When the Golden State Warriors’ notoriously fickle attention becomes fixated on an opponent, they can turn any contest into 48 minutes of fiendish torture. On defense, they choke off the other team’s preferred gameplan, daring them to adapt on the fly. They sinisterly abandon non-scoring threats on the perimeter to force opposing scorers to either pass the ball to a bricklayer or score over a wall of swiping arms.
The champs cruelly expose the emotional frailties of their opponent. Wide open players don’t get the ball because their teammates don’t believe in them. Playmakers are rendered useless as they get swallowed alive by the Dubs’ defensive aggression.