Darvin Ham adjusted by putting Vando on Draymond, which is something Kerr or Kenny Atkinson or someone on that staff should’ve seen coming a mile away
Should’ve dusted off the film from those old Rockets & Cavs series and been prepared for that.
Theoretically with Vando on Dray the Lakers will just switch every Dray screen. I say “theoretically” because the Warriors didn’t even bother with it.
Only 11 high ball screens for Steph the entire first half.
Warriors try AD in the paint occasionally but think Vando/Reaves PnR communication is bulletproof when you often catch AD himself making mistakes in PnR?
Even with AD on & Vando off, just 6 possessions in the first half.
THAT right there makes me think they weren’t running PnR regardless of the matchup switch, which is a ridiculous approach.
Dray in foul trouble changes nothing offensively either. Looney has been making plays from the short roll all year long. He had 22 assists in the middle 3 games against Sacramento, had 5 assists in game 1 of this series. Some of that is obviously DHO but if the alignment is correct he’s more than capable of making the play.
You see a screen at the logo, a screen at 3 point line, empty corner PnR, post split action, against zone defense, it doesn’t matter. Obviously different from Dray, but with the floor properly spaced he can make the play.
After that Lakers run in the 2nd, Warriors we’re still determined to stick with the motion offense
Only 7 high ball screens for Steph in the 3rd, a few of which shouldn’t even count because Looney didn’t roll
Again, makes me think this was not one of Kerr’s points of emphasis.
Assuming they go back to it in G4, with Steph on the ball Vando has to be up on the screen & aggressively switch or Steph is going to be wide open for that split second. So it’ll actually look more like a trap or hedge if/when Vando is on time.
The oldest counter here is for Dray to slip the screen. He & Shaun Livingston killed the Cavs with this in the finals repeatedly.
You’ll eventually have to run it regularly, set a strong screen & roll hard. With Reaves on Dray’s high shoulder now, he’s essentially just cutting now unimpeded. Steph can either make the pocket pass yourself or swing to whoever is on the wing who will then hit Dray on the roll.
Either way, not hard to hit the roll man.
You can also rescreen to make Reaves + Vando continue communicating. Vando may not want to hand Steph off after the switch every time & they’ll just botch the communication. You can flip the screen at the last moment so Reaves/Vando don’t know which side to be on.
Lastly off the ball Dray can also set a flare screen for J. Green & you can try to get Vando to switch off that way.
Lots of ways to attack a switch when you don’t have a post up threat.
You were down double figures late in G1, put Steph on the ball & made a run. 84 points in the middle two quarters of G2 with Steph on the ball. That’s your bread & butter in this series. We’ll see what Kerr opts to do in G4 & beyond.
The biggest thing working against them is AD only played 33 minutes.
So the Warriors can do all of the above, score a bunch of points and still lose the game
The Lakers have D’Lo/Reaves/Bron/Schroeder all probing in the PnR (2 of those guys fishing for fouls which the Warriors gave them
) & feeding AD
Bron will be hunting mismatches to take to the post
And the Lakers will be relentlessly running in transition.
They are extremely difficult to defend because they stick to their script so well. Very disciplined, a trademark of good LeBron teams. So the Warriors will need to put up points.
