Game 2 of the 2022 NBA Western Conference Finals. The Golden State Warriors are up 1-0 over the Dallas Mavericks.
Down 19 late in the 2nd quarter, Steve Kerr brought Stephen Curry aside to communicate a matchup adjustment on the defensive end: Curry would now guard Dorian Finney-Smith instead of Reggie Bullock.
With Luka Doncic at the helm, the Mavericks relentlessly hunted Curry using the Doncic-Bullock pick-and-pop throughout the first half, scoring a whopping 1.92 points per possession in 13 possessions.
To avoid switching, Curry would hedge the screen, briefly lunging out to Doncic to contain his momentum until his defender recovered.
However, no matter how Curry tried to to defend the action, Doncic’s scoring versatility and Bullock’s shooting put the Warriors’ defense in a bind.
Doncic and Bullock torched the Warriors’ defense with their pick-and-pop action
A minuscule change at first glance
Moving Curry’s matchup from Bullock to Finney-Smith seems like a lateral move.
Finney-Smith was an excellent shooter himself. He came in having shot 39.5% from three on 5.3 attempts in the regular season, which was higher efficiency than Bullock on identical volume.
However, when looking at the types of shots Bullock was taking, it makes sense why Kerr would decide to shift the matchup.
Bullock was taking jumpers on the move out of pick-and-pops. He would slip out of the screen, and if Doncic hit him, he would fire a jumper without his feet getting set.
Taking a look back to the seasons leading up to the 2022 playoffs, Bullock had a history of being a drastically more experienced and efficient movement shooter than Finney-Smith.
Using data for jumpers taken off of screens and handoffs as a measure of movement shooting ability, Bullock was by far the more potent threat on such shots as seen below.
Bullock exceeded Finney-Smith in movement shooting volume and efficiency across several seasons
If Dallas still wanted to hunt Curry, they would have to use Finney-Smith as the screener. Curry could now afford to hold the hedge longer on Doncic and live with the result of a late close to Finney-Smith.
The Warriors bore the benefits of this move through the rest of this game and the series as a whole since Finney-Smith as a screener didn’t have the same offensive pop as Bullock.
With their difference in movement-shooting ability, the tight windows of space that were openings for Bullock to shoot were not for Finney-Smith.
Finney-Smith wasn’t very productive when he did decide to shoot, either, missing two of his only three total 3PT attempts.
Finney-Smith proved to be the least threatening out of screens among Dallas' wing options
The Mavericks tried countering by having Finney-Smith roll out of the screen instead of flaring out for three, but that put him at the mercy of a swarming Warriors’ help defense.
In the event he was received a pass inside, the overextended Finney-Smith found it difficult to make plays against rotating bodies.
What are the takeaways?
With one matchup adjustment, the Warriors took away the Mavericks’ go-to offense, pivoting them towards less effective looks while simultaneously preserving Curry’s energy. The result? A dominant, 4-1 finish.
This slight change also serves as a microcosm of how film and analytics can work simultaneously. Too much of the discourse often pits these two “fields” separately when in reality they work hand-in-hand to strengthen how basketball is played out.
Switching Curry from Bullock to Finney-Smith serves as an example of the symbiotic relationship between X's & O's and numbers.
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