Dr Spaceman wrote:Doctor MJ wrote:A thought from the game tonight:
When we talk about "depth", so often it seems to mean simply protection from wear and tear. It's nice, but not that big of a deal. What we're seeing from the Warriors in Game 4, if it ends up being the turning point of the series, is something more jaw dropping. The team is so deep with talent that it feels like they have a counter for every move somewhere in their toolbox.
To the extent this is true, this is such an impossible thing to get right reliably, and maybe more daunting: Now that the Warriors have it through skill and a lot of luck, how can they keep it going forward? Don't the Warriors basically have to try to trade Lee this off-season, and at this point, is there really any way to spin that as improving the team?
I think this was always a big part of the argument for the Warriors. It’s not just that they have a ton of guys, it’s that they have a bunch of unique pieces and they can pretty much adapt to any shape at will. If you look at all of their last 3 playoff series, there’s a clear progression: the other team looks like they can hang with them for 2-3 games, then the Warriors figure them out and look like it should never have been a series in the first place.
I’ll admit I never saw them having so much trouble against Cleveland, since I was a big believer in Bogut and Green being smart and gritty about keeping TT off the boards. It looks like there’s no answer for that, but the small lineup they started with in game 4 was so good offensively it didn’t matter. Helped that Barnes and Green were able to get away with murder on the glass.
Anyway, the big thing with the Warriors is that they can take guys with serious resumes in this league and basically say “we don’t like this matchup, we have someone better for the job, you’re not going to play”. If something isn’t working, they find somebody on the bench who can do something different.
I didn’t see this being a problem since their starters were so dominant on the regular season, but unfortunately it looks like they’re going to kill Cleveland not by playing their game, but by having a counter in their back pocket. that’s good for now, but it doesn’t bode well for the team’s future exactly. The Spurs are a model to follow, but they’re notorious for bringing in replacement-level guys and turning them into indispensable contributors, and that’s not exactly something you can just copy. Iggy and Lee weren’t picked up off the scrap heap.
Maybe the biggest lesson here is that that starting lineup alone is not the stuff of dynasties like we thought. I don’t know how you go about tweaking that roster now that Green and Klay are max players, but Barnes is definitely a trade asset. It’s jarring how a team most expected to roll through the postseason is n having questions about addressing it’s flaws.
