Warriors vs. Rockets will be a battle for the future of basketball

The former NBA players and lifelong fans who will be completed about the lack of offensive variety in the current league have always been an important part of the sport speech, and apparently becomes more widespread every year. Critics call the NBA an imitation league, where a team discovers an advantageous scheme or action, and the rest of the teams continue and begin to execute the same.

There are certainly some The truth teams for that basketball have always liberally stolen the most effective schemes of the other, as organizations do in all sports. But if you really look at the league, there is more variation than ever. The Celtics play isolation basketball to force the defenses to take two defenders to the ball, while the cavaliers trust the movement of the ball and the cuts to throw the established defenses.

Ah, and if you think each team is only playing three, you should see the Oklahoma City Thunder and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who are doing the guy and actually live in the middle rase and on the way to the best record of the league.

But perhaps the best illustration of the offensive diversity of the League will be the confrontation of the Golden State Warriors against the Houston Rockets in the first round of the playoffs. This series could be a battle for prevailing offensive philosophy and the soul of basketball, and the future of the NBA offensive could be in balance.

Rockets are a new turn in an old basketball traodm

Photo by Barry Gossage/NBAE through Getty Images

On one side of the most convincing confrontation of the round, there are the Houston Rockets, a team that is completely inclined to the tactics and the strategy of the old school, but with modern athletics and ability. Unlike most League teams, Houston begins and plays two great men (Steven Adams and Alperen Sengun) for great portions of the game. Unlike modern beliefs about space and shot, which suggests that opening the floor playing four or five shooters in the perimeter is the most effective offensive strategy: the rockets are looking for something totally diffrac.

Post All-Star Break, alignments with Adams and Senguun are offensive bouncing a ridiculous 49.7% of their own team’s shots while on the floor. Practical are practical by throwing the ball on the edge and waiting for one of his great to clean it. Do you think the NBA is soft and everyone is just shooting three? Look at the twin towers in Houston, which spend a lot of time in the painting and hit anyone bold enough to venture towards the edge after seeing what happens to those who try.

The Rockets Guard and the Alas game also exudate hardness and sand. They play ultra-photisicetics in the perimeter and verify you by hand in Oblivion-Dillon Brooks is perhaps the most-style player of the 80s-by-Boy-Pistons in the League and establishes the tone for them defensively (and with their incessant garbage talk). They also have Ames Thompson and Fred Vanvlet; Two physical and practical defenders in their own right. Ah, and are led by a coach who not only covers, but also encourages the physicality and conversation of garbage, as demonstrated by Callh Curry, one of the most promised and respected stars of the NBA, for “Crying.” Other coaches can refer to similar points in a passive-agreesive press, but few would be as shameless and forceful as the old school.

The warriors are pushing the small ball to their natural end point

On the other side are the Golden State Warriors, perhaps the most innovative offensive team in the League. Or of course, Warriors at the forefront of modern basketball tactics is nothing new. They are attributed to the beginning of the revolution of the small ball, and its famous “alignment (s) of death” of 2010 are a perfect example of how they moved basketball thinking forward. While the rest of the league was still playing two great men who mostly lined up in or around the painting, the most dangerous alignments of Golden State actually had a smaller Draymond Green in the central position and a combination of Harrison Barnes, Andre Iigoudala or Kevin Durant (depending on the year) in the places of Wing.

This year’s Warriors team takes him even further. Not only do they begin green in the center, but the rest of their alignment is so narrow of what are usually legs; His “front power” is Jimmy Butler, who is only 6’7. They started the small ball trend, but now they are pushing it at new heights … with players who are closest to the ground than ever.

Everything establishes a philosophical shock

The juxtaposition of these two styles, with the twin towers on one side and small ball in the other, presents a confrontation. Will the Rockets front manipulate the Warriors to the point that they are forced to go with Kevon Looney in 5? Or, on the contrary, do the movement outside Golden State’s ball and versatility without a position will force Houston to match them faster and faster? It is likely that both teams enter the series try to play the ball brand that took them to this point: the 2000 ball for rocks and the little modern ball for the Warriors, but who is forced to adapt first could count not only this series, but of the future of the construction of basketball equipment and tactics.

That may sound hyperbolic, but it is not crazy to say that the result of this series could change the NBA strategy in the future. If Golden State wins, the league can bow even more towards the many handle and ball manipulators on the court, regardless of their heights. However, if Houston achieves discomfort, they are the helpless (+138 in Fanduel), despite being the seed number 2 with the advantage of the family court, the NBA could continue its change to something that resembles a more athletic and dynamic version of the 2000 era, highlighted by bullyball and massive front lines.

In summary, the dominant offensive scheme in the coming years could be dictated, somehow lower, in case the warriors can test or not that they are once again, the years later, or if the Houston size can give them problems.