A Good Read With An Awesome Title

How the Warriors discovered the cheat code to basketball in the 2015 NBA Finals

THE DUBS STILL have some toxins to sweat out before they take the floor again. Inside the visitors' locker room before off-day practice, Green holds one of his emotional revivals as Kerr addresses the team after watching film.

"I interrupted [Kerr]," Green says. "I just said -- and if you recall I went to the media and said it -- 'We're being soft. We're not being who we are. Matthew Dellavedova is getting loose balls. Why is Matthew Dellavedova getting loose balls and we're not? Why is he the first to the floor? Why do they have three people on the floor and we have one? What that says is that they want it more. Do they really want it more?' I told the guys, 'We're playing soft. Right now, it's my fault. I'll get 10 [loose balls], but we're going to get every loose ball. And when we get every loose ball, they don't stand a chance.'"

At the shootaround the next morning, Kerr announces a decision the staff has been mulling for a while, first prompted by Nick U'Ren, special assistant to Kerr: a new starting lineup featuring Iguodala in place of center Bogut.

It will be months before anyone will refer to this as the Lineup of Death or declare it the defining statement of who the Warriors are. The five-man unit of Curry, Thompson, Barnes, Iguodala and Green has, to this point, played together a mere 102 minutes in the 2014-15 regular season and 62 minutes through the first 18 games of the playoff run before it takes the floor for the opening tip of Game 4 in Cleveland.

But from this moment forward, this particular lineup is neither just small-ball (though it is undeniably small for an NBA unit, with no player over 6-foot-8) nor a "shooter's lineup" (though it's unquestionably one of the most efficient shooting quintets in history, with a true shooting percentage this season of 76.9 percent, outscoring opponents by an absurd 47.1 points per 100 possessions). It's the Golden State Warriors at their most entertaining -- and lethal.
  
The Warriors don't regard themselves as revolutionaries -- a championship banner is sufficient affirmation, thank you. But a scheme regarded as gimmickry is now a blueprint, developed in Phoenix and San Antonio and Miami, perfected in Oakland. When the Warriors first toyed with the Lineup of Death, it was as a next gear, dictated by matchup or need. But over a six-day stretch last June, that novelty transformed into a new standard.

(ESPN.com)