Killswitch: How the Warriors won the switching battle vs. the Heat

Photo by Eric Espada/Getty ImagesEven without Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, and Draymond Green, I was interested to tune into the Warriors’ matchup against the Miami Heat, for several reasons.

This is a battle of two teams with highly similar offensive concepts. Both run heavy motion that often eschews traditional pick-and-roll-centered schemes in favor of off-ball movement, passing and playmaking out of both the low and high post, and neverending dribble handoffs.

A peep at the play-type data backs up the fact that these two teams are highly conservative when it comes to running ball screens. The Warriors run the second-least amount of pick-and-rolls in the league (14.1 possessions per game,…