In theory, all NBA quarters are created equal. In practice, there is some value to dominating earlier segments of a game; the luxury of resting one’s stars and experimenting when the stakes are lower for instance. During the Golden State Warriors’ halcyon dynasty years (just three years and one pandemic ago as it turns out), Baxter Holmes wrote the definitive piece on the Warriors’ third quarter runs. Those Warriors had a league-leading third quarter point differential of +4.5.1 The 2021 iteration is doing it again: through 16 games, Golden State has a +7.8 point differential in the third quarter. That number will surely come down as the season progresses, but the league has been put on notice:
27-15 against the Hornets on November 3
41-20 versus the Hawks on November 8
35-17 against the Bulls on November 12
And a game-defining 35-18 in Brooklyn on November 16
Let’s walk through that last one, a national tv shellacking of the Eastern Conference leaders on their home floor.
Golden State entered the second half with a five point lead after closing the first half on back-to-back Andrew Wiggins threes. Rewatching what came next, my four big takeaways are:
Golden State’s defenders were fully locked in and proved especially adept at recovering back onto their men and putting in solid contests on shot attempts.
Brooklyn’s defenders seemed confused about when to switch and when not to; they didn’t commit to a coherent defensive scheme.
With their motion and screening actions, the Warriors are better placed than any other team to exploit that defensive indecisiveness.
Likely not a decisive factor, but the Nets had a little bad luck in both directions: Kevin Durant, possibly owing to a sore right shoulder that sidelined him two games later, missed a number of shots he ordinarily makes. On the other side, Draymond Green and Andre Iguodala had some later clock makes that one can chalk up to good fortune.
With those points framing the 30,000 foot view, let’s go to the film.
The Nets run a switch-heavy defensive scheme. Golden State has seen switching defenses many times over the years, with the Mike D’Antoni-James Harden Houston Rockets running an especially airtight version. The Warriors have a variety of ways to bust such defenses open.
One way with which to beat a switching defense is by slipping screens; a player comes up to set a screen for the ball handler, but “slips” the screen early and rolls out of it without making contact with the ball handler’s defender. Defenders looking for cues - such as a screener making contact - for when to switch defensive assignments can get caught out of position. This is what happens on the first play of the third quarter, with Kevon Looney slipping out of a screen for Steph Curry. Caught behind the play before he can switch, Bruce Brown is forced to foul Looney.
That play flows out of the Warriors’ signature split action, where two perimeter players screen for each other around a post player making the passing read. Both Brown and Blake Griffin likely anticipate needing to cover Steph flaring for a three, giving Looney an extra beat to catch the defense off guard.
On the very next play, the screener does make contact, but Brown is late switching and Andrew Wiggins waltzes to the hoop.
Two things to note there: The Nets don’t switch the first screen that Steph Curry sets for Kevon Looney (Brown sticks with Steph and Blake Griffin fights around back onto Looney), so maybe the plan wasn’t to switch Harden onto Steph and Brown onto Wiggins. Somebody - either Brown or Harden - botches their assignment. The second thing is that such mistakes get precipitated when the screener in question is Steph Curry. Shooters can make the best screeners because defenses are loathe to risk giving them daylight. Okay, a third thing: that’s two tough screens set by Steph in the space of seconds. He is a treasure.
65-58 Warriors and on the other side, Kevon Looney is spry in recovering back onto Blake Griffin and stuffing him at the rim.
Seeing Looney on that throwback Nets court put me in mind of another under sung center: Jason Collins. Although possessing a different skillset, Collins was like Looney in so far he did a lot of little things in the shadow of star teammates.
Looney wasn’t the only Warrior recovering and contesting like his life depended on it. A couple of possessions later, Draymond Green waves a switch off from Steph and recovers in time to put a springy contest in on Kevin Durant.
As much as Draymond and Steph have marital chemistry on the offensive end, they are fully in sync here; Steph tags Durant and gives Draymond the split second he needs to recover back onto Durant.
Andrew Wiggins gets in on the action too, catching up with James Harden and finding a way to block his lob from the side without fouling. This is the type of defense that had Wiggins getting some All Defense buzz last season:
A fun moment (well, maybe not for the Nets) was the Warriors fast break coming out of that Wiggins block: Steph Curry cheekily uses Blake Griffin to essentially screen Griffin’s teammate, Bruce Brown. Using the opposing team to set a drag screen for you is some elite level trolling:
69-58 Warriors and the Nets could have desperately used a bucket here. Continuing his high level defensive play, Looney again shows textbook footwork in staying with Durant out on the perimeter and then tracking him all the way to the baseline. Durant dribbling the ball out of bounds is a lucky break for the Warriors, but credit Looney’s perimeter defense. If you want to know why the Warriors feel comfortable switching Looney onto opposing ball handlers, this is it:
The Nets unfortunately continued having issues executing their own switching scheme. Bruce Brown first calls a switch out, with Mills switching onto Steph and Brown taking Jordan Poole. Steph scrambles Brown completely by leaning towards Looney for what looks like the start of split action again (as Looney feed Draymond in the post), before seeming to set a screen for Poole…only to slip the screen before Brown can switch back. With Mills jumping out in anticipation of a Looney screen, he is in no position to just stick with Steph.
It’s easy to point out where the defensive breakdown occurs, but have some sympathy for the Nets. The Warriors find every little pain point and keep pressing until one eventually gives. This is high level offensive execution and even the best defenses can sometimes crumble in the face of it.
Less excusable perhaps is this from Durant:
Griffin calls the switch out early and surely Durant knows that the Draymond pitch back to Steph is coming next. He is caught loitering completely out of position and that’s just too much space and time for a shooter who bends spacetime.
So the half court defense left something to be desired in this game. I have written about the Nets’ transition defense woes and this game didn’t dispel any of those concerns either:
Kevin Durant is shooting an absurd 44.4% on pull-up threes this season per Second Spectrum stats; you can count on him making a lot of those shots. What the Nets probably feel queasy about is that the miss gave way to an uncontested dunk on the other end. Even accounting for Blake Griffin crashing the boards, there are three (count them) Nets between the lead Warrior and half court at the time Durant’s shot goes up. And yet, two Warriors end up under the basket before anyone from the Nets makes it back.
One of the offenders there is James Harden, practically at the logo and lazily back pedaling. Opponents run 46% more in transition with Harden on the floor versus with him off per Cleaning the Glass, one of the worst marks in the league. Individual on/off numbers are noisy, but in this case the eye test bears out the crude numbers.
The third quarter was not Harden’s finest showing defensively. Before we get to that, here’s another possession where Looney held his own when isolated on Harden, recovering for the rearview block. Kevon Looney appreciation aside, it is worth underscoring because it leads to yet another Warriors offensive possession that isn’t off a dead ball.
Back on the defense: Harden is a stout post defender and offenses aren’t always well served by trying to exploit him with a post mismatch. Where they do meet with more success is in putting him through repeated switching actions until he botches an assignment, or falls asleep with help duties. Here, it looks like the Nets have successfully executed a three man switch with Patty Mills switching onto Gary Payton II, LaMarcus Aldridge taking Jordan Poole, and Harden switching onto Kevon Looney. Except that Harden, after staying motionless, inexplicably leaves Looney to lunge out at Poole, giving Looney an open path to the basket:
Pour one out for poor Patty Mills (Nets number 8) there.
Part of good defense is knowing personnel. As the weak side low man, Harden has primary help responsibilities. He is also guarding Draymond Green, 20% on corner threes this season per CTG. LaMarcus Aldridge is barbecue chicken against Jordan Poole driving downhill there, Harden needs to be pulled all the way in much earlier. If Poole finds Draymond for an open three, you live that.
Credit the Warriors’ offensive execution again: Stan Van Gundy on commentary noted how Jordan Poole was aggressive attacking the basket whenever he had Aldridge on the switch. LaMarcus Aldridge has had issues defending drivers in space; here’s Draymond Green getting past him all the way to the cup later in the quarter:
Meanwhile, the Warriors were unrelenting in their defensive pressure. GP2 snatches a Harden pass out of the air to trigger another Warriors transition look (remember, the Nets don’t fare well on opponent transition opportunities):
This next Nets possession is perhaps most illustrative of the gap between the two teams on defense. Damion Lee is helping all the way off of DeAndre’ Bembry (historically sub-30% on those shots per CTG) in the corner on the Patty Mills-LaMarcus Aldridge pick and roll:
That’s what Harden should have been doing on the Poole drive earlier. Behind Lee, GP2 zones up perfectly between his man and Bembry, then reads Mills’ pass to bat the ball away. This is what team defense played on a string looks like:
That level of defensive execution helped drive the Warriors’ third quarter run despite Steph Curry sitting with four fouls at the seven minute mark.
The -17 third quarter isn’t crisis stations for the Nets by any means. They had some good looks on the offensive end. For instance, this is a well run possession: after Harden breaks down the defense, Patty Mills screens the helper to get Kevin Durant a wide open catch and shoot look from the corner.
And on the other side, the Warriors scored on two end-of-quarter Hail Marys from Andrew Wiggins and Andre Iguodala. When it rains, it pours. But the best teams also play a hand in their own luck. One team did that on defense and the other didn’t.