cupcakesnake wrote:I'm pro-Steph's defense. I think he has fantastic awareness, is a little stronger than people think, and a couple years ago he even gave you a pinch of rim protection with his well timed help defense in the paint. Years ago, when teams would hunt him, I'd feel like.... sure go for it. You might get a few buckets, but you're not generating amazing offense by iso'ing Steph that much.
However, the man is old and small and the Wolves are young and big. Houston lacked a ton of perimeter punch. Fred can't score inside 3, Jalen Green is not a serious player, and the rest of the guys can't score outside 3. Steph had plenty of ways to contribute. Steph against the Wolves... I want to be clear that I'm not saying Steph would be some big hole or target. What I'm saying is that Steph makes your lineups smaller and more offensively skewed. One more small guy closing out on 6'9" shooters. One more small guy who might have to switch onto Gobert to box out, or close out and guard a Jaden drive. One more bad matchup for Ant. The Wolves just present more bad situations for the Warriors than Houston could.
The Warriors without Steph have had a clear strategy. Go all out on defense, and hope we can scrap together some points on the other end through Buddy 3s, Jimmy improvising, Kuminga rim pressure, and hey let's hope some random dudes hit shots (Draymond!). They play as bigger than they like to with Steph. More minutes for GP2, Kuminga, and Looney. They want Ant to drive into the paint, surround him and crowd his reads, and then scramble out to stop drives. Steph doesn't help with this kind of coverage. Kerr is specifically trying to be like: what new strength can we unearth without Steph?
I generally agree with this as most of the points are fair, but I guess the implication seemed to be that Steph would hurt the defense significantly in terms of changing the match-up (with match-up change being what I originally replied to). Maybe I misunderstood.
I think the Wolves have been having an easier time on offense in some ways because of how difficult it has been for the Warriors to score with Steph out. There's been so many bricks laid by Warrior players that it naturally makes offense easier for the Wolves. Sure in half court sets I think the Warriors have a better defender than Steph to sub in and often do late in games for single possessions. But it's like looking at Jokic's defensive impact stats where people expect some big negative but it's just not there, the ball going in just makes defense so much easier. If Steph hurts the defense I don't think it's by very much considering how often the Wolves aren't in half court sets vs. when he does play.
Playoff EFG%, Warriors backcourt:
Podz:
Steph ON: 52%
Steph OFF: 26%
Gary:
Steph ON: 62%
Steph OFF: 42%
Moody:
Steph ON: 49%
Steph OFF: 35%
Buddy:
Steph ON: 63%
Steph OFF: 52%
This is just brutal.
