Houston – If the Warriors want to win the fifth championship of the Steph Curry franchise, they will have to do it without advantage at home in their first round series against Houston which begins on Sunday and probably any other match along the way.
It is not the end of the world, according to the coach of Golden State, Steve Kerr, who recently declared that having a home advantage does not provide the upper hand as it did once.
“The 3-point shot is such a variable, and it looks like in the past, it was much more a 2-point grind-it-out game,” Kerr said. “He just didn’t think that the opponent was so lucky to suddenly become hot and take over the momentum of the game.”
The Warriors of the seventh seeded (48-34) entered the fourth season in 3 points (15.4) per game, and the serial rockets n ° 2 (52-30) 21st at 12:7.
Having a list filled with veterans tested in playoffs such as Draymond Green and Jimmy Butler has also been presented by the team in recent weeks.
No experienced Golden State core will be removed by noisy road atmospheres. Especially in Houston, where the great curry, green man and veteran Kevon Looney faced the Rockets led by James Harden four times in five seasons between 2015 and 2019 – and won them all, including a seventh game in Houston.
“We understand the environment, even being in the city, how to spend time during a section of two games in five days,” said Curry, noting that the rest of the team was not there for these battles in the playoffs.
But do the upheavals, like that of Golden State, seek to succeed, really more widespread in the modern NBA?
And how much does 3-point shot really affect the result?
The numbers paint a complicated image.
From 2005 to 2024, there were 160 first round qualifying series. Among these, the lower seed won 34 times.
But despite what Kerr said, the upheavals have not become more widespread with the rapid increase in shooting at 3 points.
Twenty of these upheavals took place before 2015, the season that Kerr took over the Warriors, Golden State won his first title for decades and the 3 -point revolution of the NBA began seriously.
While the team that has made more than 3 points represented 19 victories in the series, of the most recent upheavals in the past two years, only two of these teams have made more than three than its opponent.
Golden State was one of these two in 2023, when Curry went to Sacramento and scored 50 in match 7 while doing seven 3 points himself in the upheaval in the first round.
The experience of the veterans of the Warriors, at least on paper, is not a overwhelming advantage either.
Although the bench players can distort the averages, the team with an older average age represented only 12 of the 34 upheavals.
However, Golden State has good reasons to believe that it does not need more at home to win against young rockets.
During the epic series of seven team games in the 2018 conference final, Houston was seeded.
The Rockets carried out the famous brick of 27 consecutive 3 points, while Kevin Durant marked a 34-year-old summit, to propel Golden State to a 101-92 victory in match 7 of the Western Conference final.
And in 2022, the possible Warriors champion won the seeded n ° 3 and overthrew Memphis, second seeded in the second round.
Once they have reached the championship, Curry’s Warriors won Boston twice – including the Clincher series in match 6 – to win the fifth title of the franchise.
“It is always useful to have an advantage at home, and that is why we are so hard for that,” said Looney. “But with our experience, we know that we can win on the road, and we know that we can win at home, so we are not afraid to go to someone else and try to get a victory.”
The Warriors also have Butler, who twice (2020 and 2023) led Miami to first -round upheavals to shocking races to the NBA final.
And before Kerr’s arrival, Curry’s release evening in the playoffs in 2013 occurred when he lit the Nuggets to help the sixth head of Warriors in six games, and the Warriors “We Believe” in 2007 captivated the world of NBA by stifling the first Dallas Mavericks 4-2.
Thus, even if the upheavals have not become as common as long distance shooting, there are still a lot of reasons to believe that the Warriors have a great chance to become the third seeded n ° 7 to achieve an upheaval in the first round in the last 20 years.
California Daily Newspapers
