Warriors continue to be doubly befuddled by the Rockets’ double-big zone defense

Warriors get trampled in Game 5 with the series shifting back to the Bay.

When Gary Payton II was interviewed by TNT’s Dennis Scott just before the start of the second quarter of the Houston Rockets’ Game 5 shellacking of the Golden State Warriors, Payton was asked of the Warriors’ process against the Rockets’ vaunted double-big zone — the two bigs being Steven Adams and Alperen Şengün — and how they could get more open looks against it.

“Hit the middle and spray out of there,” Payton said. “Once it hits the middle, (the defense) collapses, hit to our spot-up shooters and just make shots.”

That interview came not long after Payton himself practiced what he preached, on a first quarter possession where the Rockets dared the Curry-less five-man grouping to beat their somewhat funky zone — funky in terms of both personnel and alignment.

After the Warriors go to their “55” set (double drag screens), the ball finds its way to Payton at the free throw line, Quinten Post gets multiple bodies thrown his way, leaving Gui Santos open on the wing. Şengün gets caught between having to cover Brandin Podziemski cutting toward the dunker spot and having to keep tabs on Santos. Payton promptly dishes to Santos, who makes the open look.

The possession above turned out to be not only the Warriors’ best process against the Rockets’ double-big zone — it was their best process against the zone all series long. But it’s also valid to question whether the scoring possession above was a function of good process or the Rockets willing to live with a Santos three. As with most things, the answer lies somewhere in the middle.

The evidence for it being good process lies in the fact that the Warriors proceeded to be confused by the zone the rest of the way, as they have been for most of this series. Take note of the difference between the instance above and the one below:

While there was some semblance of intention — screening, moving, cutting, etc. — the ball didn’t move around with the force and oomph one would expect when busting a zone, nor did the players themselves move with a similar amount of urgency. Everyone seemed highly hesitant, which plays into the hands of the defenders in a zone, who are more than content to both move around and match up accordingly *and* stay out of the need to distort the shape of their alignment.

While credit must be given to the Rockets’ defense — one that has the size and length to make any sort of ball and player movement more difficult to execute than it would be against conventional personnel — there were too many instances of the Warriors either settling for a shot the Rockets would gladly allow:

Or managing to get behind the lines of a zone and garnering an opportunity to bust it, but overthinking and relinquishing the small window they created:

Perhaps the most understated stat — but one that has informed how this series has turned out in terms of these two teams trying to one up each other with their respective zone alignments (the Warriors’ being their “tandem” 2-3 zone) — is how the Rockets were 29th in zone offense during the regular season. The only team that’s fared poorly than them in terms of attacking a zone? The Warriors, who were the worst zone offense in the regular season in terms of points per possession, per Synergy tracking.

While it wasn’t the main reason that they quickly crumbled in Game 5, it remains a key point of contention they’ll have to solve in order to close this series out. Ime Udoka will be more than happy to keep sending out the Adams-Şengün anchored zone. Along those lines, lineups with the Adams-Şengün tandem have outscored the Warriors by a total of 31 points in 54 minutes, while keeping the Warriors’ offense to scoring a paltry 0.85 points per possession.

The main adjustment the Warriors can make for them to get out of this highly contentious and bruising series may be to just push the play better button, especially for the likes of Steph Curry, Jimmy Butler, and Draymond Green. But playing better starts with concocting a better process offensively — and a process that finds much better consistency against the Rockets’ double-big lineups.