The Golden State Warriors are arguably the most talented team in basketball. This roster is littered with shooters, passers and finishers from all levels of the floor, and topped off by a player who poses a more unceasing and all-encompassing threat to defenses than any other.

But gifts alone aren’t enough. While there are indeed individuals good enough to thrive running any scheme, teams are different. It’s a coach’s job to put his players in the best position to succeed, and the Warriors hadn’t been before Steve Kerr’s arrival last summer. There’s more to Golden State’s new offensive proficiency than a coaching change alone, of course. Klay Thompson and Draymond Green made major strides over the offseason and Steph Curry took his already unmatched exploits to uncharted historical territories.

It’s possible such developments were inevitable. Those guys are marquee players for a reason, after all. Watching film of Golden State from 2013-2014 compared to this year, though, makes it impossible to ignore the supreme influence of Kerr, lead assistant Alvin Gentry and the Warriors’ coaching staff. Their team’s jump from a merely solid offensive outfit to the league’s second-best in 2014-2015 was certainly about player progress, but just as surely ushered in by a strategy that placed ball and player movement at the forefront of Golden State’s core offensive philosophies.

The Warriors’ blend of talent and scheme is this game’s best, and they don’t rely on slow-developing plays to exhibit that reality. Most of their possessions begin early in the shot clock with one or two initial actions, followed by Curry and company making intuitive reads based on the defense’s response to those first motions. Sometimes that approach yields a quick-hitting shot, while on others it comes after the ball reaches another side and more screens and cuts are made.

Though Golden State depends on read-react principles for a majority of its offense, Kerr still has several go-to sets to employ when his team needs a bucket most.

It’s impossible to stop the Warriors over a full 48 minutes. If the Houston Rockets want to realize their underdog dreams and beat the NBA’s top team in the Western Conference Finals, though, they should pay special attention to these specific plays Golden State calls with frequent success.

POST TO PASS

Andrew Bogut has reached double-figure points in just 13 of the 77 games he’s played this season. The Aussie has never been the same offensively since suffering a gruesome right-arm injury five years ago that left his shooting motion severely compromised. He still has worth to the Warriors on that end extending beyond setting picks and crashing the glass, though, and it’s as a secondary playmaker.

A favorite Golden State set begins with Curry entering the ball to Bogut on the block. Once he does, the MVP begins to cut away across the lane. Instead of running through the paint and replacing in the far corner, however, Curry is involved in a screening action with a teammate positioned at the top of the arc. This is where the chaos ensues.

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Teams spend hours game-planning how to deal with Curry off the ball, but doing so when the time comes is a task far easier said than done. Were Quincy Pondexter and Tyreke Evans supposed to switch after Shaun Livingston so cleverly set a pick for the Warriors’ best player? They weren’t sure, clearly, and all it takes is a split second of indecision for Bogut to find an open Curry cutting to the basket – even if the New Orleans Pelicans’ guards gave him all day to do it on this occasion.

Most of Golden State’s block touches, in fact, aren’t meant for primary scoring. Bogut, Green and even wings like Harrison Barnes – as he exhibits with such ease here – post with the goal of passing, first and foremost. How the defense navigates so much off-ball screening action ultimately decides the play’s outcome, but the Rockets need to remember that Bogut, especially, doesn’t often shoot when he catches the ball with his back to the basket.

BACKDOOR DRIBBLE DRAG PIN-DOWN

The Warriors’ offense is designed to take advantage of the team’s incredible shooting ability first and foremost. While Curry might be the greatest shooter we’ve ever seen, Thompson could be the game’s second-best – and supplements such prowess with length and a developing floor game that combined to make him a first-time All-Star in 2014-2015.

The 6-foot-7 sharpshooter boasts innate balance and sublime footwork, too, attributes he uses to sprint around screens and splash jumper after jumper from all over the floor. But he couldn’t do so alone, and Golden State does great work providing him and its other smalls with initial space to hunt shots and make plays for teammates.

The Warriors love pushing the ball in secondary transition to begin possessions early in the clock. A simple set they use quite frequently on such instances starts with a ballhandler racing up the sideline at a perimeter peer standing in the corner to initiate a dribble hand-off. Or at least that’s what they want you to think. Instead of taking the rock from the dribbler, the man on the edge cuts backdoor across the floor.

As that happens, the ballhandler receives a drag screen coming from the middle trailing big and the opposite wing replaces his teammate in the corner. And now the fun really begins.

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In the clip above – against the Rockets, coincidentally – Bogut sets a pin-down for Thompson after half-heartedly screening Barnes’ man. Sensing Dwight Howard hedging high to prevent a jumper as Curry makes the pass to his fellow Splash Brother, Golden State’s center immediately slips to the rim as Thompson comes off him.

This quick pocket pass isn’t a play Thompson could have made two seasons ago, and maybe not last year, either. Now a fully confident playmaker, he threads the needle to Bogut with a pretty dish as soon as the ball hits his hands. Easy two.

Like so many other times, the Warriors’ space and pace proves most influential here. Note how Donatas Motiejunas stays attached to Green on the weak-side while the real action occurs on the near side of the floor. David Lee, for instance, wouldn’t command that type of attention, but Green is a viable 3-point shooter. And even if Motiejunas had a foot in the paint and James Harden wasn’t concerned with Barnes, Thompson makes the final pass so fast as to likely render even solid help position irrelevant.

Though Golden State runs this  play with several different combinations, it’s most effective with Curry or Thompson catching after the pin-down – and each knows how to leverage the defense’s coverage into the most efficient possible shot, whether for himself or the screener.

Will Howard show aggressively and count on his teammates’ back-line reinforcement in this series? Or play a more conservative approach and concede an open 15-footer?

FIVE-OUT DRIBBLE HAND-OFF

Every player in Kerr’s rotation with the exception of Festus Ezeli can make plays far from the rim. Mo Speights has range to 20 feet; Lee is a natural two-dribble penetrator; and Bogut picks out cutters like a natural passer.

But there’s a reason the Warriors rev up when playing small with Green as a nominal center, and it’s because they’re able to stretch defenses to the limit with shooting and tempo. Golden State seeks out transition opportunities even more when those units are on the floor, typically running and gunning its way to increase a lead or narrow a gap when Kerr senses his team needs a boost.

Small-ball lineups thrive in the halfcourt too, however, for exactly the same reasons they do in the open floor. The Warriors often utilize the advantage those groups – and their “normal” ones, actually – present by stationing all players on the perimeter and initiating a series of dribble hand-offs that stem from a simple pin-down and end with a quick ball-screen.

In the clip below, Green starts the action by picking for Barnes, who takes a pass from Livingston and moves right. What happens next is basketball poetry.

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Did you catch that? The key here is Green.

After catching the set’s initial pass and heading to the near wing, Barnes hands off back middle to Andre Iguodala. Thompson has walked his man to the elbow by then, preparing to make a hard cut as the ball reaches the middle of the floor. There’s your second dribble hand-off.

But what makes this play most deadly is the ball-screen Thompson gets from Green immediately after it. The Defensive Player of the Year runner-up simply makes a loop on this play, setting the first pick for Barnes then heading toward the rim, only to turn around while the action continues elsewhere to be in pace for another screen on Thompson’s man.

Sublime.

The Pelicans do a perfect job defending all of the misdirection here. What finally dooms them is poor pick-and-roll play from Alexis Ajinca, who fell for Thompson’s hesitation dribble and allowed him to get all the way to the rim. The Memphis Grizzlies did similarly well against the same set the next round, but the Warriors still got the better of them with an Iguodala triple.

Sometimes good offense beats good defense. Houston can only hope that’s how Golden State is forced to score in the Conference Finals.

Bonus: RUB-OFF RIP SCREEN

The Warriors love to employ this fun little play on dead-balls. They burned the Grizzlies with it twice in less than a minute during Game 5. And guess what? It hinges on the defense being too afraid to leave Thompson or Curry for even the slightest moment.

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Curry starts in the far corner and comes near side as Thompson goes the opposite direction. The former rubs off the latter and heads to the wing, where he gets a pass from Livingston. Following his fun with Curry, Thompson jets to the elbow to set a rip screen for an awaiting Green, who makes the decision to go over the top of or below it based on his defender’s position.

Under for Zach Randolph, over for Marc Gasol.

Some helpful advice for the Rockets’ big men: Communicate in the huddle.