Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images
The Kings know Warriors’ weaknesses better than anyone.
When looking into the rearview mirror, it seems obvious that this was always going to happen. Like all long dynasties, that of the Golden State Warriors has included a braintrust too large to permanently maintain. Eventually, the drain of talent both on the floor and—perhaps more importantly—on the coaching staff, was going to land one of their best in the halls of a rival, who would then possess the perfect formula for undoing them.
When Alvin Gentry left the Bay Area several years ago to coach Anthony Davis’ New Orleans Pelicans, it was tempting to think that might’ve been it. But the Kevin Durant iteration of the team was simply too powerful to challenge; even with Davis playing at an MVP-shortlist level, the closest they ever came was a second-round gentleman’s sweep against the Dubs, in 2018.
Five years later, and the Warriors—who no longer have either Durant, or the younger versions of their other stars—are now in a corner. After sitting on the Warriors’ bench for six seasons, Mike Brown is the head coach of the Sacramento Kings, who lead Golden State 2-0 in a first-round playoff series. Known as an offense-first squad all season long, with historic scoring marks, the Kings won the second game of the series Monday night with an uncharacteristically rugged defensive showcase, powered throughout by Brown’s uniquely intimate understanding of what the Warriors do, and how they do it.
Pushing the Warriors’ into a pace war like this has never worked for anyone before
Down the stretch of the matchup, this edge was most visible in how Davion Mitchell harassed Steph Curry during crunch time; invading his air space, holding his ground and contesting on drives, disrupting. When guarded by Mitchell, Curry was 2-for-9, with two turnovers. Everything was made to be a battle, and the prerogative to disturb the 2022 NBA Finals MVP was no less severe when De’Aaron Fox was on him. Fox stuck to Curry well before he got past halfcourt, never allowing him to get into his dribbling kitchen—instead, he was on the lam and getting into halfcourt sets simultaneously.
Pushing the Warriors’ into a pace war like this has never worked for anyone before. Their snappy, organic passing has always thrived in the chaos created by playbooks—or the lack of them—which treat the shot clock like grandpa’s desiccated abacus, moldy in a world of sleek digital transactions. But the Warriors are old now (in NBA years, anyway), and one of the architects of their style is commanding a younger, faster fleet against them. As a result, the Kings’ 114-106 Game 2 win was a conquest owing to both game-planning and personnel. The Warriors had 20 turnovers, which is nothing new for a team that values creative entropy over carefulness, but when watching these giveaways, it looked a lot more like the opponent knew where the ball was going more than usual. Fox, Mitchell, and Harrison Barnes—a former champion with the Warriors himself—raced into gaps they saw coming, to the tune of nine combined steals.
Maybe more telling is what happened to Draymond Green in the contest. After outplaying Domantas Sabonis in the first game, Green found the All-Star big man growing comfortable in his usually singular postseason mud puddle. Sabonis was thoroughly up to the challenge of matching his nuclear gamesmanship shenanigans. By now you’ve seen what this chess match of butt-bumps and slop-holds led to: Green stomping on Sabonis’ rib cage, after the Lithuanian baited him by grabbing Draymond’s leg from his position on the ground. Draymond leapt off his body with an oddly irreverent click of the heels, and his subsequent fourth-quarter ejection was pivotal in the Kings’ victory. The moment reduced Green to beefing with non-players, including a guy in the Sacramento crowd with a white goatee and durag bold enough to make Hulk Hogan blush. Green will never die as a shit-talker, but he may have met his match in lawless playoff physicality. He has been suspended for Game 3, of the series, potentially because commissioner Adam Silver was right there for it all. This has happened before, of course; we all remember the 2016 Finals. But Draymond’s sound and fury forcing him into nothing mode this early in the postseason is new. The Warriors are usually coasting now, not working through an existential crisis.
The Warriors are usually coasting now, not working through an existential crisis.
They are not quite done yet. It would be wrong to say they’ve got the Kings “right where they want them” because they absolutely don’t, but even without Draymond for a game, their odds in over the next two rise considerably as they return home, where they were 33-8 this season. They’re more than capable of winning both, even given the strategic difficulties mentioned herein; all it takes, with this team, is a God-mode shooting performance from Curry, Klay Thompson, Jordan Poole, or any combination of the three. That’s a lot to ask of most squads, but with this one, such explosions are part of what you plan for. No matter how far Brown’s understanding of the Warriors’ system and habits may go, theirs is an offense that can’t stay dammed when they get to execute it in San Francisco.
The Warriors will still have to win in Sacramento to advance to the second round, though, and the needed road-dog meddle they’ve shown in the past simply hasn’t been there—they were a brutal 11-30 in away games this season. Whether this is the end of Golden State’s run or not may depend on their ability to squeeze one more hostile-environment victory out of the depleting toothpaste tube of themselves, over the next week or two. Right now, it’s getting harder to envision it, because the Kings, like the Warriors a decade ago, are blazing insurgents, pushing the trends of the game to their logical extremes in a way that maybe no one is equipped to deal with. We could be witnessing, in northern California, a beginning and an end all at once, an ouroboros of basketball style that bookends one of the great team runs in the history of the game.
