With Andrew Wiggins forced out of the Golden State Warriors’ return game against the Minnesota Timberwolves due to an ankle injury, Steve Kerr was forced to put together a new starting lineup that covered multiple bases – one that had enough offensive power and the right personnel combination to slow down crushed the Wolves’ offensive attack around Anthony Edwards. So Kerr decided to rule out recent usual suspects in Steph Curry, Draymond Green and Jonathan Kuminga. Rounding out the lineup is Buddy Hield at two and Gary Payton II at three, who will be tasked with marking Edwards in Wiggins’ spot. That also meant Green had to break into the five-man lineup – something Kerr was reluctant to rely on given Green’s workload and his recent physical ailments.

When asked about Hield’s resurgence against the Wolves – in which he scored 27 points on 18 shots (7 of 13 on threes), shot 75% and had a team-best 17 points – Kerr added that his decision to Taking this into account Hield and Payton with Curry was created in consultation with the Warriors’ analytics department.

“Our analytics department really took a good look at it,” Kerr said. “Pabail Sidhu (Warriors Vice President of Basketball Analytics and Innovation) is doing a great job. I asked him yesterday, ‘What do you think (we should do)?’ He said, ‘Maybe try Buddy and Gary on the starting line-up.’ He gave me some numbers and we know Gary and Steph are a great fit . But with the three-man combination, you have your two best shooters and the best fullback on the field at the same time. I give Pabail a lot of credit, it was a great suggestion… We started Draymond at five, I said I didn’t really want to use him at five. We face a lot of interesting and difficult decisions, but we are definitely learning a lot about our team.”

In fact, the numbers looked good with Curry, Hield and Payton this season. The duo of Curry and Hield in particular have done wonders offensively. Before the second game against the Wolves (in a non-garbage era, courtesy of Cleaning the Glass), the Warriors looked like world beaters on both ends of the floor:

• 371 possessions
• 122.1 offensive rating
• 97.5 defensive rating
• plus-24.6 net rating

Adding Payton to the Curry-Hield pairing reduces the number of possessions; Before today’s game, there hadn’t been many instances this season where all three were involved at the same time. But the numbers still remained stratospherically good, if not slightly better:

• 170 possessions
• 120.6 offensive rating
• 92.3 defensive rating
• plus-28.3 net rating

The on-off data provides Kerr with logical support for his decision to use Hield and Payton alongside Curry, but a cursory understanding of what ailed the Warriors is enough to justify his decision. With no Wiggins – and Kuminga having to slot into the foursome to coexist with Green – Payton was left to guard Edwards. Furthermore, a Warriors attack on life support was in dire need of defibrillation, and the weakest target available to them in that regard would be to pair Curry and Hield together from the start.

Both ultimately provided the necessary boost of energy to the Warriors’ offense. Curry complemented Hield’s performance with 30 points on 18 shots and a shooting percentage of 65.7%. There is no doubt that having two elite shooters on the floor at the same time not only opens up shot opportunities for teammates, but for each other as well. In particular, shielding each other from off-ball actions creates space for at least one party when two defenders are either hesitant to switch off their assignments or fail to make clean transitions, such as on this post-timeout play (called the “Twirl” by the Warriors). , where Curry is demoed for Hield before receiving a demo himself:

More importantly – with Curry being the nightly target of defensive game plans that, for lack of a better, more professional term, could simply be called “Anyone But Steph” – having Hield out there serves a two-fold purpose: 1) to give him exposure help to break out of the crisis; 2) Relieve the pressure placed on Curry and complete the advantages Curry creates by getting the defense rotating:

Aside from the fact that the personnel combinations played a role in the outcome being different this time, the Warriors made a point of changing their tactics – making it difficult for the Wolves not to shut down Rudy Gobert on the edge against Curry-centric screens . Gobert came out on top in the first contest by protecting all the worlds as usual, and the Warriors failed to push him out of his comfort zone as a paint roamer. The easy solution to this was to literally bypass Gobert by putting him in the pick-and-roll and forcing him to face Curry on the screen. This drew Gobert away from the edge and opened up the opportunity for Curry to turn the corner while also opening the throw as Gobert had difficulty covering both the ball and the throw:

Unlike the first game against the Wolves – in which there were three separate instances in which the Warriors failed to score on at least eight consecutive possessions – the Warriors put together a string of 12 consecutive possessions in the third quarter of today’s game that resulted in a point erased a nine-point deficit at halftime. The key in this phase was Payton and his defense against Edwards. Despite his size disadvantage, Payton compensated with screen navigation and pesky physicality at the point of attack. While Edwards still managed to score 27 points on 67.9% true shooting, Payton – and in turn the Warriors’ defense and transition offense – had some of his best moments against Edwards:

While Kerr was careful to mention his reluctance to play Green at five, it particularly paid off against the Wolves’ more conventional big lineups with Gobert as Green’s foil. Not only did this allow Payton to take more risks against Edwards, while Green acted as a sort of observer at the back (note how Green initially falls back in the screening move for Edwards before helping Payton when he realizes his teammate has fallen behind). its navigation):

It allowed Green to serve as the last line of defense, similar to the role that his counterpart and nemesis Gobert naturally plays – and that he was able to play that role despite being “limited” with five fouls. However, Green showed no fear on some of his stops at the rim in the fourth quarter:

As an added bonus for Green, meeting Gobert allowed him to have the last laugh at his nemesis – with a little help from a Curry turn screen:

While the process was unconventional at times and the execution was far from perfect, Kerr pushed all the right buttons to place the personnel needed to allow the Warriors to get immediate revenge on the Wolves despite the remaining roster and rotation consistency – or even the appearance of it could practice a goal to be achieved and not the reality of the Warriors.