The Warriors' three major changes to fight the Grizzlies, will there be a miracle?

You don't guess the mind of the champion coach, you can't guess it.

Before game 3 of the Warriors' Western Conference semifinals between the Warriors and the Grizzlies, the advice given to the Warriors by various insiders was generally to improve the three-pointer and pinch Ja Morant, but Warriors coach Steve Kerr prejudged the outside world's prediction and gave the reverse operation -

What even you spectators know, the Grizzlies would not know?

They all felt that the Warriors would focus on improving offensive efficiency on the three-point shooting, and they all felt that the Warriors would focus their defense on the sandwich Morant, but Kerr came up with the opposite strategy as expected: attacking the box and playing joint defense. Kerr's only expected adjustment was to execute more roll call tactics and attack Morant.

In addition to the dazzling 17 mistakes, the Warriors have almost achieved extreme and perfection in other links. In the end, relying on Kerr's three major adjustments, the Warriors won 142-112 at home to the Grizzlies, rewriting the big score to 2-1.

Souls are swapped, and warriors are frantically attacking the basket

In the first two games, the Warriors did not do well in the basket. The Grizzlies themselves are a team with internal athleticism above the Warriors, they have a specific advantage, and the Warriors are not a team with a high frequency of baskets, and their basket offense is more based on passing. When players such as Andrew Wiggins are unable to hit a three-point response when they are vacated on the outside, Jaren Jackson Jr. can easily keep the basket and make it more difficult for the Warriors to attack under the basket.

Supposedly, after the Warriors threw such a bad three-point shooting rate in the last game, the key to the Warriors' third win should be the three-point shot. Today, the Warriors have indeed improved their three-point accuracy, shooting and producing extremely high three-point shooting rates and production in 17 of 32 shooting. But in fact, the Warriors' most amazing thing is the attack on the penalty area, which is the basis for the Warriors' victory, and the Warriors took the initiative in the first half, relying on the efficient attack on the restricted area. The two teams seem to have completed the soul exchange, the Warriors became a blast team, and the Grizzlies became a projection team.

After paying off the Peyton Jr. series, Kerr sent Kuminga to start, improving the size of the front, athleticism, and increasing the attack under the basket. Although Cumminga made some mistakes while handling the ball with the ball, and was slightly irritable when attacking the inside line, he was hit by two big hats, but overall, the Warriors used him to improve the goal of attacking the box. And the starting style that uses Cumminga to attack the basket is nothing else, it is Stephen Curry and Draymond Green's blocking.

Under normal circumstances, The Garage chases and dismantles the Warriors' killer skills, but today Kerr came up with a killing move early. Just a minute into the game, Curry blocked with Green, Green held the ball down to attract two defenders, Cumming added a basket. In the middle of the first quarter, Curry blocked and attracted a three-man defense, and Green easily went down to the layup. Green did make some senseless mistakes in handling the ball today, but his desire to attack the basket was even stronger, and Cuminga's dunk in the first quarter also came from Green's breakthrough score.

Today the Warriors' attack on the basket is all-encompassing, and almost everyone is forcing a breakthrough despite the Grizzlies' defense. Curry, in particular, scored 30 points in just 14 shots. Curry only scored 2 three-pointers, but broke through to take more than 10 points, even if the opponent trio surrounded Curry, he could send the ball into the basket. Including Wiggins, Poole, etc., they all maintained their impact on the basket.

The Warriors only grabbed four offensive rebounds today, and the second offense is far less than the past two games. But the Warriors' penalty area scored a new series high of 62 points. From the distribution of shots, the proportion of the Warriors really playing to the basket is not as high as only 14%, but they are in the box, outside the three-second throwing area of 37 shots 24, playing the Grizzlies bitterly, Jackson Jr. did not get into foul trouble today, but his basket with Tillman and Clark is meaningless in the face of the Warriors' impact.

Defending Morant, the Warriors fill the gap for Payton Jr

In the first two games, Morant averaged 40.5 points, 8.5 rebounds and nine assists per game, shooting 46.8 percent from the field and 39.1 percent from three-point range. The Warriors took a lot of changes against Morant, but the effect was not good, and Morant's first two breakthroughs were unsolvable.

Data show that in the second game of the series, Morant broke through the attack basket to reach 26 times, and he made 32 points (even individual points + assist teammates to score). According to the NBA's official website, Morant broke through 50 times in the first two games, and he shot 13 of 25, counting the free throws, and personally used the breakthrough to score a total of 33 points. Morant sent 20 passes in the breakout to form three assists.

In terms of positioning, Klay Thompson (8 of 10), Poole (5 of 8), and Green (6 of 10) became Morant's cash machine, and the three could not prevent Morant's breakthrough, Andrant was basically a step by, and the three could not even see his taillights. In addition to Payton Jr., Curry (1 of 6) and Wiggins (5-of-14) are warrior players who limit Morant's better job.

After Payton Jr. was injured, industry insiders generally believed that the Warriors should try to pinch the shot, or make a big delay. Because from the data point of view, when the Warriors defensive demolition takes a big delay or pinch, their points per round are the 6th lowest in the league, and they are a team that is very good at big delays or pinches. Theoretically, Kerr should adjust the defensive strategy, pinch Morant, force him to pass, but Cole is not willing to adopt such an aggressive defensive strategy, he chose the opening Wiggins single defense, blocking and dismantling Kuminga, Green to change the defense, the rotation time a lot of use of joint defense, coldly take out the pinch attack defensive strategy.

Kerr's defensive strategy works very well, look at this round, Morant arc top holding the ball, Poole quickly lifted the joint defense, blocked on the left side of Morant, Morant has no room to break through, can only pass the ball. In the end, the offense ended with a 24-second violation by the Grizzlies.

The same was true for this round, with the Warriors' joint defense forcing Morant to take his right hand, and when Morant entered the inside, Curry and Green immediately blocked Morant's path through the middle.

Blocking the left hand and blocking the middle road are the basic principles of the Warriors, because 20 of Morant's 26 breakthroughs in the second game were on the left side, accounting for 77%. This season, 68% of Morant's break-ups have been on the left.

Before the game entered garbage time, Morant had a hard time getting close to the basket. As a breakthrough master who averaged nearly 10 points in the three-second zone per game, Morant only scored three times in the three-second zone today, and his score basically came from difficult throws and long three-pointers. Although Morant scored another 34 points and seven assists, his influence was far less than in the past two games.

"The Warriors' joint defense disrupted our rhythm," Grizzlies coach Jenkins admitted.

Another benefit of the Warriors' joint defense is that the joint defense relieves the defensive pressure of Poole, Thompson and Curry, making it difficult for Morant to adopt roll call tactics against them. In the fourth quarter of the second game, Morant named Pooler several times, taking advantage of his defensive flaws, and he couldn't do it today.

In the middle of the third quarter, the Warriors led by 21 points without slacking off, Morant held the ball and tried to break through on the left, and the Warriors quickly let Green and Wiggins pinch, forcing Morant near the midline and could only pass the ball. Morant can't hit the inside line, the Grizzlies can't grab too many offensive rebounds, and their interior offense is completely paralyzed, and today's 13% shot under the basket is even worse than the Warriors.

Naming Morant, the other way to give back to the other

In this year's playoffs, "roll call" has become the theme of multiple series. In the first round of the Grizzlies' clash with the Timberwolves, Beverley named Morant. In the Grizzlies-Warriors series, Moran featured Thompson and Poole. In the Series between the Lone Rangers and the Suns, Doncic was named in the second game and Booker was named in the third.

"Roll call tactics are very popular these days, and each team will perform a lot of cover, changing specific defenders to target him," Kerr said before the game.

In the first two games, the Warriors did not take advantage of Morant's defensive loopholes. The Warriors didn't attack Morant very often, only 34 times in total. The Grizzlies helped Morant off a lot of pressure by assisting the defense, and in those 34 rounds, the Grizzlies conceded just 0.87 points per game. In addition, in these 34 rounds, the Warriors have only chosen to directly attack Morant in 17 rounds, and the other 17 rounds have chosen to attack the Grizzlies to better defend, which is obviously unreasonable.

You know, when the Grizzlies played the Timberwolves in the first round, even the Timberwolves knew to attack Morant more. Beverly is a 3D player who doesn't have a strong offensive ability with the ball, but Timberwolves coach Finch has developed a lot of offensive tactics for him. Beverley hit Morant 20 times, and the Timberwolves scored 1.16 points per game, which is considerable efficiency.

In the third game, Kerr finally came up with the tactic of naming Morant. Looking at this round, Poole named Morant to perform a singles, and finally hit a hit, and he hit Morant for two consecutive rounds.

Including Wiggins also used the height to hit Morant several times today, and in the first half of the third quarter, the Warriors chased Morant to play this point, some of the offense did not translate into points, but the intention of attacking Morant was obvious, and it did consume Morant's physical strength. This is the meaning of the roll call tactic, it is not necessary to directly score points on the opponent, as long as it can consume his physical strength and affect his efficiency on the offensive end, the purpose will be achieved.

epilogue

Today Cole did impeccable both pre-match preparation and in-game adjustments, and as a championship coach, this game is a perfect demonstration of his coaching ability. The Warriors did suffer a major loss at the loss of Payton Jr., but Kerr made up for it with his super coaching ability. Such a Cole deserves any accolade.