With all the high praises the Golden State Warriors have been receiving for their dominant run in this postseason, much of the credit is given to their high-octane offense and ability to quickly score in bunches.
Their scoring ability has been tremendous that it has overshadowed their deficiencies on the defensive end, as they are still giving up 107.5 points per game through the first three games of the Finals.
This has been noticed by former All-Star and NBA champion Rasheed Wallace. He recently made an appearance on the Timeout with Taylor Rooks podcast and gave his thoughts on the Dubs’ defense. He mentioned that Golden State will never be on the same level as his 2004 Detroit Pistons team, who placed a very high premium on how they stopped their opponents.
As transcribed by Ryne Nelson of Slam Online:
“The things that we (did) in Detroit will never be done again on defense.”
He then expounded on his bold statement by adding that the game today is way different from before and that he doesn’t think the defensive strategies can shut down anybody anymore.
“I could probably agree to a certain point. But I think their – the Warriors’ – defensive strategy is ‘I’ma put up more shots than you,’ and if you try to match that, then you (expletive) out because they got exceptional shooters. So that’s their whole defensive thing.
“I don’t call it good defense if the man came down, and he shot a jump shot or shot a three and missed it, and the Warriors went back down to the other end and scored it – that’s not good defense. And that’s what happens a lot in this game now.”
“They’re not shutting nobody down, you know. It’s like, even though you can’t really shut a scorer down, you can slow them down. But now, they can’t even slow the guys down.”
Wallace and the Pistons won their title 13 years ago, upsetting the heavily-favored Los Angeles Lakers that featured Shaquille O'Neal, Kobe Bryant, Karl Malone, and Gary Payton. Despite being the underdogs, they played stifling defense throughout the series anchored by Rasheed and Ben Wallace.
Winning the title this year won't address the statement of Rasheed Wallace, but a championship would validate the Warriors' historical run and put them in the conversation of being one of the NBA's greatest teams of all-time.
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