by Austin Peters
And then there were two. After a crazy first couple weeks of playoff action, we are now down to the top two seeds of the craziest conference in arguably the history of the NBA. Golden State followed up a terrific regular season with an equally terrific first two rounds of the playoffs. Houston's roller coaster season also translated into the playoffs; rampaging through the first round against the Mavs before narrowly escaping the jaws of defeat against the Clippers in round two.
Each team had completely opposite paths to get to this point. Let's take a look at how they got here and what the matchup for the series might look like.
1 Golden State Warriors vs. 5 Memphis Grizzlies
After a blowout win in Game One, Memphis shocked the world by taking Game Two in Oracle and following it up with another victory in Game Three. Aided by the return of their star point guard Mike Conley, Memphis was able to control the tempo and beat the Warriors by playing their "Grit and Grind" basketball.
Getting Draymond Green and Andrew Bogut into foul trouble in those games was huge for the Grizzlies. Marreese Speights has been out due to an injury (and will likely miss most of the Western Conference Finals), making their front court depth relatively thin. Festus Ezeli hardly played at all in this series and looked overmatched, while David Lee just isn't anywhere close to the player he used to be.
In Game Four, however, the series turned when Steve Kerr did this:
Matching up Bogut on Tony Allen was an absolute game changer for the Warriors. With Allen being a major offensive liability, the Grizzlies had no choice but to play him less in order to have someone else out there to give juice to the offense. Allen was frustrating Klay Thompson in the early part of the series, climbing around every screen and never giving Klay room to breath. Here were Klay's splits from the first three games as opposed to the last three in the series:
Games 1-3 - 17 ppg, 35% from 3
Games 4-6 - 19 ppg, 60% from 3
I'm sure that Klay enjoyed the ability to breath with Allen not playing as much. This created another problem for Memphis because neither Jeff Green (18.2% from 3) or Vince Carter (23.5% from 3) could hit the broad side of a barn in the series. This made the spacing equally bad when they hit the floor. Not only were the Warriors able to unleash Klay, but they forced Memphis to play guys who couldn't provide what they needed. Checkmate, Steve Kerr.
The Warriors went on to blow out the Grizzlies not just in Game Four in their backyard, but Games Five and Six as well. Kerr made a ballsy move to switch that matchup, and it paid off.
(Now, for fun, here is a video of Steph Curry burying a 60 footer in Game Six.)
2 Houston Rockets vs. 3 Los Angeles Clippers
Nobody knows what in God's holy Name happened in this series. This series almost felt like a complete joke at times. Seriously, Josh Smith was doing things like this:
Josh Smith's three point percentage this season: 31.5%. This is the same Josh Smith that's known for doing THIS on the regular. That's how this series. went.
All joking aside, credit the Rockets for taking advantage of a Clippers team that looked out of gas in the final two games of the series. I thought the Clippers' fatigue would catch up to them a lot earlier and that this would be a swift series for Houston. While my Rockets prediction may have come true in the end, I had no clue it was going to go like this.
The Clippers were able to surprisingly split with the Rockets in the first two games in Houston, despite only having one day of rest after an unbelievable Game Seven against the Spurs and without their star Chris Paul. When Paul came back, the Clippers stomped all over the Rockets in Games Three and Four at home. Houston seemed absolutely dead in the water going home down 3-1 in this series. They took care of Game Five at home, Game Six happened, and then they blew out a worn down Clippers team in Game Seven at home. What a weird series, man.
Amongst all the madness in Game Six, Kevin McHale made the extremely divisive move to leave James Harden off the floor during the Rockets' magical fourth quarter run. With a lineup of Jason Terry, Corey Brewer, Trevor Ariza, Josh Smith, and Dwight Howard, they were able to roll out arguably their best defensive lineup and get stops when they needed them. The Clippers got lazy and the Rockets ramped up their defense, scrambling around and forcing turnovers like crazy. Dwight terrified a tired Blake at the rim several times down the stretch.
Blake was arguably the best player in the whole playoffs before he simply ran out of gas in the latter part of the Houston series. Blake played near the most minutes of anyone in the playoffs and on top of that, had to shoulder one of the biggest offensive burdens in the playoffs with Chris Paul out and playing hobbled. With Blake not being able to give his best, the Clippers were sunk.
(To be fair, here is a clip of James Harden doing Austin Rivers dirty in Game Seven.)
Who Advances to the Finals?
Give Houston credit. It may seem like a lot of what they accomplished came as a result of luck and good fortune. That may be true to an extent, but you need some of that to advance to this point in the playoffs. McHale's adjustments in this series, inserting Josh Smith into the starting lineup, sitting Harden in favor of a more defensive lineup, and switching Dwight onto Blake, played a huge part in their success. Harden was terrific in Game Seven, putting up a 31/8/7 in the final game. He shot poorly from the field in this series, but Harden affects the game in so many different ways other than scoring that he is able to put his teammates in positions to be successful with his passing.
Golden State, in addition to looking like a juggernaut, have had some luck of their own. It seems as though every team has had a major injury and the Warriors have been pretty fortunate to not have an injury to a key player in their rotation (KNOCKING ON ALL THE WOOD).
The match ups in this series are going to be interesting. You never know what you're going to get from Kerr. Anything is on the table. Will Bogut or Draymond guard Dwight? Do they have Klay guard Harden or put Barnes on him so Klay will be able to conserve energy for offense? On the flip side, McHale has some tough decisions to make himself. Does Trevor Ariza guard Curry and if that's the case, then who guards Klay?
In the playoffs, match ups are everything. Every little weakness gets pointed out and exposed. In this series, I have an idea of what the weakness is going to be that the Warriors exploit:
I've been at the front of the wagon saying that Harden's defense improved during the regular season. Unfortunately, the playoffs have been a different story, with Harden resorting back to possessions like the above clip. Los Angeles wasn't afraid to run stuff directly at him and take advantage of his inattentiveness on that end.
With Chris Paul's injury hampering him, he wasn't able to beat Jason Terry like he normally would. Terry and Harden being on the floor at the same time is extremely problematic for Houston because that leaves two players who will be liabilities on the defensive end. The Warriors did phenomenal of attacking mismatches in the Grizzlies series, running pick and rolls right at Zach Randolph and going to Harrison Barnes whenever he had a mismatch. They undoubtedly will be able to exploit the Terry/Harden combo. Brewer provides a significant upgrade on that end, but he won't be able to make up for two guys.
For Houston offensively, Harden hasn't shot particularly well in the playoffs, coming off a 40% shooting series against the Clippers. Golden State's switching defense has the probability of frustrating Harden, who preys on mismatches in the pick and roll. You can't do that when every Golden State player on the floor is able to switch and defend you capably one on one. If Harden starts getting hot by taking it at Andrew Bogut in the pick and roll, then Kerr will just throw out his super small lineup with Draymond at center, a lineup that has been the best of any in the playoffs. Lineups with Draymond at center are a total positive 13.3 and Green himself leads everyone in the entire playoffs in plus/minus.
Houston's best shot at winning is to slow it way down and get to the free throw line, which has been their formula for winning all season long. As they've found out in the playoffs, however, when you rely on officiating to win you a game, you are rolling the dice on something you can't control. It is no guarantee that they'll be able to get to the line and get the calls they need to win the game. That was the only way Memphis was able to sneak a couple games from Golden State, and we saw what happened the rest of the series when they didn't have the whistle on their side.
I don't foresee this series being close. Normally, the regular season has no indication on how teams will fair against each other in the playoffs but the Warriors dominated Houston in the regular season, sweeping them 4-0. I don't expect a sweep, Houston will probably get one game at home, but the Warriors just have too much for Houston to handle.
PREDICTION: Warriors in 5
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