Officially on the Brink and Curry's Defensive Struggles

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The Warriors and Thunder suited up last night both at full strength and Game 4 looked very similar to Game 3. The Thunder simply out played the Warriors and now are looking to send the Warriors fishing. Watching this game no one on the Warriors looked like themselves. Klay Thompson was the only person who came out to play and tried to keep his team from elimination. The problem is he got into foul trouble early and had to sit for the final seven minutes of the first half. In the third quarter he single handily put the team on his back. He scored 19 straight points for the Warriors and was their only source of offense. He was able to cut the Thunder lead to six, but the Thunder responded and as great of a player that Thompson is, he can't win a game by himself against the Thunder. Draymond Green had another off game. He lacked the energy that he normally brings to the table and just did not play smart. He had 6 turnovers and Curry also had 6. Curry played poorly with 19 points on 6-20 shooting. 

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Let me take a second to talk about Steph Curry, because there is not much to talk about last nights game. Bottom line is the Warriors got smacked again. Curry has not played like an MVP and two games in a row when his team needed him most he was no where to be found. Give the Thunder credit, the reason for his struggles is how good the Thunders defensive plan for him has worked. The Thunder switch every screen and they blanket him giving no space to shoot. The only time Curry scores is when he gets a mismatch and can just flat out move quicker than his defender or the Thunder have a defensive lapse. The later does not happen much at all being that the Thunder's number one priority his to stop Curry. Westbrook has done a great job stopping him, but the whole team has played great with switching, helping, and one on one situations. Where Curry is really hurting the Warriors is on defense.

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The Thunder are flat out abusing him on defense. One play last night the Warriors set up in the half court and Curry did not know who to cover. He has been covering Roberson, but even Roberson gets away from Curry sometimes for a layup and his three pointer has become respectable as of late so the Warriors have closed harder on him then normal. It is not just Roberson that is hurting Curry, in fact he is not the problem for Curry. Everyone knows Roberson is going to score at some point and the Warriors are okay with him being the one to beat them. The problem comes when Curry gets switched on to anyone that is not Roberson. Billy Donovan's game plan is to abuse Curry's weak defense. What the Thunder do is they force Curry to switch on to Westbrook or Durant and then they just let one of those two go to work on him. He can't stay in front of either of them and they can both shoot over the top of him. Late in Game 3 Kerr decided towards the end of the game to give Curry the job of covering Westbrook when he comes down, but that did not last long because Westbrook either blew right by him or he posted Curry up and forced Curry to foul or force a double team. Last night Kerr's strategy to counter this was to not switch on the screen and have the second man hedge hard. This did not work either because the Thunder are playing smart. They know that when that second guy hedges that someone is open. So they wait for the screen man to slip and hit him for a pass or if he is not open they will swing to the open man. Curry's defense has been the main problem in both loses and the Warriors are struggling to mask it the same way they did all season long.

Now back to the last night. The Thunder won the game 118 to 94. Westbrook had a triple double going for 36 points, 11 rebounds, and 11 assists. Durant had another great game on both ends of the floor. He went for 26 points, 11 rebounds, 4 assists, 4 steals, and 3 blocks. Everyone knows Durant's offensive game will be there night in and night out, but what has been impressive is his defense. Durant has always been a good defender, but he has been outstanding this series. He is using his length to get blocks at the rim, contesting shots forcing shooters to shoot over him, and playing the passing lanes. The length of this Thunder team has caused a lot of problems for the Warriors.

Game 5 is Friday and the only thing that could stop the Thunder from finishing off the Warriors is themselves. I think Game 5 can go either way, but if the Thunder play like they did these last two games the Warriors will be staying in Oakland for the rest of the postseason. For the Thunder they have to play every game like their last. They cannot let this 3-1 lead fool them. As we all saw from last round, the Thunder can seal the deal. The Thunder knew that that going home up 3-2 that they must win Game 6 and they took care of business. I expect them to do the same thing in this series whether it be next game or Game 6 in Oklahoma City.