Warriors-Hawks: Three things to watch for in the rematch between the NBA’s best
It’s been just under six weeks since the first time the Golden State Warriors and Atlanta Hawks squared off this season in a meeting of the best teams in the Eastern and Western Conferences this season. A matchup that we expected to be an instant classic turned out to be just that, as the two brilliant clubs combined for 230 points in a nip-and-tuck, back-and-forth battle that eventually saw the homestanding Hawks come away with an eight-point victory to overtake the Dubs for the best record in the NBA.
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The Warriors have since regained the lead in the race for home-court advantage throughout the postseason, entering Wednesday’s action holding a 53-13 record that puts them a whopping half-game up on Mike Budenholzer’s 53-14 Hawks. Most of the stuff that we highlighted back in February remains true as the two teams prepare to reacquaint themselves with one another on Wednesday, with the action now shifting to the Bay Area for a late-night contest that — thankfully, this time — will be nationally televised on ESPN.
Golden State and Atlanta are still two of the only four teams (along with the Portland Trail Blazers and San Antonio Spurs) to rank in the top 10 in the NBA in both points scored per possession and points allowed per possession; the Warriors are now No. 1 in both categories, while the Hawks rank sixth in offensive efficiency and fourth in defensive efficiency. They’re still right up their at or near the top of the league in team field-goal percentage, 3-point percentage, Effective Field Goal and True Shooting percentage, and opponents’ field-goal percentage. These are two deep, gifted, disciplined, balanced and well-coached squads; that much has not changed over the last month and a half.
Some circumstances, however, have shifted, and there are some different keys worth considering. Here are three things worth keeping an eye on as we hunker down for a rematch that we can only hope will live up to its predecessor:
1. Understudies under the microscope. In the first meeting, Klay Thompson led all scorers with 29 points on 11-for-20 shooting, while Kyle Korver continued his season-long sniping by drilling five of nine 3-pointers en route to 17 points. This time, though, both star shooting guards will be sidelined, with Korver working his way back from a broken nose suffered during the Hawks’ Sunday win over the Los Angeles Lakers and Thompson out at least a week after spraining his right ankle during the Warriors’ Monday win over … the Lakers. (Hey, c’mon, Lakers. Quit injuring fun shooters.)
While the Warriors and Hawks each have enough firepower to withstand the loss of a premier shooter, both teams still certainly feel the absence of their high-volume long-distance bombers.
Golden State’s offense experiences a significant drop-off without Thompson available to help distort defenses. With Klay in the mix, Golden State roasts the opposition to the tune of 112.5 points per 100 possessions, according to NBA.com’s stat tool, head and shoulders above even their league-leading offensive efficiency mark. Without him, they’re averaging 102.5 points-per-100, which would rank 17th among the 30 NBA teams over the course of the full season, just below the middle-of-the-pack Utah Jazz and Washington Wizards.
The Hawks, too, sputter without their sharpshooting two-guard, but the decline’s even more pronounced. Atlanta averages 110.9 points-per-100 with Korver on the floor, comfortably above Golden State’s No. 1 full-season mark, and just 97.5 points-per-100 when he’s on the pine, which would make them the league’s second-most feckless O, ahead of only the dismal Philadelphia 76ers.
Golden State coach Steve Kerr said Tuesday he was leaning toward starting Justin Holiday in Thompson’s stead against the Hawks. There’s not exactly a whole lot of past performance to analyze here, as Holiday has shared the floor with the Warriors’ other four starters for all of two minutes over the space of two games thus far this season. But the long-armed, quick-footed, 6-foot-6 Holiday has shown the capacity to fill in gaps pretty nicely thus far this season; in a larger (if still not exactly significant) sample size, Warriors lineups featuring the Stephen Curry-Holiday pairing have outscored opponents by 41 total points in 111 minutes.
In his lone start of the year — during last Friday’s loss to the Denver Nuggets, in which Kerr elected to rest Curry, Thompson, Andre Iguodala and Andrew Bogut, earning the Warriors head coach some sternly worded emails — the 25-year-old swingman and brother of New Orleans Pelicans point guard Jrue Holiday scored a team-high 23 points on 9-for-16 shooting, including a 5-for-7 mark from 3-point land. You wouldn’t necessarily wager on Holiday pulling off such a sound Thompson impression from long distance again Wednesday night, but with the rest of the Warriors’ big guns (namely Curry) likely to be back in the fold and drawing Atlanta’s defensive attention, you’d expect him to get some opportunities to step into lightly contested shots and make the Hawks pay.
On Atlanta’s side, defensive-minded backup Kent Bazemore is expected to get the start against the team with which he broke into the league and our collective consciousness as a bench-celebrating legend.
The 6-foot-5 guard has seen his accuracy slip when called on to open games this season — he’s shooting 44.8 percent from the floor and 42.7 percent from 3-point land in 54 appearances off the bench, compared to just 40.4 percent from the field and 27.3 percent beyond the arc in his six starts — and he missed six of eight triple tries during Monday’s win over the Sacramento Kings. But his ability to goose the Hawks’ transition game by running out on the break, his defensive activity at multiple positions — you’d expect him to see plenty of former teammate Curry, but he’ll check everything up to threes and maybe even small-ball fours for stretches — and his ability to hit open shots from the corners, like the one that helped put away the Kings with just over a minute left on Monday, could make him a wild card on Wednesday. If he can replicate his contributions from the first meeting between these two clubs this season — 11 points on 4-for-6 shooting, a perfect 3-for-3 from deep, five rebounds, an assist and a block to go with customarily tough defense in 26 1/2 minutes — he could help Atlanta deal the Warriors just their third home loss of the season.
2. Second-unit strength. While Curry and Thompson combined to hang 55 points on the Atlanta defense last month, the Hawks carried the day thanks in large part to more balanced offensive contributions, with seven players scoring in double-figures in the win. That included big outings from reserves Bazemore, Mike Scott (17 points on 5-for-7 shooting in 17 minutes) and Dennis Schröder (nine points, seven assists, no turnovers in 17 1/2 minutes).
“I think we share the ball more than they do,” Schröder said after the game. “I think that’s why we won the game tonight.”
But with Bazemore likely to join the starting lineup and Scott sidelined by a broken toe, Atlanta will need contributions from other sources. Can point guard Shelvin Mack — averaging 7.3 points and 1.5 assists in 15.3 minutes per game while shooting 44.1 percent from 3-point land over his last 10 games — continue his strong play since returning to the rotation after the All-Star break?
On the other side, the Warriors’ reserves — who are pitching in 35.3 points per game as a unit, 11th best in the NBA — need a stronger outing in the friendly confines of Oracle Arena, particularly from offensive facilitators like Iguodala (3-for-8 in the February loss, but in the midst of a strong run of form over his last 13 games), Leandro Barbosa (just 3-for-10 from the field in the first meeting, shooting just 37.5 percent since the All-Star break) and big man Marreese Speights (3-for-8 in February, coming off a DNP against the Lakers following his one-game suspension for pleading no contest to an August 2014 DUI charge). If the Warriors can get more offensive punch from the second unit, it’ll help ease the pain of losing Thompson, take the creative burden off Curry, and perhaps short-circuit Atlanta’s defensive discipline enough to turn the tables.
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3. Run ’em off the line. Heading into the first meeting, I expected a Hawks team that allowed more 3-point attempts than any other team in the league to struggle with containing a Warriors attack that led the league in 3-point percentage. But while the Splash Brothers did their thing — a combined 8-for-17 from downtown — the Warriors finished with a 12-for-33 mark from deep, while Atlanta scorched the nets to the tune of a 15-for-27 finish from beyond the arc.
With Korver and Scott, who combined for eight of those 15 triples, sidelined, can Atlanta match the Warriors’ firepower? Conversely, with Thompson sidelined, will Curry — who struggled at times with the Hawks’ aggressive closeouts in the first game — find enough daylight to be able to keep the Warriors’ offense on-time and on-target against an Atlanta defense that recently trapped and stifled the high-octane Cleveland Cavaliers into disarray?
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Dan Devine is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
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