The Guide to Taking Down the Warriors

The Golden State Warriors are awesome. They're unbeatable. They're the best team ever. They would beat the 1996 Chicago Bulls. Heck, they would even beat the 1992 Dream Team.

THEY DON'T STAND A CHANCE AGAINST THE SUPERTEAM!

Please. Don't be ridiculous. Would the Warriors have beat the 1996 Bulls? Maybe. I don't think so, but if you do, I won't call you stupid. The Warriors are that good. They're historically great.

They can be beat. How? It's simple. Just stop trying to "out-Warrior" the Warriors. Cleveland tried. They went out and got a bunch of shooters. They have Lebron James, the best player alive. They have Kyrie Irving, the best one-on-one player in the game. They have Kevin Love, an Olympian and an All Star himself.

The Cavs are champions. They're really good. They have shooters everywhere. If that team can't "out-Warrior" the Warriors, then do you really think the Spurs or the Wizards or the Celtics or the Rockets are going to? Please. Don't be ridiculous.

Consider these stats from the last five NBA Finals:

The 2012 Miami Heat, Lebron James' first championship team, had an effective field goal percentage (which weighs the value of two's and three's) of 51.8%. That team had peak Lebron, peak Wade, and an All Star in Chris Bosh. That was a great team. Remember that effective field goal percentage (eFG%) number: 51.8%.

The 2013 Heat had an eFG% of 51.5%, an almost identical number. The Spurs, who could've-should've won that series, had an eFG% of 50.5%. Notice the pattern here.

The 2014 Spurs, playing some of the most beautiful team basketball I've ever seen, had an eFG% of 60.4%. WOW! They hit 55/118 threes in that series (47%). I repeat, they only took 118 threes in those five games, for an average of 23 attempts per game. That eFG% is the best in recent memory, and should have created a "beautiful basketball" revolution based on player movement and ball movement.

Instead, the 2015 Warriors came along and made everybody forget about those Spurs and made us all lose our minds. Their eFG% for that first championship team was only 50.3%, but because they won a championship shooting more threes than we'd ever seen a championship team shoot, we forgot that they didn't really play that well to win their first championship.

In 2015 Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving both missed the finals. It took them six games to beat Lebron James and Matthew Dellavedova. Steph Curry only shot 38% from three for that series. Andre Iguadala, not Curry or Klay Thomson or Draymond Green, was the Finals MVP.

Then the Cavs got their revenge, with a roster that was finally healthy, in 2016. Their eFG% was only 50.4%. Lebron James played incredible basketball, leading the entire series in every stat imaginable. Of course we know, Curry was hurt. Draymond got suspended. Bogut got hurt and missed the end of that series.

So here we are in 2017, where the Warriors had an eFG% of 55.3%. The Warriors added Kevin Durant, and they played great. The Warriors made 71/186 threes during the Finals, shooting 38.2% as a team. They averaged shooting 37 threes a game! We had never seen anything like this. The Warriors destroyed Lebron James, who averaged a triple double. Once again, we fell in love with the Warriors.

So now the natural reaction of the NBA and the media is to overreact. Let's find more shooters. Let's find more weapons. Nobody can beat the Warriors. They shoot too many threes and they make so many. That has to be the only way to beat them, right?

Don't be ridiculous.

You can't beat them at their own game. You can't "out-Warrior" the Warriors because you can't find three shooters playing together like Curry, Thompson, and Durant. You can't "out-Warrior" the Warriors because you can't put Draymond Green and Andre Iguadala out there with that trio to form anything resembling their "Death Lineup."

That 55.3% eFG the Warriors just shot against the Cavs is a byproduct of two things: (1) The Warriors can shoot better than any team we've ever seen; and (2) the Cavs are AWFUL defensively. You're not going to be the Warriors trying to beat them in a shooting contest. You're SURELY not going to beat the Warriors unless if you're terrible on defense.

You're not going to beat the Warriors unless you can pulverize them on the glass and outrebound them by a wide margin. Think: 2016 Thunder with a 3-1 lead and probably would've won a title if not for a Durant/Westbrook tag team choke job. That kind of team, that can punish the Warriors inside, is going to be the team that beats them.

Basketball is a game of matchups. What Golden State has done these last couple of years is create mismatches by playing smaller, quicker, undersized lineups. This only works because big guys in today's NBA can't score in the paint. This lets the Warriors spread you out and abuse your big guys with their little, quick shooters.

There is some smart GM out there (maybe he'll read this) who won't try to "out-Warrior the Warriors." He will instead load up on long, athletic big guys. If those big guys can shoot, even better. The Warriors Achilles Heal is they're small and undersized. That is how you beat them. You pound them, not try to outshoot them.

We just watched that plan fail. The Cavs had Lebron! It didn't work. Somebody is going to focus on "going big" while finding bigs who can also play good perimeter defense.... somebody like... Anthony Davis in New Orleans. That team asctually has another big guy in Demarcus Cousins. They could pound the Warriors in the paint and dictate the style of game.

Basketball is all about matchups. If a team like New Orleans wanted to, they could give the Warriors problems. They are as tough a matchup for the Warriors as the Warriors are for them, unless their big guys want to play 25 feet from the goal, unless they try to "out-Warrior" the Warriors.

When you turn on your TV next year, and mark my words, Cousins and Davis will be roaming around the perimeter like they're 6'6. And they'll get beat. And the Warriors will win again, because the rest of the NBA will keep trying to "out-Warrior" the Warriors.

And the Warriors will make them look silly. Again. #JWT