Last night, the Warriors took the all important Game 5 by a score of 104-94. Game 5 of a tied series is always a massive sliding doors moment. A team either takes full control and has two chances at winning the series or they fall behind and need two straight victories. The Warriors are the team that took control of this series in Game 5, but they did it in a way that not everyone expected.
As always, let's check out the win probability chart from Inpredictable. The Warriors controlled much of this game outside of the Celtics 3rd quarter surge. At one point in the first quarter, the Warriors had a 87.8% chance to win the game while up 24-8.
Again, this was a defensive victory for the Warriors (or an offensive loss for the Celtics?). Looking at the points per 100 possessions and four factors per CleaningTheGlass, we can get a good picture of how each team performed. The Warriors offense did not put in a great performance overall, but the Celtics offense performed worse. Their offense was in the 15th percentile overall, with the first shot halfcourt offense registering in the 14th percentile. Their offense was not bolstered by transition either like in the Miami series, with only 7.5% of their possessions coming in transition (look at the Warriors low turnover rate to cause this).
In this breakdown, we're going to discuss some of the Celtics offensive struggles, how the Warriors have slowly adjusted defensively, the Celtics defensive adjustments (for better and worse), and more.
Before we get going, major shoutout to Steve Jones Jr., Mo Dahkil, Joe Viray, and Yaya Dubin on Twitter. Many of their clips are used here, and they are all fantastic follows that make my life much easier.
We've been diving too deep into the wrong side of the ball
I've you've turned on your TV or opened up social media at all the past couple weeks, I'm sure you've seen discourse about the Celtics playing drop coverage against Steph Curry. That has been the most misunderstood and controversial X's and O's element of the series, and has gotten wide spread coverage nationally because it's so easy to point out. I've spent plenty of time talking about the coverage here as well (and I'll continue to do so).
While the Celtics defense has gotten the bulk of their attention, it's their offense that's been swinging games in this series so far. Check out the chart below from CleaningTheGlass, which shows the Celtics performance on both ends of the floor throughout this series. This chart makes it obvious which side of the ball we should have been discussing more this whole time:
So what has been the cause of these massive swings? Has it been more of the result of the Warriors defensive success or the Celtics offensive struggles? Yes, that's basically the same question that prompted this:
I think the answer is some of both, but mostly the excellence of the Warriors defense. They might be somewhat underrated defensively at this point (as they have been throughout their whole dynasty). Does anyone remember that this team was 2nd in defensive rating this season?
The adjustments and individual excellence
In Game 3, the Celtics had a monster offensive performance. They relentlessly were able to drive on weaker Warriors perimeter players without enough resistance at the rim. In Game 4, the Warriors did a much better job with the subtleties of their scheme, bringing help in a more timely manner with better rotations on the backline. In Game 5, they took that one step further. They kept their weaker defenders out of more difficult matchups through some fun tactical choices, the help was even better, and the point of attack defense looked more challenging to beat. Not only did the Warriors make it more difficult to create advantages, but they made Boston's life incredibly difficult even when they almost created them.
One of the first possessions of the game from the Warriors showed us a bit of everything. Celtics are running a Stagger into a ball screen here, and the Warriors give the switch on the Stagger for Klay to defend Tatum. The inverted screen is designed to attack Steph, but he fights through and doesn't give the switch they have been giving in the first four games. Despite Thompson falling on the drive, check out the ensuing help and recovery sequence. Helping the helper leads to helping that helper, which ultimately leads to Thompson helping the helper with a closeout on the Brown 3 (still with me?).
Overall, the Warriors did a much better job helping on shots at the rim. There was almost nothing easy for the Celtics players, leading to their second worst shooting performance at the rim in the series:
But yet again in Game 5, the Warriors did not protect the rim at the expense of giving open looks to the Celtics. Boston generated their lowest number of uncontested 3s on the series while having their 2nd worst performance at the rim.
There are plenty of factors that go into this that we'll get into, but the first is the Warriors not giving automatic switches nearly as often. In Games 1-4, the Warriors were willing to switch most ball screens with the intention of taking the Celtics out of their sets and get their halfcourt offense in the mud. The Celtics really figured out how to attack that pressure point in Game 3, which has eventually led to this full adjustment in Game 5.
While most of the adjusting was simply fighting through actions more often, the Warriors also threw in some hedging with the guards and even some drop. Watch the clip below, with Boston in their Horns Fist Flare action to get Steph switched onto Tatum. Instead of giving the switch, Curry is in drop coverage and then recovers to his man once the drive is contained. The possession is then closed out with a high switch from Looney and a great closeout from Draymond.
In this possession, the Celtics are relentlessly attacking Curry. There's a ball screen, wide pindown, then an inverted ball screen all to get the Curry switch. Instead of giving the switch, the Warriors show a new look and blitz Tatum. Tatum makes the right read to hit Smart on the short roll, who makes a good pass to Horford after the Warriors collapse. Then the fun starts. Excellent closeouts from Klay and Payton II kill the advantage, with Payton II ending the possession with a steal.
The player on the Warriors side that's been attacked with the most success has been Jordan Poole. Him and the other Warriors worked to take away those automatics as well. Here, Poole fights through the initial action to prevent the switch onto Tatum. Then as Smart is coming for another screen, Tatum rejects it into a tough shot. The bad shot leads to points on the other side of the floor for the Warriors.
Here, the Celtics are playing out of their wide series, with Pritchard setting the pindown to try and get the switch. Klay fights through and Poole shows and recovers nicely. While they give the switch on the rescreen, it takes about 10 seconds for the Celtics to get the matchup they want. Excellent help from Draymond at the rim and Bjelica helping the helper early leads to a stop.
Celtics run their Empty Ram set here, hoping to get Poole switched with the initial wide screen to then attack him with the empty side ball screen. Instead of switching, Wiggins fights through with Poole giving room to shoot the gap. Warriors then happily give the switch with Klay/Wiggins defending the screen and the possession results in Smart driving downhill on the Warriors two best defenders.
The Warriors were also smart about how the adjusted to contain Jaylen Brown. He has been the player who has caused the most issues for Golden State in isolation, but he was contained in Game 5. In the clip below, watch how heavily Brown is being shaded to his left hand. The Warriors are willing to give him this drive while bring more help from the weakside, knowing he's also not as good of a playmaker driving left.
Here are a couple more clips of Brown going to his left in Game 5, just not being quite as good going that direction:
Here are a few more clips of the Warriors keeping Jaylen Brown away from his right hand. The shading was much more aggressive in Game 5, but also watch how early the help is coming (as noted by Cooper). The early help prevents some of the easier finishing angles while forcing Brown to make plays going to his left, which he is less comfortable with.
The Warriors did a great job defending as a unit and keeping Boston out of their automatics, but the level of individual defense has really risen all around throughout this series from them. While Draymond Green and Klay Thompson have gotten praise in the clips above, Andrew Wiggins and Gary Payton II deserve a ton of credit as well.
Gary Payton was unleashed yesterday with Kevon Looney in foul trouble. Despite only playing 21 minutes in the previous two games combined, in Game 5 Payton II gave the Warriors 26 minutes of defensive excellence. He gives them more versatility with his ability to defend the wings, which he was much better at in Game 5. He gives a ton of ground coverage, with numerous examples of incredible closeouts. His hands are excellent, really getting into the handles of the Celtics players. He improves the rebounding and overall athleticism. Payton II was everywhere defensively.
I love the clip below, because it blends a lot of the elements we've been discussing thus far with some added Payton II praise. The Celtics run their Ram Stack, something they haven't gone to a lot this series. Wiggins helps on the initial drive and makes an excellent closeout to Tatum at the top of the key. Tatum then gets a half-step on him on the drive, but Curry is in early to stop the drive with the threat of the charge (Celtics spacing is also notably bad here). Gary Payton II prevents the lob to Robert Williams with his initial help, then recovers about 20 feet to get a contest on the kickout. He's incredible on and off the ball.
As for Wiggins, his offensive performance has gotten a ton of well deserved praise, but his defensive effort was also excellent. He is the best on-ball defender on the wing for the Warriors, but also provides a ton off the ball in help. Watch him stop Tatum at the rim completely here in help (also watch Draymond help the helper):
How about absolutely stonewalling Jayson Tatum on the drive here (with Draymond showing help again):
Or stonewalling Tatum again here with his best individual defensive effort of the game:
Lastly on the individual efforts, since it's hard to give Draymond Green too much defensive praise, we'll give him a little more. These two clips do a good job of showing his versatility in his of-ball defense. First, he prevents any kind of drive from Jaylen Brown with his presence at the nail while preventing the kickout one pas away with his ability to cover ground. In the second clip, he rotates to protect the rim against Derrick White on the short roll (also watch Gary Payton II splitting the difference in position to rotate).
Draymond Green is also often lauded for his ability to command a defense with his voice and IQ. It's difficult to find a better example of this than the clip below. Draymond tells Poole to blitz the incoming screen, as there is little time on the shot clock. Draymond then comes up from the weakside corner to take away the roll, knowing there's no way Tatum can make that pass over the top against the trap. The result is a bad shot and a signature moment in the series (the Poole buzzer beater):
The Celtics struggles with process
While the Warriors defense deserves most of the praise in my opinion, the Celtics offensive process is still questionable at times. They were not getting into their sets quick enough while potentially overdoing it on the matchup hunting. The graph below from Stephen Noh shows us how much longer the Celtics have taken to generate shots than the Warriors:
If you go back through many of the clips above and think about what the Celtics are doing or look at their spacing, it can be confusing. They attempted to attack matchups, oftentimes didn't get the matchup, and then attack without an advantage. Boston also struggled to manipulate the help, spacing, or backline in a meaningful way for most of the game. There were plenty of times when the Celtics were out of their stuff and attacked Wiggins going downhill. They have overused Marcus Smart in the dunker spot while not being as good with getting Draymond out of position to help. There are far too many isolations into bad shots, with the settles looking way worse when they aren't going in.
Despite the poor performance, it was not all bad for the Celtics offensively.
Celtics disguised attacking
The Celtics have some moments of impressive disguised attacking. While the Warriors did a good job of sniffing it out for the most part in Game 5, some stuff still slipped through the cracks. On this SLOB for the Celtics, they use Brown as the inbounder and quickly get him into their action allowing him to attack downhill to his right hand:
The Celtics Delay action seems normal here, but look who is defending the screen that ends in a backdoor. Instead of attacking Poole on the ball, he's attacked off the ball here leading to a good result.
Coming into the start of the second half, the Celtics attack Poole with a little but of added flair. A "Garfunkel" is a Ghost screen into a Pindown, which is what the Celtics run here to get Tatum the ball. They then run an empty side inverted ball screen, which doesn't get Tatum to matchup but instead gets Pritchard a good look at a 3.
Not all hope is lost for the Celtics offense from a process standpoint. They learned lessons here that they carried into the 3rd quarter, which was their only positive offensive quarter of the game.
Celtics 3rd quarter
The Boston Celtics put up 35 points in the 3rd, which gave them the lead for much of the final few minutes of the quarter. The Celtics failed to crack 24 points in any of their other quarters. To me, this was the result of better offensive process combined with Warriors losing some of the plot of their successful first half defense.
Early in the quarter here, the Warriors gave up the Curry switch easier than they had been doing in the first half. Smart is in the corner and the floor is spaced much better. On the drive, Tatum relocates towards the top of the key as Wiggins is splitting two on the weakside, making that closeout half a step longer. Result is a good look at a 3.
The spacing is much better here again, and again the Warriors just willingly give the Curry switch. Brown attacks downhill to his preferred right, where he can make this kickout to the top of the key more easily. With Tatum being the only offensive player nearby, Wiggins stunts instead of rotating because of the shooting threat Tatum is (although he probably should've trusted his teammates and rotated).
This is a good example of being intentional about the spacing. Draymond is helping here in semi-transition, but his true matchup is Horford at the top of the key. Horford stays there knowing Draymond is in help, which forces a closeout far too long to possibly make on the kickout.
Here, the Celtics run their double ball screen action to attack. The first screen gets the Looney switch onto Tatum, then the Warriors give the Curry switch. The Warriors try to scram Curry out of the matchup, but give the open look to Smart. Because Wiggins left Robert Williams to attempt to closeout to Smart, he's open for the offensive rebound where he'll eventually get another look and knock it down.
Near the end of the quarter, the Celtics are running their Pistol action with Brown receiving the ball from Smart and then coming off a screen from Grant Williams. The Warriors switch the first exchange, leaving Poole on Brown, which results in Poole/Curry defending the next ball screen. Not ideal. Brown is able to get downhill fairly easily and get to the rim.
While the Celtics were certainly doing good stuff to go on their 3rd quarter run, some of this was self-inflicted from the Warriors. They were able to get back to what made them successful in the 4th by keeping Boston out of automatic advantageous matchups, so it's back to the drawing board for the Celtics on how to figure out the offensive struggles.
The Celtics are going to quickly need to figure their offense out with their backs against the wall heading into Game 6. Some of their struggles will be solved by favorable regression from deep. They will need to continue to space the floor more intentionally and disguise actions to get a switch. They also have to walk the line better between looking to attack matchups and running offense. Boston can also get into their actions quicker. The offensive glass is another area the Celtics can attack more, but that also requires a balance of getting back in transition. The major adjustments have mostly been made in this series, so the Celtics will have to find a way to win on the margins where the Warriors have exceled.
Warriors beautiful game
After spending about 3,000 words and 25 clips on the Warriors defense and Celtics offense, it's finally time to look at the other side of the ball. The Celtics have been inching closer and closer to the level of the screen throughout the series against Curry. In Game 5, the floor finally opened up for the Warriors to run some of their beautiful game actions. I have written a ton about more aggressive coverages opening up the other 4 Warriors to attack, and in this game the Celtics were pushing that balance.
The Warriors opened up with an designed slip that utilized the gravity of Curry and Thompson to get a layup. Watch Porter slip the Flare screen with no help, as the other defenders are too scared of Curry cutting through or Thompson coming off a screen:
Playing a little higher to the level of the ball screen opens up Draymond Green. Look at Williams get caught on the wrong side of the handoff, allowing Draymond to attack with an inside hand release for the dunk. Also, watch the non-existent weakside help because Curry is the one in the weakside corner.
Classic Warriors stuff right here. Contain the ball screen, then the Warriors flow right into a pin down. Contain that, then it's a post up with the threat of the split action. Curry breaks it off for a foul call here. The Warriors ran through 3 actions in about 10 seconds to earn these free throws.
Last clip I'll show of this is another Post Split action. Celtics know the split is coming, so Smart is doing his work early to get over the screen. The problem is Curry rejects it, resulting in him having a floater against the dropping Williams:
Game 5 was the first time it felt like the Warriors had more success with their beautiful game stuff. Some of it was extra attention being put on Curry, but is also felt like they were running more of it with the Celtics more keyed into the high ball screen. Instead of the high ball screen for Curry being the signature item, it was blended in with other Warriors signature actions more.
It's a trap!
The Celtics stuck to their drop for most of the game, but played an even more slightly higher variation of it. While that was their coverage for most of the game, they did show two to the ball and switched more often than they had during the rest of the series. The Celtics fell right into the Warriors trap.
The Celtics were much more willing to send two to the ball in actions that didn't involved Draymond Green as the screener. While that could be a way of mitigating the downside of sending two to the ball, it still put the Celtics right in the Warriors blender multiple times.
Here, Gary Payton II is the one setting the screen so the Celtics feel like they can trap Curry. It leads to Robert Williams needing to cover two players right under the basket and an eventual Payton II layup:
This time on the Post Split after the initial action, Horford is there on the Curry catch with Tatum working to recover. While that's happening, it opens up a runway for Wiggins to get a layup:
A nice flip of the screening angle from Payton II leads to Williams having a harder time guarding this screen. He still ends up way out on the floor with Payton II cleanly slipping towards the rim. He gets the ball and gets a nice look at a floater:
And finally, this is exactly what you don't want. Sending two to the ball on the Looney screen puts the Celtics in rotation right when the pass is made to the roller. Looney then finds Klay Thompson, one of the best shooters ever, in the corner for a good look at a catch and shoot 3.
The drop coverage was not about stopping Curry, it was about beating the Warriors. I think the Celtics overcorrected to some extent after an absurd shot-making game from Curry that was unsustainable. The Celtics also may have overcorrected on the wrong issue. The Warriors offense had not been great, yet the more aggressive coverages on Curry opens up everything else without truly stopping Curry. Curry still got a ton out of the drive game while getting similar looks from 3 (although on lower volume).
Also, it should be noted that Curry is mentioned in the last two sections in almost every clip despite not scoring in any of them. Even when he doesn't knock down shots to the same extent as usual, his presence creates a ton of looks for his teammates. The shots didn't go down for Curry, but that doesn't mean he didn't have a massive offensive impact.
Wiggins and the others
The first place to start when talking about more unexpected offensive contributions from the Warriors is with Andrew Wiggins. He was great on that end of the floor, relentlessly attacking the rim on his way to 26 points on 23 shots.
Was the shot-making from Wiggins fully sustainable? No, but the aggression and how he was used can be carried over. He scored in a variety of ways. He got in the lane as a screener, offensive rebounder, in isolation, and in transition. Despite playing over 42 minutes on the night, he attacked throughout. That was something h was hesitant to do earlier in the series, especially with his outside shot not falling a ton. He was 0/6 last night from 3, but still had a ton of success attacking the rim.
Wiggins deserves the praise, and the Warriors need his offensive output. They don't have a ton of players that can break out of the offensive scheme and create shots outside of Curry (who gets all the defensive attention) and Poole (who struggles to stay on the floor). The Warriors need the shot creation and athletic versatility that Wiggins provides, and his offense will continue to be important with the optimization of defending Curry at the expense of giving players like Wiggins offensive opportunities.
Gary Payton II was also good enough offensively to stay on the floor. This was a major factor for the Warriors, as his defense was sensational (as noted previously). Payton II made an offensive impact as a screener, cutter, and finisher around the rim. If he can continue to do just enough offensively to stay on the floor, it could continue to shift the series in the Warriors favor.
Again, more aggressive coverages open up everything for the other Warriors and their style. If they can continue to get contributions on the margins from players like Wiggins and Payton II, it makes Boston's defensive responsibilities that much more difficult.
These past few sections have talked a lot on the successes of the Warriors offense, which may be overanalyzed because the Celtics defense is so exceptional. Every possession from them features multiple wild sequences, which is why the Warriors have to work so hard to score points. The Warriors have found some cracks, but it's important to reiterate they haven't really been performing great from an offensive standpoint. This Celtics defense is still the best in the league, it's their offense that's been letting them down.
Who has the advantage
Obviously the Warriors have the advantage to this point. They have two games to win one. It feels like they have more figured out than the Celtics, who still have adjustments to make on both ends of the floor. To this point, the Warriors have figured out more on both ends of the floor. They are dictating the tactics of the series right now. They have won two games in a row in different ways. The ball is on Boston's side of the court to adjust (or just play better) to force this series to 7 and potentially win.
Comments