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https://theathletic.com/3289461/2022/05/02/warriors-grizzlies-game-1-film-breakdown/
Hollinger: Five key clips from Grizzlies-Warriors Game 1, and what they mean for Game 2
One marker of how well a team is defending the Grizzlies is to just look at the easy stuff: second-chance and fast-break points. That’s where Memphis does a big chunk of its damage, and it will be a focus all series.
However, there’s another one we don’t talk about as much: what I call the “Desmond Ratio.” The idea against Memphis is that you’ll pack the paint and live with semi-contested 3s from any player on the roster except Desmond Bane. If the Grizzlies take a lot of 3s and Bane has a small proportion of them, you’ve probably done your job.
Well, in this game, Golden State had a “Desmond Ratio” of 7.0: Memphis had 35 3-point attempts from players not named Bane and just five from Bane. Sure, Jaren Jackson Jr. got cooking, so Memphis did a bit more damage on those non-Bane 3s than you might expect (15-of-35, which is a 64.3 percent true shooting), but playing the long game, this is advantage Golden State.
Missing from those stats are all the times the Grizzlies drove into a packed paint or record-scratched out of promising possessions because the Warriors were daring poor-to-middling shooters to fire away. As our Fred Katz already noted, Morant took 11 3-pointers in part because the Warriors went under every screen and dared him. The horns sets where his defender hung out below both screens were particularly emphatic examples.
The above clip is a perfect example, a possession to nowhere where the Warriors dared both Morant and Kyle Anderson to shoot from distance (automatic fine if you go for Slo-Mo’s shot fake) and had zero fear whatsoever of Xavier Tillman doing anything on his roll. The Grizzlies ended up with a shot-clock violation after Morant drove into three waiting players on the reset.
Second quarter: Defending Steph Curry
One reason Memphis will regret losing this game is that the Grizzlies mostly did an outstanding job on Curry, using Brooks as the primary defender, switching most screens involving him (although trying very, very hard to keep Morant as far away from him as humanly possible) and harassing him into 24 points on 8-for-20 shooting.
The Grizzlies struggled more when they tried to put two on the ball, as Golden State got a four-on-three virtually every time but went away from that as soon as Tillman checked out. Even the shots Curry made were earned; stepback 3s off the dribble, drives into traffic and the like. Those plays where he scrambles around off the ball, gets a pin-in screen and emerges with a wide-open 3? Those weren’t really a thing in Game 1.
This clip above is a great example. The play above starts with De’Anthony Melton on Curry, but the Grizzlies switch a screen to put Anderson him, negating Curry’s curl. Curry retreats with a live dribble all the way to the opposite 3-point line, but Anderson harasses him the whole way and eventually pins him against the sideline. Curry regains his dribble when Anderson deflects the ball, but he drives right back into Melton, who blocks his floater.
Warriors fans will note that the primary trigger for a lot of Curry’s open 3s is a screen or pass from Green, who wasn’t around for the last 25 minutes. We’ll see if he can spring Curry more often in Game 2.
Third quarter: Poole party
Jordan Poole was the catalyst for both teams’ offenses at times, but his scoring and passing more than made up for the vulnerability at the defensive end in this one. In contrast to the Grizzlies’ rotation usage, which we’ll get to more in a minute, the Warriors played Poole 38 minutes off the bench, starting him in the second half after Green was ejected and only removing him for two very short breathers. Those 38 minutes are more than every Grizzlies player except Morant.
Poole finished with 31 points and made five of his 10 3-point attempts, including one where he got hit on the side of the head by Clarke with no call. (Another fine moment for this crew.) As sweet as the scoring was, however, the passing might have been even better. His development in this area isn’t getting as much attention, but it’s a pretty huge deal in terms of his overall value.
Poole finished with a team-high nine assists, and several were sweet dimes far above the pay grade of your typical get-’em-up bench scorer. To start the third, he dropped a perfect pass in between three Grizzlies to set up a Kevon Looney basket and then had the ping-ping-ping sequence in the clip above to get Curry one of his easiest looks of the day and an and-1 opportunity after Morant crashed into him.
That pass looks like the obvious play, but most guys on a heater like Poole are taking the first swing pass from Curry and letting it rip. Poole read Morant closing out on him, and perhaps that Tillman behind him had a chance to block his shot, and realized zipping it right back to Steph was the better play.
While we didn’t see much of the Megadeth lineup due to Green’s ejection, the pairing of Poole with Curry and Klay Thompson continues to show so much offensive promise that the Warriors may need to live with whatever defensive warts it brings. Whether he technically starts or comes off the bench seems secondary; either way, Poole has just been too good to keep off the court.
Fourth quarter: Grizzlies don’t stagger
Taylor Jenkins is going to regret a few things about this game: not pushing harder for a two-for-one or calling timeout when they got the ball back with 36 seconds left, not playing Jackson more in the first half (he finished with just 31 minutes and three fouls; he could have helped in that second quarter clip above, for instance) and not tightening the rotation further.
One of the biggest things he’ll likely regret, however, is not staggering the minutes of Morant and Bane better to keep more firepower on the court. Both players rested at the start of the fourth quarter, and it got ugly fast.
In a one-point game to start the fourth quarter, Memphis sent out a lineup of Tyus Jones/Brooks/John Konchar/Anderson/Clarke. That shooting-deficient group had a hopeless first possession in the clip above. With three non-shooters on the court and limited shot creation, they ran a split cut action with Anderson in the post to … get Brooks a tough 2?
Morant subbed in quickly, but that put even less shooting on the floor since he replaced Brooks. By the time Memphis got its best five back on the court, the Grizzlies were facing a 10-point deficit.
How can Memphis manage its bench units better to keep more shooting on the floor? Playing Konchar may be a luxury unless Bane is out there with him. Pulling Melton out of cold storage after two DNPs against Minnesota certainly helped; he was ghastly awful in that series (a PER of minus-4 in 47 minutes) but was a huge bench energizer all season. The Grizzlies didn’t have Ziaire Williams and Steven Adams available, but I’m not sure they would have made things any different.
The Grizzlies likely need to tilt the rotation toward even fewer Tillman minutes (like, zero, for instance) and more with Jackson playing the five; that risks fouls against most opponents, but the Warriors are so perimeter-heavy that it may not matter much against them. That takes them down to an eight-man rotation with a few scraps for Konchar/Williams in the ninth spot, but that’s the playoffs.
Fourth quarter: The Warriors win the board battle
Finally, let’s finish with the most amazing stat of the night: Golden State finished the game with a better offensive rebound rate than Memphis, yanking down 16 of a potential 47 misses. Memphis, of course, led the league in ORB rate during the season. Golden State … did not. The Warriors finished 18th in this category, and the Grizzlies were a respectable 10th on the defensive glass. Golden State also did this despite missing Green the entire second half and being forced into smaller arrangements that included getting Porter some run at center.
And yet, this might have actually been the reason the Warriors could rebound so well. While a few of their boards were just pure energy plays by Gary Payton II, several were the result of the Warriors’ shooting stretching the Grizzlies to their absolute limit, leaving Memphis chasing its tails on the glass. This was particularly true in the fourth quarter, when out of 16 potential rebounds the Warriors kept the ball seven times and should have had an eighth (the missed out of bounds call on Brooks).
The above sequence is probably the most telling one, even though Golden State ultimate didn’t score. Two 3-point misses by Thompson and Curry produce long rebounds that the Warriors are able to chase down, while the Grizzlies are scattered all over the court from trying to defend the initial action. Andrew Wiggins gets the first one when it bounces long and he’s the only player left on the weak side because two players chase Thompson, and the clip starts after he’s kicked the ball out to Curry. Once he gets up, he’s unattended under the basket while the Grizzlies scramble to chase Curry and Poole. (Although Morant might have tried blocking him out instead of just trying to out-leap him.)
Part of the benefit of Memphis’ switching is that the Grizzlies theoretically should be less prone to this, but the threat of Golden State’s shooting is such that even the best-laid plans end with two guys flailing out desperately at Curry or Thompson and the boards unattended. In retrospect, it’s shocking this team didn’t rebound at a higher rate in the regular season, so an interesting subplot will be whether this was a one-off fluke from some long rebounds going to the right places or whether it’s sustainable for the rest of the series. Certainly Payton, who had a team-high four offensive boards, could play a big role in this question. One can argue Adams returning could even the score here for Memphis, but it’s not clear how much he would play if the Grizzlies are committed to a switching scheme. Nonetheless, it was an underrated key to the Warriors stealing Game 1 and taking advantage in this series.
Related reading
Kawakami: The fury, pride and playoff righteousness of the Warriors
Thompson: Quartet of guards prove problematic for Memphis
(Photo of Dillon Brooks and Steph Curry: Joe Murphy /NBAE via Getty Images) -------------------
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