Written by Alex Schubauer at No Coast Bias
The Warriors started off the season with 24 straight wins. Saturday night, the Milwaukee Bucks gave them their first loss. This is very tough to do. I’ll break down how you can learn from this to beat Golden State, too. In theory, of course.
Bide Your Time
You can’t just waltz in any old time and take down the champs. Just wait on. Let them play 24 games first. Let them play six road games in a row before coming to your arena. Let them go into double overtime the night before. Now you’ve got time on your side. You’re going to need it.
Feast on the Bench
After all those wins and road games, those players will be tired. Harrison Barnes will be injured, so they’ll already be starting a bench player in Brandon Rush. The rest of them will approach nearly 100 minutes combined. This is where you attack. If you outscore Golden State by 13 when Steph Curry is on the bench, who knows, you may be able to win by 13 points. The Warriors bench may be good enough to beat some teams, but not you, if you do the rest of these things.
Have a Random Player Go Off
Take a player like O.J. Mayo, for example. He’s shooting 27% on three pointers for the season, making an average of 1.2 per game. What if he inexplicably started at point guard and made four threes – three of them in the first quarter? I know it sounds crazy, maybe borderline stupid. Just trust me and try it.
Convert Turnovers Into Points
The Warriors are actually in the bottom five of the league in turnovers and giving up points off turnovers. The problem is that they don’t care. They barely notice them because they play so fast. So you need to make them care. Normally they give up 18 points off turnovers per game; try putting 24 on them. Six points doesn’t seem like much, but think of it this way: that’s two Steph Curry threes that the Warriors to catch up, instead of pulling ahead. It’s a world of difference.
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