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Kevin Durant says the Golden State Warriors are at their best when the team is playing fast and with a free-flowing offense.
The Warriors push the pace on offense at every turn and move the ball side to side. The ball never seems to stick in Golden State. Off-ball screens are being set constantly, and Durant, Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson are always moving without the ball so that they can get wide-open looks from beyond the arc.
After the team's morning shootaround in Cleveland on Wednesday, Kevin Durant told Spencer Davies of Basketball Insiders that defense is the key to the Warriors playing at that frantic pace on offense which is predicated on movement:
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“When we play that free-flowing offense with pace, I think that's when we're at our best and it starts with the defensive side of the ball,” Durant said. “We gotta get more possessions than our opponent. We gotta out rebound them and we gotta make them shoot tough shots.”
Posed Kevin Durant the same question about his definition of #Warriors basketball. He also made a comment on how Stephen Curry's constant movement has created a free-flowing offense. pic.twitter.com/7KZPSY6xbo
— Spencer Davies (@SpinDavies) December 5, 2018
The Warriors enter Wednesday 19th in the league in pace, which is an estimate of the number of possessions per 48 minutes by a team. Last season, Golden State was ranked fifth. The absence of Curry and Draymond Green has impacted the Warriors' pace of play lately. Both Curry and Green push the ball off makes and misses and the All-Stars don't allow the opposing defense to get set in the half court.
With Curry back in the lineup, expect the Warriors' pace to slowly increase as the season moves along.
