Newsflash: Steph Curry and Buddy Hield on the floor is instant offense for the Warriors
Today at 12:49 AM
The sky is blue, water is wet, grass is green.
Steph Curry — on a minutes restriction against the Washington Wizards and coming off the bench in the second half after starting the game — was brought back in the third quarter at the 7:16 mark, in place of Trayce Jackson-Davis. Shifting to the center position, therefore, was Draymond Green, allowing the Warriors to speed up their play while allowing for more switchability on the defensive end.
Curry had just come back from a two ankle twists he suffered against the Los Angeles Clippers. The Warriors went 3-0 without him, in what was an encouraging display of their roster depth. But despite the success, the Golden State Warriors needed Curry back, for he's their only source of consistent shot creation and remains the fulcrum of their offensive attack. There's only so much they can do without him — and only a matter of time till they hit an obstacle only he can help overcome.
Upon Curry's return to the floor in the third quarter, the Warriors did not waste much time running a staple action for him: a classic Curry-Draymond Green high pick-and-roll, with two defenders attaching themselves to Curry, the ball finding its way to Green in the short roll, and Green finding Jonathan Kuminga on the lob in a classic 4-on-3 situation the Warriors have seen countless of times beforehand:
Upon closer look, the Warriors placed appropriate personnel in the correct spots to make the action work to perfection. The spacing was made possible using how they would expect the Wizards to defend both Buddy Hield and Jonathan Kuminga:
Subtle positioning of both Hield and Kuminga provides Green room to punish the aggressive coverage on the ball, turning the action into a virtual 2-on-1 with Kuminga able to lift off for the dunk with a runway opening up for him — the Curry effect, the ultimate Green-as-a-connector possession, and the appropriate auxiliary pieces to give the offense plenty of juice.
Not long after, Curry and Green link up on the defensive end and show why the Warriors' defense has been near impossible to penetrate so far this season. The absolute refusal to bend at the point of attack, the aggressive blitzing/trapping near the sideline, and the overall effort and energy, all of which were displayed by the seasoned veterans and oldest members of the team — and therefore, setting an excellent example across the roster.
Followed by a classic Curry three in transition where a compromised Wizards defense wasn't an ounce prepared to mark him:
Curry's value to the offense is evergreen, despite not having the best spacing personnel surrounding him at all times. Which is paramount that said personnel knows how to cut into space created by Curry on the ball, as Kuminga was able to do on the Curry-Green pick-and-roll. Gary Payton II is no exception to knowing how to saunter into open space when all eyes are on Curry:
Jordan Poole — guarding Payton — sees Curry coming off of Green on the handoff and is compelled to step up to deny a possible corner turn to Curry's right. He practically switches onto Curry (a "next" switch in tactical parlance), which leaves Payton all alone and with plenty of room to 45 cut his way to the rim for the reverse dunk. Again, note the absence of weak-side help from the low man because of Hield's presence:
In this very young season, having Curry and Hield on the floor together is an easy button to press for the Warriors to generate instant offense. Per PBP Stats, the Warriors have scored a whopping 144.6 points per 100 possessions in the 34 minutes Curry and Hield have spent together on the floor — as opposed to 112.8 in the 45 minutes of Curry without Hield and 106.9 in the 118 minutes of Hield without Curry.
Despite Hield doing an admirable impression of Curry in actions that typically feature the superstar, there's still nothing quite like Curry coming off of one or multiple screens, cultivating chaos and fear, and creating one of two scenarios:
- Getting himself open for a look
- Creating open looks for his teammates
If all else fails, Curry is perhaps the only consistent source of self-created shots. When the Warriors spam classic low-post split action for him, screen navigation rules compel the Wizards to go over the screen and stay on Curry's hip while locking and trailing. But Curry's shot creation ability makes something out of what was apparently nothing:
But things have been easier for everyone across the board whenever Curry and Hield are on the floor together. After a timeout, Kerr draws up a variant of a new action the Warriors have been incorporating into their offense (courtesy of Terry Stotts). More details included here — but suffice to say, "One Chest" action (based on the Blocker-Mover offense) that typically involves a flare screen and a pindown screen simultaneously flows into another action altogether. As expected, both Curry and Hield are the recipients of the flare and pindown screens, respectively.
However, instead of Hield coming off of a pindown during a typical "One Chest" possession like the one below:
He instead stays put in the paint and turns to set a backscreen — a maneuver central to "Stack" or "Spain" pick-and-roll, which creates an open lane for Kyle Anderson to saunter his way toward the rim for a dunk:
(It's also somewhat funny to note how Curry takes one defender with him on the flare action — and turns the possession into a 4v4.)
Curry tallied only 24 minutes on the floor against the Wizards but made the most out of those minutes: 24 points, 3 rebounds, and 6 assists on 47/44/100 shooting splits and 68% True Shooting. While he was on a minutes restriction in order to ease him in from his ankle injury, Kerr stated that Curry is all set to go with his regular minutes load in time for the Warriors' three-game gauntlet against the cream of the NBA crop: the Boston Celtics (7-1) on Wednesday, the Cleveland Cavaliers (8-0) on Friday, and the Oklahoma City Thunder (7-0) on Sunday.
