What makes the Golden State Warriors the 'scary' team in the NBA Playoffs

The Golden State Warriors are one of the scariest teams in the NBA Playoffs.

They have the greatest shooter of all-time in Stephen Curry, one of the toughest guys in the league in Draymond Green, a Hall of Fame coach in Steve Kerr and then the factor that completely turned Golden State's fortunes around — the trade for Jimmy Butler.

I didn't see them being this good with the trade for Jimmy at the time. I thought with Jimmy’s lack of outside shooting their spacing would be an issue, but he's been phenomenal for them. He proves every playoffs that he has the ‘’it’’ factor you need to go deep.

I heard an in-game interview the day after the trade with Warriors GM Mike Dunleavy and he said they identified that they're a team that's poor at getting to the free-throw line, which was also an issue when I played there.

GSW are not a big get to the free-throw line team because traditionally they shoot so many threes. They identified that and said 'we need someone who can get to the line' and then they bring Jimmy and he's getting to the line en masse since the trade. So, when they're offence hits a rough patch at times and they're not making three balls, he can calm you down and just get you to the free throw line.

He's also a great defender next to Draymond. You've got two absolute beasts that can guard wings and bigs, I love it.

They're a dangerous team when they are humming like this.

The Clippers being healthy like they are now with Kawhi, I think they've got a chance to cause some upsets too, and I think Golden State are the same.

As far as what makes them such special competitors, it's just the passion and fire from someone like a Draymond and Jimmy, they're going to fight - literally fight you both physically, metaphorically — and you need those types of guys, especially in such a long season when you can be flat at times.

Sometimes you see Draymond get ejected, that stuff is somewhat is strategic at times, other times it's not, but sometimes it is, he knows what he's doing and sometimes he does lose his mind, but I think that's important. You need a crazy guy to win in the NBA.

You're into a playoff series, you just got some toughness there, you got some guys that when the game tightens up in a playoff series, the referees swallow their whistles a little bit, you'd rather have that end of things than the loose end of things. So, they're in a good spot and they got a good mix of scoring talent and physicality. That’s a good balance.

Draymond — what you see is what you get with him. Whether it's at the poker table or whether it's on a basketball court, he is always intense, ready to fight you at any minute. That's what makes him great and that's what makes him such a great player.

If you lost that fire or that oomph, I mean, he's a completely different person, completely different player and you've got to manage these guys and I think Steve Kerr does a great job at that.

What makes Steve such a great coach is that he's been involved in every, every facet of basketball. He's been a GM, he's been under great coaches, he's done the commentary thing, he's experienced all levels. He was generally a role player throughout most of his career. So, he knows that end of things. I think he's really good with communicating and talking to guys. You know, so oftentimes he'd come in and say 'hey, we're resting you tonight, you're not playing' or 'hey, we're going to start you off the bench tonight'. Just communicating it, so you don't hear it for the first time in a team meeting.

There's nothing worse as a player than hearing something that's changing your role or what you're doing and hearing it in a team meeting for the first time before a game, you're like 'what's going on here'. He's really good at approaching that the day before having an eye-to-eye, man-to-man chat with you. This is what we're thinking and then we go on with it and I think you've got to respect that.

I think the biggest thing with NBA coaching and coaching in general these days is just communication. If you have a communication with your players where they can trust you and have an open, honest conversation, and you can kind of give your pros and cons of why you made a decision and maybe even have a little debate about, it's no problem. I think that's what players really respect and that's kind of how you build that bond and relationship. He's done a phenomenal job of that.

I think all those factors and ingredients put together, make the Warriors scary in the playoffs, especially when you add all of their experience as well. They've all been there and done it.

NBA Champion Andrew Bogut is a columnist and contributor for Basketball.com.au. He is part owner and assistant coach of the Sydney Kings.

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