In G4, the Warriors tied the Kings 2-2. Compared to G3's early play, G4 returned to G1G2's tight key ball match, which may indicate that the situation in this series did not fall for the G3 Warriors because of the big victory. Tenno-san will play at the Kings' home court, and the Warriors have not been able to completely solve the problem of winning on the road this season. The real challenge for both sides is just beginning.
Chasing dreams, Payton's comeback, and the addition of two new variables, does it destroy the space basketball that G3 has built and has good chemistry?
My feeling is that you may never know what the most reasonable rotation between the two sides will be for the next game in this series. Even the next section is not clear. Warriors aside, let's look at some of the details of Mike Brown's G4:
Keegan Murray regained his touch, 5-of-7 from three-point range, and this Brown let him play nearly 33 minutes, more than G1G2 combined;
In the second half of G3, Brown gave up using Lane at one point, allowing Lyles to top the No. 5 position in the transition section and play a small all-space lineup with the Warriors. I said after the G3 game that if Brown gave up on Lane, it would be a loss for the Kings because the value of Lane's basket and rebounds exceeded the blood loss he was blocked for. As a result, G4 Brown took Lane 11 minutes, 3 minutes longer than G2G3. After the return of Dream and Payton, the Warriors' space deteriorated, and Lane's value was highlighted, and Brown knew this;
In the third quarter, Huerte's offense was not a threat, the defense was targeted by Town, and Brown took him down early, took Michel and began to consume Curry.
In the first and second halves, Brown's rotation was quite different, and he would make adjustments to the specific game situation - and so did Cole. In the first half, Cole continued to go ahead of Moody in the first quarter, but only in this quarter. The second quarter took less than 3 minutes for Kuminga, and only used these 3 minutes for the whole game. The reason is, dissatisfaction with their effect. Moody's traverse problem objectively exists, this slightly exposed, Kuminga has a partial functional conflict with the dream, and did not make a timely handling of the ball in a fast attack - DiVincenzo, Curry are pointing to Wiggins' open space, Kuminga did not have the confidence to pass through, delaying the fighter.
You may feel that Cole is too strict, why not give it a try. If Dream Chase and Payton don't come back, maybe Cole will stick with Digga. But when the team has several functional overlapping puzzles, there is nothing wrong with Kerr choosing a larger sample of stronger and more experienced players to play in the playoffs, because the problems exposed by Dreams and Payton may also be exposed in similar and slightly different ways. Take Payton as an example, he has several problems this time:
The defensive presence is not strong - because the opposing players do not play much of the main attack this time;
Missed two defensive rebounds - streaked overhead, presumably unresponsive. Judging by his previous resume, he is not a player with poor defensive rebounding;
A bottom corner three-point missed pointer, and a strong bottom corner was released, causing Poole's breakout to be forced to stop — put Moody and Kuminga in that position, and the Kings would have adopted the same strategy, and Payton wasn't the worst response in the bottom corner of the three.
In the eyes of the Kings, there is no essential difference between their defenses against Peyton, Chasing Dreams, and Kuminga's no-ball, and the outside fixed points are all placed. Give Moody and Wiggins a slightly better treatment, although they will also be released, but will not use centers against these two men for the time being. For the Warriors, the best case scenario is that there is only one point left on the court that is no space threat, that is, Looney/Dreamcatcher/Kuminga/Payton only 1 person is left on the floor, and Wiggins/Moody needs to ensure a certain quality of three-point response, even if they are not accurate enough, from the perspective of the Warriors, they must be viewed according to the spatial point, otherwise they will have to be tired.
The reality cannot be so ideal, because you can't just look at the offense and not the defense. The performance of the G3 Warriors' national defense is not easy to maintain, and the three guards cannot play brainlessly. Taking G4 as an example, Poole handed over a data sheet of 8 of 15, 22 points, 4 assists and 2 turnovers, just looking at the offense, which was the best game in the Poole series, but after the comprehensive defense, the progress compared to G3 was limited, and this scene was targeted by the King's breakthrough much more than G3.
The significance of Cole's starting is not just for space, otherwise DiVincenzo is obviously a better choice. The Splash Tea Mouth is used together, and the principle used by King Fox Monk Huert Barnes is similar - do not let the opponent hide the weakness of the single defense, and can be targeted at any time. G4's Poole played a lot of one-on-one head-to-head, attacking Murray, Lyles, and Monk all gained, which is his value.
In turn, because the Warriors put the lineup like this, there will be difficult matches in certain periods, such as Curry vs. Monk, Poole vs. Barnes, this kind of defensive pressure is high, there is a risk of fouls, and the risk of fouls on the road is increased, and when it comes to the key ball stage, Kerr does not dare to guarantee that the loss of the opponent's point Poole must be less than the offensive value brought by Poole.
That's probably why, Cole made a comeback at G4, finishing the first and second halves and opening the second half with Lu in the starters.
There are two meanings here:
At the beginning of the second half, judging from previous experience, Cole probably had a hunch that Fox would enter takeover mode, so he took the dream chasing directly to him and suppressed this wave;
In the closing period, Fox's key ball ability was obvious to all, and Poole began to be named and made mistakes on a key counterattack in the fourth quarter, so Kerr switched to the traditional starting lineup for Lou.
G4 and G3 are very different races. Due to the return of Dreams, the Warriors' offensive starting style has changed again, but roughly speaking, G3's effective "short-distance safe ball" and bottom corner empty cuts are still high-frequency shots, but the King has more precautions against this, and with the finishing performance of Dream Seeker, the offensive scene is difficult to see. This series also gradually emerged a new pair of X-factors - the offensive and defensive competition between Chase and Barnes. Although the two are not always in position, the two have some similar role positioning:
Both are important co-basket players for the team. Needless to say, Barnes is known for his small defensive contributions, but so far in this series, he has frequently gone to the basket to protect the basket, and G4 has caused a lot of trouble for the Warriors' finish;
The two are also bound to get a lot of no-ball opportunities. Chase Dream squatted more in the bottom corner after returning than in the past, and he made a lot of empty cuts but couldn't put them in, which is where he is inferior to Payton and Kuminga. Barnes shot 25 percent from three-point range in this series, and his response performance was difficult to say.
Whoever of these two can do their respective responsibilities better and respond more, which team is more likely to gain the initiative.
At this stage of the series, neither the Warriors nor the Kings have developed a necessarily reliable rotation strategy, and both sides are adjusting to the specific content of the game, and who will use longer depends on the effect of the game. In the end, it's because we don't have enough high-quality flank cards with both 3D and excellent body shape. All the Warriors can be sure of is this:
In this series, when Curry was not on the floor, the Warriors lost by 32 points and won by 38 points. Although Poole has warmed up slightly, he still can't fully support the bench fire when Curry is resting;
Tangshen, Wiggins and Looney are the 3 backbones outside of Curry, not to mention their unique abilities, their basic attributes are basically in line with the needs of modern play;
Other puzzles can be used flexibly depending on the situation. Payton/Kuminga/Looney/Dream, you can't use 3 at the same time, Payton and Kuminga only take one of them. When two finishers are present, one is on the line to participate in the tactics and one is cut in the bottom corner. With no blood loss on the defense, try to put as much space as possible for a high-quality lineup. Chasing dreams can take the initiative to say that he can play as a substitute, which does not mean that he can only eat the time period of the substitute center, and on some occasions, he still has unique game value. But his statement that he could go to the bench still gave Cole more flexibility.
It is not difficult to see that compared to the previous season, the main problems of the Warriors are these two:
Poole slipped, leaving Curry unable to rest;
The loss of Porter and Belitza is less of a rotation with both projection and size (good defense, rebounding).
This makes Cole imperfect in how he uses people. But for most teams in the playoffs, it's also commonplace. Like the five little ones of death, the panacea oil that comes out to beat everything is more like an exception.