The month of March hasn’t been kind to the Golden State Warriors. After tonight’s game against the Miami Heat, they have a March record of 6-7, including losses to the Chicago Bulls and the San Antonio Spurs — two winnable games where letting go of the rope massively cost them. 

The difficulties on offense have been well documented. The downstream consequence of inconsistent offensive support behind Steph Curry has seen him struggling to capture his pre-All-Star-Break rhythm, with the load that he has been carrying on offense getting monumentally bigger. It’s especially apparent on nights where nobody else has it going. It’s no coincidence that Curry’s March has been one of his worst statistical stretches of his career: 21.8 points, 4.8 rebounds, and 4.2 assists, while shooting 50.7% on twos and 35.7% on threes. His true shooting percentage has been below his usual standards: 55.6%. With Curry struggling, the offense has struggled as a whole. They are scoring a middling 115.8 points per 100 possessions in March (with garbage time eliminated) — good for 15th over that stretch.

 But more than just the offensive struggles, it’s what has resulted on the other end that has been the more crippling consequence. It doesn’t help that not being able to score means having to constantly scramble back to set their defense while not necessarily being in a position to choose matchups. Not being able to get stops on defense results in having to take the ball out of the basket and letting the other team set their own defense — which means it becomes more difficult to create advantages on offense. In other words, the relationship between offense and defense is a feedback loop of sorts. 

The better one end is, the higher the chances of the other end being equally better — and vice versa, which has been the norm for the Warriors as of late. They were reminded of that lesson by the Heat, who aren’t afraid of throwing out unconventional schemes on defense to put tons of pressure on opposing teams’ half-court offenses. 

Their solution: make it so that by the time their opponents cross half court, little time is left on the shot clock for them to have traction with their sets. What makes it even more difficult is the fact that the Heat seamlessly fall back to their patented zone defense after a full-court press — which means opponents have to quickly concoct zone beaters, which aren’t typically part of their scripted half-court plans. In the possession below, the Warriors don’t even get to cross half court in time because of the Heat’s ball pressure and the Warriors’ lack of urgency to get across: