A few weeks ago, while going from bar to apartment to inevitably discuss cryptids and antigravity technology, an idea was born. My friend (who I will not name, but he knows who he is) and I turned our discussion to basketball, as we are wont to do, and the conversation brought up an interesting thought: what are the side effects of guarding Steph Curry?

With the end of the regular season rapidly approaching, I wanted to explore the possibilities while using the playoffs as the ideal frame of reference. And one very interesting thought stuck with me the whole time, so I solved it the only way I know how: hunkering over my laptop, poring over stats, tracking figures, and film going back to 2018.

The question I want to solve is: What is the cost to a player’s offense who is guarding Steph Curry?

This graph was the end result in my mind’s eye (made real by our amazing editor Matt) but there was far, far more under the surface than I anticipated.

The Theory

It’s no secret that Steph is one of the most active players around, running people ragged around the court both on and off the ball. But it’s important to put some numbers behind conventional wisdom. For the purposes of this article, since defensive tracking numbers only go back to the 2017/18 playoffs, we will use the last four playoff runs as our data.

One clear theme emerges from Steph’s past playoff runs: a gradual buildup in activity as the games become more intense. In 17/18, after missing the first round with injury, Steph moved 2.43 miles per game in the conference semifinals against New Orleans. He increased that to 2.8 miles in the conference finals (first among all players) with 1.53 offensive miles, the second-highest figure. He ratcheted that up to 2.95 miles in the Finals against Cleveland, ranking first in total and offensive miles run. It wasn’t even close. All four guards who managed to beat Steph’s 2.74 MPG mark for the whole playoffs were far younger.

The story was the same in 2018-19. He went from 2.56 miles in the first round to 2.82 in the second, then 2.9 miles in the conference finals against Portland before racking up an absurd 3.13 miles per game against Toronto in the Finals. That was the hardest Steph has worked in a single playoff series, and it resulted in a 3rd overall finish in miles per game for the entire playoffs. Once again, the guards who finished ahead (Klay Thompson and CJ McCollum, who was guarding Steph often) were much younger at the time.

He saw a slight fluctuation in numbers for the 2021-22 playoffs, posting his highest MPG mark in the conference semis against Memphis and another high figure in the Finals against Boston. The overall movement for the entire run was not as elite, finishing 16th overall amongst guards, but every player ahead of him was (you guessed it) younger.

In the Warriors’ first-round series against the Kings, Steph ran the Kings’ perimeter defenders into the ground. His 1.73 offensive miles per game ranked first amongst all players, punishing Kevin Huerter, Davion Mitchell, and Keegan Murray, his three primary defenders. This insane level of movement not only contributed to his bananas 33.7 points per game, but it also led to some pretty drastic effects on the Sacramento offense as a result.

Season-By-Season

The effects of that level of intense defensive focus have tangible effects on their offense. I charted the 3 defenders on Sacramento who saw more than 15 minutes of time guarding Steph and compared their shooting figures to the rest of the team in the playoffs and their own regular season numbers. It seems there is at least some statistical evidence that guarding the toughest cover in basketball was sapping the energy needed to contribute on offense, as you can see below:

Even when accounting for the dip in shooting numbers for the playoffs, the dip in team-relative true shooting percentage only increased with more possessions spent guarding Steph. But a single series does not a conclusion make, so I had to go back further to check this theory before making any definitive conclusions.

2021/22 Stats

The numbers only become more interesting when adding more data. Some players certainly did not have major dropoffs, but some of these can also be explained by the overall success of the team.

Monte Morris, Desmond Bane, and Dorian Finney-Smith certainly stand out as positives, contrary to the theory. 5/8 defenders seeing a team-relative dip doesn’t point to a definitive conclusion, but good ol’ variance has to be taken into account. It’s also worth pointing out that the dips tend to outweigh the peaks: the biggest TS% dips outweigh the increases, pointing to the possibility that they hold the stronger variance and that another element (like Steph’s effort – Stephort?) is at work.

Going back to the distance run numbers is important for these series. The two highest marks of distance ran offensively came in the Boston and Memphis matchups, where all but Desmond Bane (far and away the best offensive player on this list) saw a drop. In his lower-effort matchups, only half of his defenders saw a dip. Again, not empirical evidence, but it points to something beneath the surface we cannot yet quantify.

2018-19 Stats

This is where things start to get muddier, but point to an overall direction of the theory.

Going through these numbers pointed to the heightened variance of the playoffs. His 2.9 miles per game led to CJ McCollum being the highest-movement player in the entire Conference Finals, leading to a -6.0% rTS and a four-game sweep. Yet his movement only became heightened in the Finals but seemed to have no effect on Fred VanVleet. It’s easy to chalk this up to his new-dad strength (especially considering how Danny Green’s production suffered as the #1 Steph defender) but it also reminds us that even if you’re dog tired and chucking up late shotclock rainbows, they can still find the bottom of the net. It also pointed to a difference in production based on the offensive archetype of the player (which we will get into soon).

2017-18 Stats

Perhaps the most clear and obvious case comes in the 2017-18 season. Coming off an early injury that cost him the opening round of the playoffs, he was a rather lackluster mover against the New Orleans Pelicans in the conference semifinals before ramping up to insane levels against Houston and Cleveland to close out his third championship. And the numbers correlate directly to the offensive production of those guarding him.

Moore had the easiest assignment in terms of offensive movement, and it’s no surprise he posted a +10% rTS given Steph’s physical limitations. Trevor Ariza did not have that easy of a time in the conference finals, contending with the most minutes guarding Steph of any player that tracking data shows. He was absolutely gassed, and it was certainly a factor in his scoreless, 0/12 shooting performance in Game 7. The Rockets, short on other defenders, were forced to put Harden on Steph and the Beard lost some of his elite production. Gerald Green certainly fared better than Ariza but suffered as well.

Steph followed up this performance by running J.R. Smith into the ground with 2.95 miles per game over a four-game sweep, and his -11% rTS somehow beat Ariza for the worst shooting of any Steph defender in that run. Only Kevin Huerter and Dillon Brooks have managed to outdo (feels like the wrong word) his abysmal offensive series.

In the end, there is a compelling statistical case that guarding Steph has a blanket offensive effect. These players on average posted an eFG% 2.34% below the playoff average for that season and a -3.52% rTS. You could argue this is due to the nature of the players being defense-first, or the Warriors’ playoff defense. Though the team-relative rTS% figures dispel the second notion, there is something to be said about the kind of player who is guarding Steph. How does their role on offense change these effects?

Archetype Buckets

I sorted all of these defenders into three overall buckets: primary creators, secondary creators, and off-ball guards/wings. This bears out some very interesting data.

Only two true primaries have guarded Steph for heavy minutes over these past four playoff runs. Both suffered the same fate in terms of decreased production.

It stands to reason that taking minutes against the toughest guard to cover in the game while shouldering the offensive load is not a good mix, and the numbers confirm that. What is interesting is when you get to the secondary creators, which brings team philosophy into the equation.

4/5 seeing increased production is statistically significant, and warrants further discussion. The decrease in primary production and increased secondary are tied to Golden State’s defensive philosophy: shut off the #1 option and make everyone else beat you. In this case, some of these players managed to punish decreased coverage while shouldering the Steph load on defense, which is incredibly impressive, and this is an impressive list of secondaries. It may also explain why both primaries saw large drops.

But the meat of the players are just off-ball guys, and the results were predictably all over the place.

In the aggregate, these off-ball players posted a collective -2.14 rTS%. It may not be statistically significant given the variance of outside shooting, especially in the playoffs, but falls in line with the overall -3.52 rTS%. The six highest-activity Steph series across this time period also correlated to five of the six worst shooting marks; only Danny Green managed to stay close to normal. Kevin Huerter, Dillon Brooks, Derrick White, Trevor Ariza, and J.R. Smith were all direct victims of his unfathomable cardio level. I have a hard time explaining how those drastically below-average shooting marks follow his highest activity series other than this: the original hypothesis does have some merit.

The more Steph wears you down with his offense, the more your offense will suffer.

So, what do we do with this information?

Final Numbers and Conclusion

Though this is far above my pay grade to spit out a final R-value, as the data is far too subjective and variable in nature, conclusions can certainly be drawn.

It’s patently clear that nobody has placed primaries on Steph since 2018 for a reason. The increase in production for secondary creators is also of interest: with the upcoming series against the Lakers, Curry will see a lot of Austin Reaves and Dennis Schröder, both relied upon for secondary creation. I will be closely watching their production to add more data to the set, and we will see if they reinforce the case for them as the ideal matchup for the defending team or fall back to average. The overall numbers for off-ball wings seem to point towards a tangible effect, especially considering the awful numbers for the players subject to his highest-activity series.

What’s also clear to me is that though an average number is hard to place, let alone a predictive figure, there is a measured offensive slowdown for those asked to guard Steph. Not only is he dropping 30 on their heads more often than not, but he also saps the energy of those trying their damndest to slow him. It would seem to behoove teams to put their lowest-activity/importance offensive players on Steph as a tiebreaker over other defenders who play less of a role (ex. Lakers using Jarred Vanderbilt over Reaves/Schröder)

In fact, the relative numbers were down for his defenders in three of the last four playoff runs, and only Fred VanVleet’s absurd dad strength could keep that mark from being 4/4. That sounds pretty tangible to me.

After a scorching first round, let’s see how many miles Steph posts against the Lakers. If he’s anywhere close to 3 miles per game, they are in huuuuuge trouble.

The post The Hidden Cost of Guarding Steph Curry appeared first on Swish Theory.

But the first two games felt like the Warriors stood in the same spot and dug a 15-foot hole straight down and became shocked when they couldn’t climb out.

Despite out-shooting the Kings for two games on the road, a seemingly impossible feat considering Golden State’s road shooting splits, they couldn’t stop tripping over themselves. The advantage from deep (30% on 70 attempts for SAC vs. 32% on 90 attempts for GSW) has been negligible, but the advantage inside the arc has been a major surprise. GSW is making 65% of their twos, compared to 54% from Sacramento.

What’s really killing them is the volume of high-value shots they are allowing to Sacramento. Not only are they taking 50% more shots inside the arc than Golden State by total volume, but they are also getting high-value short midrange shots that GSW has traditionally allowed. De’Aaron Fox especially is able to take advantage of that:

The shooting percentage on twos and from deep has also been completely negated by the Kings pummeling the undersized and under-hustling Warriors on the offensive glass. A 17-9 margin in Game 1 and 12-9 in Game 2 only furthers Golden State’s deficit in shot totals. It’s no coincidence the Kings got 8 more shot attempts in a three-point Game 1 victory, and 10 more in Game 2. But the losses on the glass are only half the equation.

Unsurprisingly, Golden State has also lost the turnover battle in both games. That feeds right into the Kings’ high-powered transition game, and it’s absolutely murdering them.

Oh, did I mention the Kings also won the free-throw battle in both games because of their superior rim pressure and point-of-attack defense? And that Golden State’s defensive fulcrum will be missing for Game 3 after stomping out Domantas Sabonis like a Mortal Kombat finishing move?

So, Are We Cooked?

Maybe. It’s possible that Golden State is gearing up to charge out of the gates into death and glory like Theoden and Aragorn at Helm’s Deep. And though they don’t have reinforcements coming at dawn of the fifth day, they have one thing neither Sacramento nor Saruman possesses: Wardell Stephen Curry II.

Through the course of his playoff career, Curry has played in 12 do-or-die games while down 2-1 or 3-2 in the series. He averages 27.9 points, 5.8 rebounds, and 6.9 assists per game while the team has posted an astounding 8-4 record with their backs against the wall. He’s at his most dangerous when threatened, and I fully expect him to go nuclear tonight to try to avoid the first 3-0 series deficit of his career. Never having been down 2-0 is an incredible feat by itself, and Steph will do all he can to hold the tide. The increased PNR frequency will be on full display tonight: expect a good 50 ball screens for Curry tonight.

But against the best offense in the league, he won’t be enough by himself.

Supporting Cast is Called To Action

Without Draymond Green, lots of other players will need to step up. Even if Jonathan Kuminga joins the starting lineup, the Warriors will need a Herculean effort from future Chase Center statue-haver Kevon Looney. The league leader in offensive rebounds needs to put on a one-man glass-cleaning show to negate Sacramento’s advantage on the glass.

They’re also going to rely heavily on the off-ball rotations from Andrew Wiggins and Klay Thompson. So much of their first-ranked opponent rim percentage mark is predicated on getting the right rotations from Draymond Green, and without him, someone will need to step in to help Kevon Looney when dealing with Sabonis in the post, trying to contain De’Aaron Fox drives, or tracking and erasing their cutting wings.

Extra reliance on Jonathan Kuminga is perhaps a necessity tonight. Jordan Poole is not playing up to his pedigree, and Golden State is in dire need of a positive contributor on defense who can switch and stay engaged off the ball. Kuminga is also capable of filling Poole’s rim pressuring via cuts, rolls, slips, and drives without all the silly extra stuff that comes with Poole’s recent offensive performance.

The point-of-attack defense also needs to step up, especially if Poole is seeing diminished minutes. With less defensive mistakes to cover up, they’ll have to buckle down on Fox, Malik Monk, and Kevin Huerter to stop the endless purple tide of rim pressure, midrange mastery, and perimeter shooting.

How Can They Pull It Off?

We’ve seen the how. In the first quarter of Monday’s game, they showed crisp offense and a hustling defense that forced Sacramento into far more threes and turnovers than they would have liked while controlling the glass to boot. Then the effort faded, the defense collapsed, and so did the lead.

Effort is first and foremost. Fight for every inch on the glass. Guard the ball with necessary caution. Fly off every screen, cut and roll hard, and rotate with a purpose. They’re capable of out-talenting the Kings on a bad night, but they need to win games by outworking them. Another stale effort will find them at a point of no return.

They need to stay committed to blowing up Sacramento’s handoff actions, forcing Sabonis into double teams, and keeping De’Aaron Fox out of the middle at all costs. And offensively even a few minutes of stagnated movement and lack of cohesion can put them under against the best offense in the league. A full 48 minutes of crisp effort will win them this game, even without Draymond Green.

It’s entirely in the hands of the players now. If they don’t bring effort and execution to tonight’s matchup, they should start looking at flights to Cabo.

The post How the Warriors Can Fight Back appeared first on Swish Theory.

The Warriors will play the Kings in their first-ever playoff matchup between division rivals. Both sides are laden with stars: Sacramento boasts one of the better offensive duos in the league in De’Aaron Fox and Domantas Sabonis, with a plethora of ideal role players to surround them. The Golden State championship core remains healthy, and it seems Andrew Wiggins will return to the lineup in some capacity after a lengthy absence.

Beyond Wiggins, who is a major question mark in terms of conditioning and overall sharpness, we know what we are getting from these players, especially on the offensive end. Fox and Sabonis will dominate on handoffs and high split actions, and Steph and Klay will run Sacramento ragged around the perimeter with Draymond initiating to punish the Kings’ lackluster half-court defense. It’s the less predictable players that will define this exciting matchup.

But one player has the potential to swing the series in either direction.

Point-of-Attack Pressure: A Series-Defining Question

Per Cleaning the Glass, the Kings are a middling team in terms of allowing shots at the rim, ranking 15th overall. They also allow a large amount of midrange shots, mostly by design. Sabonis usually sticks in drop (where midrange attempts are always available) or plays high on the screen to blitz, but Sacramento has excellent perimeter rotators in Harrison Barnes and Keegan Murray. Even if you beat the blitz at the screen level, they are more than capable of rotating and contesting well at the rim. Thus you have a team conceding the 10th-highest midrange frequency in the league.

That increased midrange frequency acts as a disguise for their lack of true rim protection. Being below-average at midrange frequency/accuracy as a defense is far more volatile than allowing lots of rim looks. Allowing a more volatile shot at a higher rate can give your defense an extra boost on nights when the middies aren’t falling. If a team beats them from there, so be it, but they’re going to sell out to stop the Warriors from getting two feet in the paint.

This is where Jordan Poole plays a critical role.

An Elite, But Volatile, Paint Toucher

Jordan Poole’s downhill game has always been a question of potential vs. production. Despite possessing an elite first step and developing handle, he was a below-average rim attempt guard this past season. The reasons for this are twofold: he’s often pull-up happy when he could drive and tends to reject screens in favor of isolation. Likely to be facing a lot of POA world-beater Davion Mitchell in bench lineups, going 1v1 is not the move. The pull-up threes are fine in the aggregate, but he needs to push the gas a bit harder to exploit Sacramento’s true defensive weaknesses.

He is certainly capable of beating elite perimeter defenders off the dribble to get paint touches. Dejounte Murray is no slouch, but a quick spin cycle puts him on the back hip below and collapses the defense:

But with Golden State’s elite screening, JP will have to make use of those to create extra advantages against an elite defender like Davion. And those chances will be there in the normal flow of their offense, especially in low post split actions with Sabonis defending.

Take this possession as an example. The Ty Jerome screen forces Saddiq Bey over, putting him in a trail position, and Poole uses that to full advantage with the baseline drive. Golden State’s elite cutting wings and bigs know when to find their opportunities, but it requires a player to draw in the defense first. And it can’t just be all Steph Curry.

Not only will Poole need to contend with a lot of Davion, but the Kings will also blend a lot of looks against him. Sabonis will be in drop, blitz the ballhandler, or even stunt at the level sometimes. It’s a similar case to a game against Minnesota a few weeks ago. Though Rudy Gobert is one of the best defensive bigs in recent memory, he is coverage limited in similar ways to Domas. That didn’t seem to matter to Jordan against a far superior defensive squad:

If in a strict drop, he can get leverage for a midrange shot. At the level, he can scurry downhill before the defense has a chance to rotate. If Sacramento tries to switch (or is forced into one), he will obliterate bigs 1v1. He’s also more than capable of hitting the short midrange shots that Sacramento is schematically willing to concede over layups and dunks.

What this comes back to is decision-making, not ability. Will he blend playmaking for others enough with getting his own shots? Can he press the advantage on switches instead of settling for off-the-dribble jumpers? Is he going to be content with midrange shots, or will he get into the bodies of the rotators and attempt to get contact?

Pressing the Variability Button

Though both teams love to shoot threes, with variance aplenty, these teams are largely predictable. Fox will collapse the paint. Sabonis will dominate with the ball in his hands while in the post. Steph and Klay will rain threes while Draymond captains the defense and keeps the offense flowing. Sacramento’s strong wing group of Kevin Huerter, Harrison Barnes, and Keegan Murray will make good defensive choices while cutting and shooting the lights out.

If Jordan Poole can slow himself enough to read the defense, make quick decisions, and collapse the paint, he could swing the entire series in Golden State’s favor. He’s more than capable of deciding the bench minutes by his play alone. If he chucks from deep, rejects screens, and looks off his teammates, the beam may be lit more often than not.

Will he be the player Golden State is paying him to be?

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