Playoffs Film Study: Kings overwhelm Warriors in transition, force Game 7
De’Aaron Fox joins Mike Bibby and Oscar Robertson as the only players in franchise history with a 25-point, 10-assist game.
The Sacramento Kings and Golden State Warriors are going to Game 7.
The Warriors had a chance to close out their first-round series after winning three consecutive games. But the Kings went to San Francisco on Friday and took it to the champs, extending this series one more game with a convincing 118-99 victory.
The Kings made a lineup adjustment, removing Alex Len from the rotation and playing Davion Mitchell for just 11 minutes, 13 fewer than he played in Game 5. Basically, they went all in on offense, and it paid off. After a sloppy first quarter in which the two teams combined to score just 48 points on 56 possessions (0.86 per), the Kings scored 93 points on 72 possessions (1.29 per) before the Warriors subbed out their starters, down 19 with 3:45 left in the fourth quarter.
The Kings’ offense started with a clear effort to push the ball in transition. They led the league in the percentage of their possessions that were in transition in the regular season, according to Synergy tracking, and their 34 transition points on Friday were the most for either team in any game in this series.
Still dealing with a broken finger on his shooting hand, De'Aaron Fox scores 26 points on 10-for-18 shooting with 11 assists.
The Warriors’ defense fell off dramatically this season, with only two teams (the Spurs and Mavs) seeing a bigger jump in points allowed per 100 possessions from 2021-22. They were in the middle of the pack in regard to transition points allowed, but that was a drop-off from sixth in their championship campaign.
And in Game 6, the Warriors’ defense was not up to the task of stopping a transition attack led by one of the fastest guys in the league. Here’s a look …
1. The pass ahead
De’Aaron Fox is usually the guy pushing the ball forward on the break, but he doesn’t need to do it all. According to Second Spectrum tracking, the Kings’ point guard ranked fifth in the league with 5.8 pass-ahead passes per game in the regular season. And he ranks second in the playoffs at 6.0 per game.
After an Andrew Wiggins miss and a Donte DiVincenzo put-back attempt late in the second quarter, Fox threw a long pass ahead to Malik Monk, who was a few steps ahead of DiVincenzo. Wiggins was in front, but took one step toward the corner before realizing he had to stop the ball, and all he could do was commit a foul …
2. Pushing after made buckets
Less than a minute later, Wiggins scored on Monk in the post. But Monk quickly inbounded the ball to Fox, who was already on the move. He attacked Wiggins and blew past him for a layup with 20 seconds on the shot clock.
Less than 30 seconds later, Fox did it again. Wiggins scored on a drive, Domantas Sabonis inbounded the ball, Fox got Wiggins on his heels and nobody else tried to stop him …
3. Somebody want to guard that guy?
The clearest sign that the Warriors weren’t locked in defensively was when they weren’t matched up on the very first possession of the third quarter. Straight out of halftime with the Kings taking the ball out on the opposite end, *nobody was guarding Keegan Murray …
* Klay Thompson was seemingly the guilty party, as he was guarding Murray on the ensuing inbounds play.
The Warriors were fortunate that the rookie missed a wide-open 3 from the left wing, but with Kevon Looney rotating out, Sabonis got an offensive board and the Kings eventually scored on their fourth attempt of the possession.
4. Open in the corners
Fox continued to push the ball up the floor, attack retreating defenders, and give his team advantages. With the Kings up five midway through the third quarter, he drove at DiVincenzo, sent him into the first row, drew help from the weak side, and found Monk for a wide-open corner 3.
The Kings were a brutal 8-for-45 (18%) on corner 3s through the first five games of this series. In Game 6, they were 9-for-18, with the nine makes being the third most that they’ve made this season and the second most that the Warriors have allowed.
One common sight in a lot of the Kings’ transition possessions was Looney trailing the play, just unable to keep up with Sacramento’s speed. A lot of Warriors were not at their best defensively in Game 6, but don’t be surprised if Looney plays fewer minutes in Game 7 (maybe with Draymond Green starting in his place), so that the champs can be more mobile.
The Warriors got the road win they needed to win the series … and they gave it back two nights later. So they’ll need another to reach the conference semifinals. And if they were fatigued on Friday, it won’t help that Game 7 will tip off about 41 hours after Game 6 concluded.
Game 7 is back in Sacramento on Sunday (3:30 p.m. ET, ABC).
* * *
John Schuhmann is a senior stats analyst for NBA.com. You can e-mail him here, find his archive here and follow him on Twitter.
The views on this page do not necessarily reflect the views of the NBA, its clubs or Warner Bros. Discovery.
