glass and key in on making contact with the big men after a shot goes up even if you aren't defending them. This drawback of their defensive strategy was crucial to the Warriors offensive output, but not to enough of an extent to go away with how they're playing against Draymond and Looney.

Wiggins offensive aggressive and defensive aptitude

The second best player on the Warriors is... Andrew Wiggins? Wiggins was all over the court yesterday on both ends, rebounding from a quietly bad performance in Game 3. Something the Celtics have been doing against Wiggins has been intentionally leaving him in help and recover situations and forcing him to make plays and hit shots. Wiggins hasn't punished the Celtics for that until tonight.

Wiggins hit two early shots and was attacking closeouts much more confidently. He forced the Celtics away from treating him as a non-threat offensively.

His offensive output unlocked some stuff for other Warriors players. He didn't even have a great game efficiency wise as a scorer with 17 points on 18 true shot attempts, but it was his aggression that opened up the game.

Defensively, he quietly wasn't great in Game 3. The Celtics wings were able to go at him to some extent in have success. While there were certainly still moments of that in this game, Wiggins did a much better job containing ball handler on the perimeter. He's the best defender on each of the Celtics wings, making him a crucial defensive chess piece for this series.

The last thing I wanted to very quickly hit on was the rebounding. Wiggins recorded 16 rebounds in this game, which is what everyone seems to be talking about. However, only two of those rebounds were considered contested. While Wiggins should be credited for his motor, the actual rebounding performance was not nearly as impressive as the rebounding total. Russell Westbrook would be proud.

Warriors still finding the right combinations

The Warriors are still messing around with who to play in this series. While all the attention is one Kerr putting Draymond Green on the bench for portions of the game late, the Warriors also started Otto Porter Jr. over Kevon Looney in an interesting move they quickly went away from.

The move to bench Looney early may have been overthinking how to attack the Celtics double big lineup, but that experimentation outlines how there is still stuff to be learned on both sides. The Warriors are starting to figure out who is playable in this series. Gary Payton II is someone I've been vouching for, but if he isn't more impactful defensively he's difficult to have on the floor. Bjelica has given good two-way minutes while being a floor spacer and plus decision-maker. Looney's rebounding and rim protection have proven necessary despite the offensive limitations. Porter has had his minutes reduced with struggles with perimeter defense.

Steve Kerr still has some stuff to figure out with his rotations against his uniquely challenging Celtics team, but he is close to figuring it out.

Does the Warriors offense have more to give? Do the Celtics fall into the trap?

These two questions are things I will be closely watching in the next game. The Warriors have had plenty of success with high ball screens with Curry, and have begun to explore how to get the switch before the ball screen with him. This way, instead of having either Derrick White or Marcus Smart chase over the top of screens (who are both elite), it's a player with much worse screen navigation (like a Jayson Tatum). Something else that's in the Warriors bag but they haven't done much of is empty corner actions with Curry, which makes the job of the center and help defenders much more difficult. Here are examples of each:

The Warriors can also continue to be more creative with attacking the Celtics drop and their disregard for the big men. Here, force Brown to defend Curry with the initial screening action and then attacked the dropping big with a split:

The next question to look at is if the Celtics will fall into the trap of bringing two to the ball against Curry. They have not overreacted to Curry's offensive success yet in the series, but in late in Game 4 they finally broke. After an all-time great performance, I wonder if they begin to blitz Curry. While I personally understand the drop and have been writing about the theory this while series, I'm still curious to see what the blitz looks like. Maybe instead of stopping everyone but Curry they should stop Curry and unlock everyone else? While I think that theory is a trap, it would be a defensible adjustment to what we just witnessed (although a potential overreaction).

Who has the advantage?

The answer to this question for me is a massive shoulder shrug. Curry has proven to continue to be an insolvable puzzle while the Celtics continue to make some head-scratching offensive decisions. Overall, I think the Celtics are a slightly better team but they are facing an uphill battle with 2 of the final 3 potential games in San Francisco.

Generally, after 4 games of a series you have a good idea of what each teams scheme, tactics, and rotation is, and the rest of the series comes down to who happens to execute better and make more shots. This series feels like there are more layers to it. Boston has to continue to tinker with the Curry coverages with the potential for a complete overhaul. The Warriors still have to figure out how to involve Draymond and the other players more. Both teams continue to mess with the rotations. The Warriors will have to counter when Boston's offense gets back on the right track. Maybe Game 5 is the point where everything makes more sense, but we are still a little bit away from that in my opinion.

If I had to make a prediction, I'd still reluctantly go with Boston in 7. The rest of this series should be awesome.