Anatomy of a Game 2 win

The big story coming out of Game 1 of Warriors-Lakers was Anthony Davis, for the most part because of the effect he had on Golden State’s offense. The Warriors had a 114.1 offensive rating in Game 1, a full 2 points per 100 possessions shy of their regular season average — and they only even achieved that number thanks to a 3-point explosion late in the game. It wasn’t really representative of their output for most of the night.

Things changed considerably in Game 2. Golden State’s offensive rating last night was 126.1, and that was with basically the entire second half being, as Marv Albert would say, gar-bahge time. (That includes a 17-point fourth quarter during which Steph, Draymond, and Wiggins played three minutes apiece and Klay did not play at all.)

Some of this is just, “they made shots.” Some of it is the Lakers not putting forth as strong a defensive performance, in terms of the effort and attentiveness, as they did in the opener. But some of it has to do with not just the lineup change (the Warriors played one big for pretty much the entire game), but also schematic tweaks the Warriors made from one game to the next.