Originally compiled from: The Athletic
Written by Anthony Slater
原标题：Five observations: Warriors escape Game 4 disaster against Kings, tie series 2-2
Here's a five-point look at the Warriors' 126-125 win over G4 Sunday afternoon, a thrilling narrow victory that will turn to Sacramento again in a 2-2 draw in the first-round series.
1. Green keeps an eye on Fox
The decision to replace Green as a substitute will make the biggest headlines tonight. It was the most significant decision made before the game (suggested by Green), and the message kept scrolling on the big screen. But the fact that Green enters rotation mode only after halftime as a substitute makes more sense for other aspects of this life-and-death battle.
At halftime, the Warriors trailed by four points. The Kings hit nine 3-pointers for 68 points, with Daron Fox scoring 21 of them. Andrew Wiggins did not effectively restrain him. Payton Jr. didn't look great in his brief playing time, either. Fox made a lot of jump shots from Kevin Rooney's defensive coverage. Their plan did not work out.
"If someone keeps attacking you like this, you can't go all the time without making any changes," Steve Cole said.
Cole remembers assistant coaches Dejan Milojevic and Chris DeMarko discussing the idea of getting Green on for the first time in the first half. During the break, they offered to let Green on the pitch, and Cole eventually agreed.
Green has been out of the starting line-up for a short time. He opened the second half because he was now going to be the main defender of Fox, trading Wiggins for Harrison Barnes.
"I always knew that as this series went on, it was something at the bottom of our box," Green said. "Honestly, I'm glad we played this card." Green's all-round performance on the defensive end always allows the Warriors to reconfigure their game and put him where they see fit. Over the past few seasons, he has often switched point guards like Chris Paul and Damien Lillard. Against Lillard, he pressed. With Paul, he's more about shrinking and making the most of defensive spacing. That's his strategy against Fox, shrinking the defense to prevent him from passing quickly, while maintaining enough contact to interfere with his mid-range shots. At the start of the second half, Fox attacked him alone three times. Green was awarded a second time for a hitter foul. On the other two occasions, he managed to prevent it.
This change in tactics seems to have really slowed down Fox and the Kings. They scored just 23 points in the third quarter and actually had their best second-half performance at the start of the fourth quarter with Fox sitting on the bench. It didn't look like a makeshift decision either, with Kerr keeping Green staring at Fox in the final minutes, choosing to put him in the two most important defensive positions of the season instead of Wiggins, suggesting that this could still be a close match.
Green messed up the first of two key moments. The Warriors led by four points with 30 seconds left in the game. "We lead by four points, and if they score two, let them get it," Green said. "And I didn't do that."
Green chose to give Fox three points. This is their game plan at a crucial moment in the game. But in this particular case, where 3 points are deadlier than 2, Green has abandoned the safer approach, which is likely to overturn them. As a result, Fox actually hit a three-pointer.
The next time the Kings serve, the game has become dangerous. They trailed by a point with 10 seconds left. Fox dribbled to the frontcourt and Green was once again his main opponent. The Kings tried to defend Fox by swapping Barnes' cover for Curry. The Warriors are determined not to allow that to happen. Curry quickly bypassed cover and worked with Green to implement the bag.
"We knew Fox had shots," Green said. "He won Player of the Year Crucial Moment of the Year. I wouldn't be like anyone else, just watching him perform. The quick two-man clip and Green's three-dimensional defense forced Fox to pass only to Barnes, who was on the flank in an open position. The Warriors dynasty's early meritorious player had a great chance to kill the game, but he didn't make the shot. The Warriors survived.
2. Green's impact on the entire game
As the series progressed, the Kings, like every playoff opponent the Warriors faced, had a hard time limiting the Warriors' primary scorer. They repeatedly allowed Green to wreak havoc at the basket. The Kings are one of the worst guards in the league this season. They average the second-to-last block per game in the league. Warriors staff has been demanding that the team attack the basket more.
Green played aggressively, but he wasn't efficient, shooting just 3 of 14 and missing out on a lot of close-range shots.
"I missed some layups," Green said. "It's a whole bunch of layups. But that also maintains my normal shooting percentage, and I won't miss those layups again. ”
Kerr was actively trying to separate Green and Looney to create more space, but has now returned to both teams, relying on the two players he trusts most this season.
3. Curry mistakenly called a pause
With 47 seconds left in the game, the Warriors controlled the game. They led 126-121, and Malik Monk had just missed a crazy layup when they grabbed the rebound and basically declared the game could end early. But Curry made a key mistake, and if Barnes had hit that winning 3-pointer a few minutes later, the Warriors would have been defined as defeat this season.
Curry met Chris Webb in the game against the Kings. When he was stuck in the backcourt, he called a timeout that the Warriors didn't have. This led to a technical foul and a swap of possessions. The Kings hit the free throw, and then Fox scored a 3-pointer, giving the Kings four points in the round and suspense the game again.
"I don't want to lie, when I got the ball and turned around and saw the surrounding, I thought I made the smartest choice in the world," Curry said.
"I realized we didn't take a timeout, I didn't remind my players in time." Cole tried to take responsibility because they didn't pause after the challenge.
But Curry has been in the NBA for 14 years, and he couldn't have made that kind of mistake at the time.
Cole's biggest mistake in a series of mistakes actually happened just 90 seconds ago. Looney knocked Monk down during a cover and was convicted of an offensive foul. Despite only one timeout left, Cole chose the challenge. If the challenge fails, the Warriors lose this pause. The referee quickly decided that the challenge had failed, leaving the Warriors without a pause for the final 2 minutes and 14 seconds.
This can lead to countless passive situations. One possibility — that players were stuck in the backcourt with no way out — did happen, and Curry took a worse route without throwing out a risky pass, nearly burying the entire series.
4. How much of a role did Wiggins play?
A few weeks ago, the idea of relying on Wiggins to play at any level in the playoffs was unrealistic. The Warriors are still not entirely sure if he will return after a nearly two-month absence, and even if he does, there's no way to know what form Wiggins they'll get (physically and mentally).
Wiggins returned, watched a few games, and was given the green light before the first playoff game began. Since the day before Valentine's Day, he has not been on the NBA court again. That's his scoring stat for the first four games of this series.
G1 - 17 points, 3 rebounds, 4 blocks, 28 minutes
G2 - 22 points, 5 rebounds, 1 steal, 39 minutes
G3 - 20 points, 7 rebounds, 3 assists, 1 block, 34 minutes
G4 – 18 points, 8 rebounds, 3 assists, 4 blocks, 2 steals, 38 minutes
Cumulative playing time is perhaps the most jaw-dropping aspect behind Wiggins' "calm nature": 139 minutes cumulatively played. Only Fox, Domantas Sabonis, Curry and Klay Thompson played more minutes than him. He has 9 blocks and no one has more than 5 blocks in this series.
"yes, I mean, it's incredible," Thompson said. "I've been telling people that. Like, he hasn't played in the NBA in two months, and he's just back in shape. This is crazy. Because Wiggins didn't look very hard. But, like you said, he has four blocks and two steals (in G4) and he never really sweats. I'm willing to give everything so that I can get four caps in a week. ”
Wiggins also seems to be rediscovering his feelings. In two games in San Francisco, he shot 4 of 8 from three-pointers and 15 of 28 from the field. That included a 5-0 runaway midway through the third quarter, underscoring his importance in the Warriors' offensive skills. The first of his two consecutive shots came in an emergency when there was little time in attack. Thompson and Curry topped the list in possession. They threw the ball to Wiggins, with 8 seconds left on the offensive side, and he dribbled past Keegan Murray's defense before rolling over and jumpering. It's like Kevin Durant's winning shot for the Warriors at a critical time in the playoffs, and it's like the one Wiggins threw in last year's championship run.
Wiggins' second offense was in the next round. Sabonis was pinned down by Curry 30 feet from the basket, and Mike Brown certainly can't see that happen. You can see him waving from the top of the screen to signal Murray to go to the Bag Library. This left Wiggins on the left wing. The Kings had to put up with shots like that, and the Warriors needed his shots badly if they wanted to get to the top again. He didn't do it in G1, but he did it in this game.
5. Cole tightens the rotation
Curry played 42 minutes, Thompson 39, Wiggins 37, Rooney 32, Green 31 and Poole 26. On the surface, Cole's idea of tightening the rotation is becoming more and more urgent. In addition to the top six, the rest of the players added only 33 minutes of playing time.
Jermichael Green and Anthony Lamb were completely excluded from the rotation. Moses Moody (5 minutes) and Jonathan Kuminga (3 minutes) played only the first half. Peyton Jr. got a 7-minute cameo. DiVincenzo came off the bench for 16 minutes. That's it.
On the Kings' side, Brown is relatively spread out in terms of playing time, but as the criticality of Game 5, Game 6 and, if necessary, Game 7 increases, his rotation shifts and tightens, which is likely to be the final form.
David Mitchell played a bigger role as the Kings' best choice to defend Curry, sending Mitchell early in the second half after Kevin Huerter continued to struggle, and Huerter played only 21 minutes. Keegan Murray was marginalized in his first three games, but he had a strong show on Sunday, scoring 15 points in the first half and 23 points overall. Brown rewarded him for playing 33 minutes.
Monk remains a well-used bench player, playing 28 minutes. Alex Lane had 11 minutes and Trey Lyles had 9 minutes. Both teams are basically rotated by 9 players.
The Warriors are going on the road again, can they win on the road?