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How Teams Might (Possibly) (But Probably Not) Beat The Warriors

Last year's Golden State Warriors were historically great. This year's model has Kevin Durant. They might be unbeatable, but here's how teams will try to beat them.
Photo by Bob Donnan-USA TODAY Sports

Everyone in the NBA is asking the same question right now, and none of them are even pretending to have a convincing answer. The question is, how on Earth are teams supposed to defend the Golden State Warriors next season? And no, "very carefully" is not an answer. When you take a team that had the third-best league-adjusted offense of the three-point era—the Warriors scored at a rate 7.5 percent better than the league average offensive efficiency, behind only the Steve Nash-led 2004 Dallas Mavericks and 2005 Phoenix Suns—and add KEVIN FREAKING DURANT to the mix, things get complicated.

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When I headed out to Las Vegas for four days of NBA Summer League action, I found that no one had really started tackling this vexing question in any depth. Durant's decision to head west was still so fresh that most everyone was talking about the moral dimensions of it—if the talk radio binary of "He's a coward!" and "Players can do what they want!" can be said to rise to that level—or just how it will work for the Warriors themselves when they have the ball.

Read More: Could The Utah Jazz Be Golden State's Kryptonite?

So when I went around asking scouts, personnel people, execs, agents, and media members what actual basketball tactics they'd enact in an attempt to slow down this expected juggernaut, the most common response I got was some variation of what one Western Conference personnel man said: "Shit, man. I haven't even started contemplating that yet." But when I pressed the issue, a few trends began to emerge.

Below, you'll find the strategies that several people around the league currently think *might* help them slow down the Warriors, as well as the reasoning behind that strategy, and the possible drawbacks that come with it.

TFW they are winning the glass/kicking your ass. Photo by Bob Donnan-USA TODAY Sports

Tactic: Stay Big

Reasoning: Win the glass and kick their ass
Drawback: The Warriors can run most big men off the floor

The consensus here was clear: You're not going to beat the Warriors at their own game, so it's best to swing hard in the other direction. Scouts, personnel men, agents, and media members alike largely agreed that putting as much size and length on the floor as possible is the best counter to the upgraded Death Lineup.

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If the original recipe unit had a major weakness, it was rebounding, but even that was only true on the defensive side of the floor. The Steph Curry-Andre Iguodala-Klay Thompson-Harrison Barnes-Draymond Green group snared only 71.6 percent of available defensive rebounds during the time it spent on the floor together last season, the equivalent of the worst rebounding team in the league by over a full percentage point. (This issue wasn't exclusive to the truest version of the Death Lineup, either. All the variations struggled to grab the ball off the boards.) They fared much better on the offensive glass, though, where their 27.0 percent offensive rebound rate would have tied with the Detroit Pistons for second-best in the league.

Given the sheer amount of offensive firepower the new group contains, it's absolutely imperative that any defense seeking to stop them bring an end to as many possessions as possible after Golden State's first miss. Per nbawowy.com, last year's Death Lineup registered an effective field goal percentage (eFG%) of 59.3 on shots attempted immediately after offensive rebounds. To give you an idea of how absurdly good that is, consider this: Golden State led the NBA with an overall eFG% of 56.3 during the regular season. The next closest team checked in at 52.6 percent. You can't let these dudes collect offensive boards and expect to come away unscathed.

As we saw during the Western Conference Finals against Durant's former team, the Oklahoma City Thunder (and again during the NBA Finals against the Cleveland Cavaliers), overwhelming the Warriors with the longest and most brutish lineup possible is currently the best known way to frustrate them in the half court. Make them navigate a thicket of long-ass limbs so that every dribble, every pass, every cut has to be as precise as possible in order for it to work, because even when it does, they get beat up a little bit. Stephen Curry is a defense-breaking fireball, but if you keep switching bigger guys onto him and kicking his ass as he turns every corner, eventually those bumps will add up and can, if you're lucky, throw a kink into the machine.

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Which brings us to the next issue …

"I'm not crying, I'm just getting emotional thinking about all the teams that will have to defend us." Photo by Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports

Tactic: Switch Steph's Pick And Rolls

Reasoning: Overwhelm him with size and length
Drawback: Not many bigs are mobile enough to hang with him, and the only time this has worked during the last two seasons is when he was (at least slightly) injured

If this sounds familiar, it's because—like stacking the lineup with size—it's a tactic that teams attempted against Golden State down the stretch of last season. The San Antonio Spurs were the first team to aggressively switch their bigs onto Curry in pick and rolls, and soon plenty of other teams—notably the Utah Jazz, Thunder, and Cavs—followed suit. Of course, this doesn't really work, either, for a few different reasons.

First, when Curry is going right, he can take most any big man to the basket off the dribble. He occasionally falls in love with taking the pull-up three over them instead—see: Game 7 of the Finals, when he admittedly searched out a three with Kevin Love playing defense rather than attacking the available space in front of him—but it's still dangerous to put a slower guy on him, and every big man is a lot slower. You're just asking for him to break down the defense, draw help, and spray the ball around the court to an open shooter. When that shooter is Green or Iguodala or even Barnes, that's OK. When it's Thompson or Durant, it's incredibly not.

There's also another issue if the switch comes out of a Curry-Durant pick-and-roll: Durant will absolutely punish any smaller defender tasked with guarding him. He's basically a 7-foot version of Curry, except that he also happens to be arguably the best post-up player in the league.

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Switching on Curry's ball screens is a bit more palatable when Thompson, Green, Iguodala, or anyone else is the one setting the pick. They're all less likely to punish smaller defenders that started the possession on Curry; the exception is maybe Shaun Livingston, who will eat in the post as well. In the case of the 1-2 Curry-Thompson screening action, switching is necessary in order to avoid leaving either of them open on the perimeter for even a split-second.

Several people I spoke to suggested blitzing Curry on his pick-and-rolls in an effort to get the ball out of his hands, but switching was a much more popular answer. Blitzing Curry as he comes around a screen means, in NBA parlance, putting "two on the ball," which is more likely to result in an open shot a pass or two down the line. When two of the greatest shooters of all time are among the guys that could wind up with that open look, that's a less appealing option than it might seem, especially since Green is likely to find them with a quick pass in the event their defender takes even a half-step toward the paint to help out.

When you see the late double team. Photo by Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports

Tactic: Double Durant In The Post, But Only Selectively

Reasoning: Don't let KD cook on the block, but only give up the pass when it's a non-shooter in the slot
Drawback: Pick your poison

As mentioned above, Durant was the most efficient high-volume post-up player in the NBA last season, scoring 1.23 points per play (a possession that ends with FGA, FTA, or TO by that player). There are very few players in the league that can even make things difficult for KD when he's isolated on the block, let alone stop him. It made sense, when Durant was in Oklahoma City, to send a second defender his way.

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A few people mentioned that you'd want to turn Durant into a passer when he gets the ball in the post, because it's a comparatively rusty part of his skill set. And when Draymond or Iguodala or Livingston or any non-Splash Brother is the player on the near wing or the top of the key, this makes sense. It's far better to give one of those guys an open shot than let KD go to work one-on-one.

The major issue crops up when Durant has the ball in the post and the guy in the best position to help out is supposed to be guarding Curry or Thompson. That's an impossible situation, because while that defender has to help, he also can't help, because doing so would involve giving one of the two best three-point shooters in the history of the league a wide-open look from deep.

The most convincing solution to this that I heard is to bring a late double, once Durant has started his dribble-attack toward the basket, but even that isn't so much a solution as a prayer. Durant can get his shot off well before the double gets there, and he's a talented enough passer with good enough vision that he'll start scoping out passing lanes if teams use this type of defense against him often enough. This is not Kevin Seraphin down there, it's Kevin Durant. And Kevin Durant can whip the ball around, over, and through the defense to open shooters or cutters when he draws help.

This is not anyone's idea of a worst-case scenario. Photo by Ezra Shaw-Pool Photo via USA TODAY Sports

Tactic: Turn Draymond Into A Finisher And Iguodala Into A Shooter

Reasoning: Any possession that ends with anyone other than a Splash Brother or Durant shooting is a win
Drawback: Easier said than done

The best possible result for the defense any time the Warriors have the ball is anyone other than the two best shooters ever, or Durant, who is one of the best individual scorers anyone has ever seen, shooting the ball. That's true whether it's Green or Iguodala in the Death Star lineup, and it's true of anybody else that comes off the bench. The problem is that everyone involved is skilled enough, and both willing and able enough passers, that the ball will eventually wind up in the right pair of hands with room and time enough to shoot.

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A couple people even suggested just not guarding Green or Iguodala at all, baiting them into taking any look that presents itself. Another key idea was refusing to help off anyone on the perimeter when Green catches the ball on a screen and roll. Green's first instinct in those situations, if he doesn't let it fly right away, is to take a couple dribbles into the paint, draw help, and then fire the ball to an open shooter. If you don't send help, though, Green can sometimes get in his own head and screw things up; just watch the first three games of the 2015 Finals for a reminder of what that looks like. Green was thinking himself out of open three-point looks and wildly challenging Timofey Mozgov at the rim, resulting in either blocked shots or passes winged into the third row. Forcing Green to become a finisher rather than a facilitator plays against his strengths and into the defense's hands.

Tactic: Pray

Reasoning: None of this other stuff is likely to actually work
Drawback: Neither will this

It probably means something that this was such a popular suggestion.

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