The Warriors show off their multi-layered offense in their rout of the Blazers

After a slow start, the Warriors got into their offensive groove, helped by a stifling defense.

Set plays require certain personnel appropriate to what the action is trying to achieve — in that regard, anything that has an off-ball-screen element (or two) demands that those who receive such screens should be considered shooting threats in order to maximize the advantage(s) created. Otherwise, what would be the point?

Steve Kerr’s offense is well known for its heavy dependence on advantage basketball, typically using Stephen Curry as the ultimate advantage generator and Klay Thompson as a close second in years past. The grand irony of Kerr’s offense is that the structure of his approach to scoring wouldn’t be possible without the randomness and chaotic juice that Curry provides — “organized chaos,” if you will. No other team in history has arguably meshed two dichotomous concepts as brilliantly as these Golden State Warriors under Kerr and Curry.

Curry — and Thompson, before he took his talents to the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area — were two of the most appropriate players to represent and promote Kerr’s principles. He spammed their use in the aforementioned screening actions because it was simply a no-brainer to maximize two of history’s greatest shooters the world has ever seen. Stagger actions, pindowns, split cuts — none of these concepts would be possible without the Splash Brothers.

With Thompson gone, his value as a shooting threat around those screens had to be replaced by committee. As Curry put it bluntly after last night’s game: “Without Klay, you need shooting. We needed shooting anyway.” Buddy Hield is the closest to approximating what a prime Thompson could do, while De’Anthony Melton is also a good option as a movement shooter around screens. Moses Moody adding a moving element to his shooting repertoire gives Kerr an embarrassment of riches in terms of who to partner Curry with (or temporarily replace him whenever he rests) on screening actions.

I’ve previously covered the new offensive sets installed by Kerr with the help of Terry Stotts, whose approach to offense is highly similar but structurally different. Like Kerr, Stotts loves movement, flow, and read-and-react basketball. But he provides a tad more structure and organization to his sets, most of which are based on the Blocker-Mover scheme popularized by Tony Bennett, the now former coach of the Virginia Cavaliers.

“One Chest” — initiated by a “zipper” cut into a flare screen with a pindown action happening at the same time — is an example of the Stotts influence. As expected, the Warriors ran it against the Portland Trail Blazers in their 139-104 rout to open the season on a high note. As expected of Kerr and Stotts’ philosophy, “One Chest” requires shooting personnel on both the flare and pindown screens.

Here’s Melton coming off of the flare screen to get himself an open look:

Take note of the structure and personnel involved above: Melton running off of the flare, while Moody runs along the baseline to come off of the pindown. Kyle Anderson is handling the ball (being the third of the three designated “movers”), while Kevon Looney and Jonathan Kuminga are the screeners (designated as the “blockers”). In short: at least two shooters receiving the off-ball screens.

Now, pay attention to when the Warriors ran “One Chest” again several possessions later. The setup is the same: a “zipper” cut followed by flare and pindown action. But there’s something seemingly off about the personnel being used:

Having Draymond Green be the recipient of the pindown action may seem counterintuitive — no one is about to chase Green around the screen and jump out at him, as it’s well known that Green is far from being a shooting threat while on the move. Defenses may relax at this thought and lose their sense of urgency, unless they figure out what’s really going on.

The Blazers — a young, rebuilding team with promise that is perhaps three years away from being three years away — aren’t likely to realize what’s going on. As such, they fall prey to what the Warriors really intended to do with a “One Chest” possession with Green as a “shooter.”

The pindown for Green is to get him into position to make an entry pass to the post toward Trayce Jackson-Davis. Whenever a Warrior makes a post-entry pass, one should know quite well what’s going to happen next: a patented low-post split action. Green screens for Curry and quickly slips it. The Blazers are then forced to defend the next progression: a Curry/Jackson-Davis pitch-and-screen. Two go to Curry around the screen, leaving Jackson-Davis free to roll to the rim, receive the pass, and score on a wide-open dunk.

This is perhaps what makes this version of the Warriors offense — built upon a Kerr foundation and bolstered by a healthy layer of Stotts — very intriguing to monitor this season. It’s easy to expect one thing, but you are then surprised by something new. New wrinkles and variations keep things fresh, while forcing opponents to constantly be on their toes.

A Warriors offense that was once thought to be “figured out” has new weapons to make use of — both in terms of personnel and actions. An “inverted” pick-and-roll, for example, is quite easy to understand: a smaller guard setting a ball screen for a larger wing or big. The Warriors either have their smalls go straight into a ball screen with their “Too Small” play call:

Or get into their inverted setup through decoy action — in particular, a wing handoff into ball reversal setup to get Curry in motion toward the paint, after which he lifts up to set the inverted ball screen:

When it looks like the Warriors are also about to run inverted ball-screen action with a wing-handoff-into-reversal setup against the Blazers, it’s all a mask — for Curry to turn around, run off of an exit screen, and shake his man loose for an open corner three:

These unique wrinkles and quirks within set plays are but cogs in an offensive machinery built upon threes — lots and lots of them. The Warriors took 43 of them against the Blazers in non-garbage time, which was 46.7% of their total shot diet. That is a significant increase from their 39.4% three-point attempt rate last season, which ranked sixth in the NBA. Amazingly enough, it is 12 percentage points lower than the Boston Celtics’ 58.8% mark (!!!) they put up on Opening Night against the New York Knicks.

Just like the Celtics, the Warriors aren’t just chucking — they’re creating good looks, and it seems like the coaching staff is highly encouraging them to take those looks when they’re there for the taking.

But perhaps the most dangerous looks for opponents will be those coming off of stops and triggered by the fast break. Having the likes of Curry, Hield, and a rejuvenated Andrew Wiggins will make it tough for defenses to pick their poison. The Warriors’ defense limited the Blazers to 89.6 points per 100 possessions in non-garbage time. Rotations were crisp, gaps were quickly plugged, turnovers were forced — and as a result, the Warriors constantly forced the Blazers on the back foot.

While opponent quality must be taken into consideration, plenty of positives can be garnered from this game. Curry had a near triple double (17-9-10) and was one of seven Warriors players to score double digits. Hield set the nets on fire with his 22 points on 8-of-12 shooting from the field (5-of-7 on threes). Wiggins started his season on a fine note: 20 points on 8-of-15 shooting (4-of-7 on threes).

The layers forming this iteration of the Warriors are slowly starting to take shape. The offense feels new, yet at the same time is a return to what made them fresh and inspiring at the start of their dynastic run. The defense looks energetic without being overly frenetic. While there’s still an 81-game stretch where things may change, the foundation they’re building is set to make sure those layers don’t crumble so easily.