Tonight’s matchup pitted two of the weakest transition defenses against one another.
According to Cleaning The Glass, the Golden State Warriors rank 24th in the league and give up 131.2 points per 100 plays in transition situations this season. This is 3.9 points less than the league average in transition defensive rating. The Indiana Pacers, on the other hand, are 21st in the league and allow 129.7 points per 100 transition plays, which is 2.6 points below the league average.
As predicted, during their matchup tonight, there were multiple instances of defensive matchups being jeopardized due to crossmatches during transition, leak outs on the break, and other transition scoring that would have made the former Mike D’Antoni Phoenix Suns seem like lanky snails in contrast. Each side exploited the other’s weak transition defense, with the Warriors striking first in the first half.
By halftime, they had outscored the Pacers by 177.8 points per 100 transition plays, thanks to plays like this one, in which Tyrese Haliburton gets cross-matched by Andrew Wiggins following a miss on the other end to create an advantage: Due to the mismatch, Myles Turner was compelled to assist, allowing Draymond Green to cut baseline and position himself to receive the pass
That’s not what anyone would call a traditional fastbreak bucket, but it is what some would refer to as one that occurs during the “secondary” break, which is the half-court action that follows the initial fastbreak action, also referred to as the “primary” break and usually thought of as the first one-to-two seconds of a fastbreak possession. In the secondary break, crossmatches that occur during the primary break are utilized to create advantages.
Most people would picture a transition bucket more along the lines of this one:
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