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The Golden State Warriors have played slower as their Western Conference Finals series against the Houston Rockets has gone on.
That fact has been reflected not only in the score after both teams responsible for the two best offenses in the league have been unable to put up 100 points in the last two games, but even more so by delving just a little deeper into the numbers.
According to Ray Ratto of NBC Sports Bay Area, the Warriors' 72 shot attempts in Game 5 are their lowest of the year and the fourth-lowest of the Steve Kerr era.
Two of the other three occurrences took place in the sixth and seventh games of Kerr's career, back in 2014, when he was still trying to figure out how to mold this offense to his liking.
The Warriors have appropriated the Rockets' isolation game, largely in part of Houston being willing to switch on every matchup, making it nearly irresistible to take on one-on-one opportunities.
While Kevin Durant has been considerably more effective than Chris Paul or James Harden throughout the series, it's clear that the style is not who the Warriors are, and one that has proved to do more harm to their synchronicity than good.
Games 5 and 6 have had the slowest pace of the Warriors' entire postseason runs in the last four seasons, and they have struggled massively — turning the ball over by forcing ball movement and unable to play within the flow of the game thanks to a chameleon-like switch-happy Rockets defense.
