Kings vs Warriors NBA Playoffs Game 6 Betting Odds, Trends

Kings vs Warriors NBA Playoffs Game 6 Predictions

Although Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson are the public faces of the Golden State Warriors dynasty, the open secret behind the unequaled success of this Warriors era is that they have always been a better defensive team than an offensive one. This has allowed them to win an unprecedented number of championships throughout the course of this era. It was the final litmus test to determine whether this current bunch of Golden State players still had it or whether the dynasty had gasped its last breath when they were pitted against the Sacramento Kings, who had the best overall offense in the league and were their opponent in the first round.

After five games, it has become abundantly clear that the Warriors’ defense is still capable of reaching a gear that no other team in the NBA can match. This is despite the fact that the story has not yet been completed in its entirety. Although the individual brilliance of Draymond Green and Kevon Looney has been a significant factor, the victory for Golden State has been mostly due to the team’s disciplined execution of their gameplan as a whole.

Domantas Sabonis

The strategy that the Warriors were going to use was straightforward, yet it worked well. They intended to prevent Domantas Sabonis from creating plays while maintaining a predominantly man-to-man defense against the rest of the team. Sabonis is the pivot point around which the whole Kings offense revolves, and the dribble handoff game he plays is the primary factor in the Kings’ success at making 3-point shots. During the course of the regular season, Sabonis relied on his scoring touch inside the paint to put pressure on the opposing team’s defense. However, the Warriors made the decision to concede whatever he could do as a scorer in order to stop his driving-and-hooking game from being effective.

Since the beginning of the game, Golden State has taken a defensive stance against Sabonis, locking and tracking the shooters who are working off his handoffs while also challenging him to make open jump shots from beyond the free-throw line. The Warriors are dropping into such a deep shade on Sabonis, which enables them to interfere with any potential passing angles that may arise. After that, Green and/or Looney will be in a position to rebound and prevent the rim from being scored on.

The Kings were unable to find a solution to this coverage, so in Game 5 they attempted to make the Warriors pay for it by just having Sabonis take aggressive jump shots. However, they were unsuccessful. In the end, Sabonis hit 4-for-7 from beyond the restricted area, which is a strong performance, but an acceptable trade-off for Golden State given that it enables the Warriors to shut the tap off on the bread-and-butter offensive setups used by the Kings. In point of fact, the Kings spent large portions of Game 5 using Sabonis as a pick-and-roll finisher rather than an initiator at the top of the key, which further reduced his opportunities to provide assists.

Even when Sabonis has had a size advantage in the post against a player like Andrew Wiggins, the Warriors prefer to let him pound the ball and shoot a floater rather than bring aid onto the court with them. Sabonis was able to score with a decent rate of success on these plays; yet, because the Warriors did not send any assistance, he did not earn any assists.

During the regular season, Sabonis had 7.3 assists per game on average, but in games against the Warriors, that number dropped to 4.4. During this series, he has only had three or fewer assists in all but one of the games. My money is on that pattern continuing in Game 6 given how well the Warriors’ defense has been working and how the Kings have been able to answer all of their questions, forcing them to go elsewhere for playmaking.