Warriors vs. Spurs Game Five 2013 NBA Playoffs preview: The beginning of a three game series

Golden State Warriors (2-2) at San Antonio Spurs (2-2)

2013 NBA Playoffs, Round Two, Game Five

6:30 p.m. PST

AT&T Center - San Antonio, TX

TV: TNT | Radio: KNBR 1050

Pounding The Rock

Drew Garrison of SBNation.com summarized the core of what the Golden State Warriors did well in Game Four and how that figures into Game Five so concisely that I'm going to open with the words he closed his piece with.

The Warriors have done a great job of using the pick-and-roll to ignite their offense and force the Spurs into defensive mistakes. The Spurs lack a big man who can stay with the Warriors' ball handlers out of the pick-and-roll, but if they tighten their defensive rotations and use other help defenders to protect the rim, they can take Golden State out of their comfort zone.

Put simply - and it's really surprising to even think this - the Warriors ended up being the team to exploit their opponent's weaknesses in Game Four, experience factor be damned.

I've said before that we still might not have seen the best of the new normal* for the Warriors with their new rotation without David Lee, and I think it's fair to stand by that: Andrew Bogut, Festus Ezeli, and Carl Landry were all in foul trouble while Harrison Barnes and Klay Thompson combined to shoot 5-for-19 in the first half. And yet the Warriors found themselves down only eight points at halftime.

The Warriors have played the Spurs extremely well in San Antonio this series, regardless of the uproar after Game One. If the Warriors can sustain the type of things they've done well over the course of this series for anything close to 48 minutes, they can return home with an opportunity to close out this series and advance.

Oh, and about that whole can the Warriors win in San Antonio thing?

That's so last week.

Time to continue shocking the NBA world.

Three keys:

• Klay "deer in headlights" Thompson has actually been better on the road than he has at home in this series, shooting 21-for-41 (51.21%) from the field, 8-for-9 from beyond the arc in Game Two, and averaging nearly 10 boars per game. We want more, we want more.
  
• Can we get another game without major foul trouble? Thanks guys!
• Steph Curry. That is all.

Let's get that win.

* Note: "Normal" is not shooting 60%+.