On paper|20 shots analyze the warriors: Paul's positioning; Kuminga's contrast & lineup collocation

On paper|20 shots analyze the warriors: Paul's positioning; Kuminga's contrast & lineup collocation

A brief chat about the Warriors' preseason.

Again, the preseason analysis team is based on a sample of two games, and since the Warriors play almost all of these two games, it also provides us with a lot to discuss.

So in this article, the author will mainly start from Paul, Kuminga, and Sharic to deeply explore the possible lineup matching and team positioning of the Warriors.

Paul: Greene-style starting role-play, personally recommended substitute

For Paul, let me first give a conclusion.

The first two games were similar to the author's personal expectations in the offseason -

If the Warriors want to make some breakthroughs this season, I personally feel that Paul has to go on the bench. Even if he can give positive feedback on the deal-making role of some "offensively enhanced Green", the size lost on the defensive end and the lack of auxiliary defensive resources are irreversible. (These will be highlighted below)

Ten thousand steps back, even if the Warriors want to change their starters, it is from the perspective of Kuminga → Green; Even Kuminga → Looney from that angle (Green plays 5), not Paul continuing as a regular starter.

Let's first take a look at what roles Cole assigned to Paul in these two games.

This is the ATO tactic of the Warriors after the timeout in Second Battle. Although there are mistakes in cooperation, it is still obvious that this is the "Gaggle" tactic of the warriors' signature -

That is, Paul responds after taking the ball in the low position, and Looney does the apex cover wall after 45° passing; After Curry and Klay crossed cover, one person walked on the flank to find a three-point opportunity behind the cover wall, while connecting potential Paul down. The other crosses and cuts directly into the basket to challenge the opponent's defensive judgment.

And the role of dealing cards in the low position in this tactical operation is played by Paul, who has done it before; Wiggins and Kuminga also occasionally make cameo appearances.

Let's look at a few more:

It's Paul dribbling the ball to Looney in the middle after half-time, and then the Splash duo will be divided into two wings, both playing a no-ball run from the baseline with the help of fixed-point cover. It is a set of very common splashes for the Warriors, the two wings fly together, the dealings and short block disassembly are used, and the final foothold is on the periphery opportunities.

And Paul here is still playing the previous Green's tactical positioning -

That is, dribbling through the half, handing the ball, and doing wall service for the splash, it is also the same function as Wiggins on the opposite side; This is the most common job for the Warriors forward group in the Kerr era. Of course, here we can see Paul's gains and losses on the offensive end relative to Green:

In terms of positional warfare, what was lost? Stronger cover quality, faster downward speed, quick attack basket after some false cover;

What was got? Better outside line grasp; Stronger spatial attributes (for example, in this round, the opportunity is actually in the original Green position, but if it is Green, the entire attack must be rotated again); One more option after a tactical kill; and the possibility of one more layer and Looney blocking the possibility of challenging the center.

So, it's clear that in terms of spatial sense and variety and variability in offense, even though Paul didn't shoot as a big outside in the playoffs last season. But offensively, if Paul continues to play the same role as Green, then Paul > Green in horizontal comparison.

So, here we sort out by the way what Cole's fine-tuning of Paul's use of general direction and Green's role in the two games contains?

Compared to the two games, Cole's use of Paul has changed a bit.

Let's look at the picture above, although from the first game, we can see that Cole wants to press Paul in Green's tactical positioning; And Paul is also very different from his original style of play -

Previously, Paul preferred to dribble through the half-time at a slow pace and find a center to cover; Take some Spanish blocking or bull horn cooperation, and then sort out whether this attack is inward, to the weak side, or personally led. But this game, Paul only took on the job of dribbling through the half, and made quick passes to do more of the role of the Warriors' tactics.

However, as the chart above shows, in fact, in the first game, Kerr further reduced Curry's proportion of the ball (in the second game, he also had a lot of individual offense after cover). And more to put Paul alone on the side of the court, do some tactics, after the first layer of cooperation fails, and Looney defends the one-sided 2-on-2 tactic.

This is something that the second battle did not have, and it is also something that was even less absent in Green's positioning before.

The same is true for this round.

Here the Warriors played a 2-on-2 break from Paul and Looney on the ball side, and a potential arc top chance from Wiggins on the off-ball side. But in the previous cooperation, Green is absolutely unlikely to be able to use Looney as a cover cooperation on the empty side, and this role is usually Curry; And that's where Paul's offensive value lies.

So, let's emphasize some subtle distinctions from Paul's first two battles -

First game: more 2-on-2 on the ball side, and the frequency of blocking and dismantling on the ball side and the center is actually greater than expected (here may be due to the need to quickly let Paul find his form and run-in);

Second battle: dribbling through the half, or directly on the line to deal cards to find shooters from the bottom corners of both sides; Either pass the ball directly to another dealer, Looney, and do the cover wall role in tactics; And play its own characteristics of long-range attributes.

And then came Paul's individual singles after receiving secondary treatment in addition to fixed-point long-range shots in the second game, and its offensive space and environment were far from ideal in the first game. This is actually the obvious difference under the first battle Cole deliberately cleared one side of the space for him.

After talking about the general role of offense, we have to talk about the more important defense:

And that's the main reason why Paul can't be a starter.

Let's look at a few shots.

The Lakers actually played a very simple upper line between Russell and Thick Eyebrows, and then Prince ran back to trick Curry into the inside and cut inside, and Davis sent the shot.

At this time, it can be found that after Looney was pulled by Davis to the upper line and could not protect the basket, the two players who were off the line of the Warriors to protect the basket became Paul and Curry. That's right, the two shortest players on the Warriors court are guarding the basket. Originally, it should have been Green or Wiggins who assisted in the contraction from the weak side from Paul's position.

From the opposite position on the court, we can also see that after the Lakers put on thick eyebrows and Wood's twin towers, Christie, Prince and Russell remained; Curry, Klay and Paul will inevitably have to use a guard player to play against the forward, and it is inevitable that there will be a guard player in the basket.

In fact, this kind of situation does not need to be said by the author, in the last season the Warriors were not allowed to put on the starting five hours including Poole or Payton, and their poor defensive performance was clear at a glance. Even if some fans and friends may say that if the Warriors are challenged like the playoffs when the Green + Looney no space combination is challenged, the author feels that it should be changed to the configuration of Sharic + Green, rather than changing it to a smaller one.

Even ideally, we will continue to use this round as an example, after Curry guards Russell and trades for Klay to defend Prince. The Lakers can still continue to challenge the guards' ability to protect the basket with an empty cut to the basket when Davis pulls to the upper line.

Let's look at the shot above.

Here the Warriors use Curry to defend Russell, Wiggins to guard Reeves, and Klay against Hachimura; Then Paul will inevitably be on the right side for Prince. That's right, just like the last shot, except that two defenders are swapping the line of defense against Prince.

We need to know that the real ideal state of the opposing defense, or the reasonable alignment arranged by the coach (such as Paul guarding Reeves, Wiggins defending Prince), does not appear in a game very often. Because basketball games involve a lot of temporary positions under offensive and defensive transformations, and opponents are forced to change defenses under multiple covers.

In other words, for the Warriors, it is inevitable for the guard to defend the weak side of the line.

So, in fact, from this shot, is Paul well defended? Very good. It accurately predicted the Lakers' offensive line and appeared in advance on the possible passing line to try to intercept; After the interception fails, it quickly bounces out to the outside line to try to block.

However, due to lack of height, the first interception failed; Due to the slowdown of movement due to age, the second replenishment fails. And this makes it a great opportunity for Prince.

So, if Paul's role is changed to Green at this point, he can obviously achieve better results in this position, even if he makes the same defensive operation. (For example, the first steal may be successful because of height)

The same is true for this ball, the Lakers played a Russell and Davis block, Wiggins contracted to replace Davis, then Curry became the one who needs to defend 1 on the weak side and manage two forward 3D players at the same time.

Even if Curry can judge who is the last player to shoot in 1 defense and 2; However, due to height, the real interference it can give to strikers is limited. This is also the reason why the Warriors frequently show opportunities on the outside in the face of some low-post or strong side development attacks of the Lakers.

So, let's go back to the conclusion at the beginning --

Even if Paul can provide a better sense of space and offensive possibilities under the same offensive role as Green, it is more conducive to offensive development in comprehensive comparison; But due to the lack of defensive resources and lack of defensive ability, the Warriors should not put Paul in the starting lineup.

Even we all know that Cole likes to use the Death Five or last season's Super Death Five to harvest in the two closing stages of the second and third quarters. The author still takes a wait-and-see attitude towards the presence of Paul in these lineups, and believes that it should be distinguished by the specific state of players in specific games.

The reason is simple:

The Super Death Five including Paul, and the current trend of the league's growing lineup, which side of the defense will collapse first, there is no accurate number;

We all know that Super Death Five is actually crazy acceleration, using fast round conversion, and more extreme space effects to achieve a large number of three-point shots and simple basket opportunities stacked in a short period of time, and finally a wave of flowers. But for the Warriors for the new season, for this group of starters;

It may need to be slowed down appropriately. Because for veterans, a faster pace of attack and defense brings a higher probability of injuries, and once there are injuries, it is accompanied by a longer recovery cycle. Not to mention that the Warriors are a team that still needs a certain run-in in the new season.

Kuminga's positioning shifts: from last year's preseason to a Green-like → this year's flank finishers

The biggest surprise of the current Warriors preseason may be Kuminga's transformation, whether it is efficiency, outside accuracy, willingness to play (although there will be some mistakes, but acceptable) has an incredible improvement.

So among them, the author wants to talk about a very interesting thing, Kuminga's role transformation -

If you are familiar with the Warriors, you may remember that in last year's preseason, the backup or bridging lineup role arranged by Kerr for Kuminga was actually highly overlapping with Green: this included a large number of low-post or on-line dealings and balls; and the production of a fixed-point cover wall.

At this stage last year, Kuminga's more offense actually relied on the natural offense of eating cakes after blocking with Curry and others. In fact, in the late regular season, although the role playing was less Greene, the focus was instead on the defense of key people. But the offensive end can still be said to be living in the block; Even at that time, you can actually see some signs of improvement.

And let's look back at the shot above:

Yes, Kuminga's role has changed dramatically.

Thanks to Cole's five-up, five-down, lineup that includes both the playmaker Pojemsky on the guard line and the playmaker of Scharic in the center, Kuminga no longer needs to take on this role; As a result, they were able to focus more on individual offense.

The above round is a typical example of Podmsky's first attack failure, and then Kuminga then peddles out to receive a pass from Sharic and Podmsky covers to handle the individual shot. At this point, Kuminga had 11 seconds left in the attack when he received the ball again, and these 11 seconds were the time Kuminga had at his personal disposal to end the round.

In this round, Sharic first wanted to find the left wing Moody's roll-up to attack the basket and Pojemski's outside three-point opportunity; But it was recognized by the Lakers. The back hand is given to Kuminga, who then uses Payton Jr. to cover the personal finish attack.

For example, in this round, the first choice in the Warriors' tactics is Klay using Sharic to pass hands to connect individual attacks under the cover wall, and the back hand is Kuminga, who has been moving on the weak side.

And when Klay's little chance was watched, the ball went to Kuminga and let his personal attack finish.

This is actually a very big change for the Warriors, and it is also an important reform of Kuminga's personal role compared to the previous one. Of course, such reform absolutely requires courage. Because we can see that the finishing environment of Kuminga's balls is actually not ideal.

This is normal, for basketball, a little offense is prevented, and two points of follow-up rotation is in place; The attacking side has actually reached what we call "hard solution ability". And Kuminga's role is a bit of this. Therefore, the reason why it is called boldness is that Cole dared to give these responsibilities to Kuminga; The other is that Kuminga must have shown himself in training.

These are also some of the voices that continue to flow out of recent interviews at Warriors training camp.

So in these reform links, the author believes that the most important thing is not only Kuminga's own improvement, but also Sharić.

Let's start with the conclusion: Sharic may be the Warriors' most crucial signing this season.

Why do you say this, or why Kuminga's reforms are closely related to Sharić -

In terms of personal positioning, we can simply think of Sharic as a Looney with reduced basket protection and rebounding ability, and greatly improved shooting ability. There are even some small areas of delicate hand work to pass on, which is a skill that Looney does not have.

At the same time, we need to know that for Cole's coaching habits, no matter how big a name you are, or how high a rookie you are; It is necessary to shine under the established tactical routine. Simply put, no matter who you are, you have to be honest and play tactics.

And as we said above, the existence of Sharić's skill set perfectly solves the role of the backup center tack; And that's exactly what the Warriors didn't have last season. (Wiseman at the beginning, after the Wiseman trade, the Warriors really left only Green + Looney)

Let's take a look at a comparison chart of Sharić and Looney's roles.

It can be seen that Sharić's main role in the current formation is to deal cards on the line, respond, hand over hands, make cover walls and some open space. Then it is precisely because of Sharić's character attributes that cooperate with Podmsky's secondary conveying ball; It allows Cole's tactical theory to be applied during the bench stage.

Therefore, Kuminga was completely liberated to the position of the absolute terminator in the substitute stage.

Last season, the main play of the Warriors' initial bench was the blocking and dismantling combination of Poole + Wiseman; This is supplemented by some fixed tactical routines under Kuminga's dealing.

A quick chat about rotation:

Starters: Curry, Klay, Looney, Green, Wiggins

Among them, Green and Kuminga have potential replacements, but I personally think that it is unlikely; Kuminga, Looney have potential replacements; There are potential replacements for Looney and Sharic in the playoffs;

Rotation: Paul first picks No. 1; Moody's first choice 2 + swing to 3; Podmsky chose No. 1 + swing to No. 2 in second. Due to the existence of Peyton Jr., I personally feel that the possibility of the small lineup + the first two swinging to the 2nd and 3rd positions is enhanced.

There is a potential rivalry between Pojemsky and Moody, mainly depending on who can shoot correctly (No. 2); Payton Jr. may appear more in lineups paired with the starter due to special functionality (such as the connection between Klay and Curry after he goes down);

Kuminga first choice No. 4, Guy, Garuba unknown, need to refer to the state;

Although the forward staff seems to be tight from this point of view, since Payton Jr. and Moody can swing to 3, it is not a big problem; But the problem of small size in defense will recur, and Sharic personal basket protection is not elite level; But from the second game, Cole seems to be solving this problem with a 1-and-4 link.

From the perspective of the season, the Warriors want to make breakthroughs in the first element of health, the second element of Paul's running-in, and the third element of Kuminga's growth.