The Warriors’ begin to the 2022 playoffs was, in a phrase, perfection.
What else may you name a rollicking 123-107 win over the Denver Nuggets the place no fewer than six Golden State gamers turned in good 10 performances?
Throughout, the board, the Dubs exuded greatness on Saturday night time to take a 1-0 sequence lead of their first-round matchup.
It was the form of efficiency that makes it unimaginable to not suppose large in terms of Golden State’s postseason possibilities.
Simply how far can these Warriors go this spring?
If Saturday was a harbinger of what’s to return, they might properly make it to the summer season.
Now, it’s vital to notice that Denver is a positive matchup for Golden State. Additionally, this first-round sequence is nowhere close to over but. Not by a protracted shot. The Nuggets are plucky and proficient, in any case.
Plus, everyone knows it’s by no means a good suggestion to get excessive on one’s personal provide.
However now that these disclaimers have been learn, one other little bit of optimism:
We had no thought what to anticipate from the Warriors staff in Sport 1. This staff entered the postseason with vital questions.
It certain appeared like Saturday’s sport supplied emphatic solutions.
There’s no query now that Jordan Poole is constructed for the playoffs. You possibly can’t pretend what he did in Sport 1.
The 22-year-old was, merely put, the very best participant on the court docket on Saturday, scoring 30 factors with an absurd efficient subject objective share of 88.5. His confidence and swagger have been the Dubs’ North Star early in a contest the place Golden State required roughly 20 minutes of sport time to compose itself.
However compose itself it did. The Dubs’ small-ball lineup of Poole, Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, Draymond Inexperienced and the integral and efficient Andrew Wiggins couldn't have been extra very good once they got here into the sport for the ultimate four-plus minutes of the second quarter.
My goodness was that lineup harmful.
The Pour 4 with Inexperienced working level? Denver stands no probability of defending it.
I’m undecided there’s a staff within the NBA that may.
Saturday’s was the form of efficiency from a lineup that you may’t assist however extrapolate previous this spherical, the subsequent, and who is aware of, even the Western Convention Finals, too.
Alongside Poole creating his personal gravity and Wiggins completely inhabiting the previous Harrison Barnes position on each side of the court docket, Steph, Klay and Dray have been magic in Sport 1.
Sure, the veteran triumvirate may need solely performed 11 minutes collectively because the 2019 NBA Finals, however you don’t win 77 playoff video games collectively with out some chemistry. So regardless of Curry solely enjoying 22 minutes in his first sport since injuring his left foot one month in the past, the Dubs’ large three made it clear that they're, collectively, nonetheless working on a special degree than anybody else within the league.
Inexperienced was a pressure on each ends. His protection on potential back-to-back MVP Nikola Jokic was unimaginable — the Nuggets large man shot 3-of-12 from the ground with Inexperienced as his major defender, per ESPN. His screens, notably within the last minutes of the primary half, the place the Warriors’ aforementioned small-ball lineup first fashioned, created open take care of open look. Inexperienced’s passing was prodigious, too. He had 9 assists on 14 potential assists. He even knocked down a 3-pointer of his personal.
When Inexperienced turns in an ideal 10-rated sport like Saturday’s, he controls the competition. It’s not apparent, nevertheless it’s nonetheless evident.
And nobody is thrashing the Warriors when Inexperienced is on that degree.
Thompson turned in a 10-of-10 efficiency as properly. House was supplied and it was exploited. Was it a very prolific sport from Thompson? No. However his influence on the sport felt bigger than his box-score numbers.
Curry didn’t have a 10-of-10 sport, however he did discover his stroke late. After lacking a month, it solely took him about quarter-hour to seek out his sport.
What does it imply for the Nuggets if Curry might be less-than-great (for comprehensible causes) and the Warriors nonetheless ran their opponent off the court docket?
What does it imply for the Warriors’ different Western Convention rivals, the Grizzlies and Suns?
Let’s take a second right here to acknowledge the perfect-10 sport from Wiggins, who had 9 rebounds, 16 factors and performed his new position to perfection.
To ensure that the Warriors to successfully play small-ball — particularly with the defensively underwhelming Poole as a part of the 5 — it requires a wing like Wiggins to play above his weight on the defensive finish.
Barnes was unimaginable at sliding from the three to the 4 in the course of the Warriors’ first title run. Kevin Durant was, unsurprisingly, the very best you’ll ever see do it. Such are the perks of being a 7-foot “small” ahead and deceptively robust.
Wiggins performed a no-fanfare sport, however he was robust and managed on each ends of the ground. He was Barnes with a bit extra punch. Eight years into his profession, it appears like he lastly has discovered the position that he was constructed to play.
As at all times with Wiggins, we’ll see if the nice occasions final. However Saturday’s efficiency was deeply encouraging.
The Warriors’ bench had some stellar performances as properly in Sport 1. Steve Kerr shortened his rotation — however simply barely — and his choice to play Nemanja Bjelica appeared impressed. The Serbian stretch middle was in a position to match all of Jokic’s dance strikes and by preserving the Nuggets’ large man in area when the Warriors had the ball, he drained him out and created elite offensive alternatives.
Lots of these alternatives have been taken by Andre Iguodala, who confirmed Saturday that he sandbagged your entire common season in an effort to avoid wasting his veteran joints for the true joint — the postseason.
Iguodala was the last word operator in his 13 Sport 1 minutes, doling out 4 assists in that restricted time, taking on management of the sport from Inexperienced when he was on the bench.
To have a veteran presence like that off the bench is almost gratuitous.
In all, that’s six gamers who turned in a Sport 1 efficiency the place fault can't be discovered.
Will that degree of success proceed in Sport 2 and past?
Most likely not.
However the Warriors don’t want this sort of efficiency each night time to win. Not at this juncture of the playoffs, not less than.
Golden State entered this postseason as a thriller staff. Sure, it was advised that they had a excessive ceiling, however maybe that was merely the advantage of the doubt being supplied to a championship core.
However that good thing about the doubt isn’t being supplied any longer. It was taken by the Warriors in Sport 1.
The expertise is simple. The expertise is unimpeachable. The ways have been sound and repeatable.
The thriller was solved in a single night time. It is a staff that might properly play for months to return.
Don’t say they didn’t warn you.