Game 1 of the Warriors-Pelicans was quite a chess match. In the first quarter, the Warriors and Pelicans traded baskets and defensive breakdowns to play mostly even. In the second quarter, the Warriors finally broke open the game with a long run giving them a twenty point lead, and the game wasn’t close after that. How did they do it?
The key strategic change was that Draymond Green and the Warriors defense started giving Rajon Rondo and Solomon Hill the Tony Allen treatment. You may remember this from when GSW came back in 2015 against the Memphis Grizzlies in Game 4 by throwing a special defense against Tony Allen.