At the highest level, winning in the NBA Playoffs comes down to two primary factors: elite talent and adjustments. While the best players often dictate who takes the championship, how teams react in the postseason can dramatically affect whether or not they meet expectations in April and May.

Last season, the Golden State Warriors benefited immensely from facing one of the worst counterpunchers in the entire league in George Karl. While an excellent regular season coach because of his scheme and skill as a motivator, his inability to properly react to changes over the course of a series led to some of the bigger early round upsets in league history. Mark Jackson and the Warriors may have actually benefitted from being forced to play Harrison Barnes at power forward because the Nuggets never figured out how to handle the changed script.

In the press conference after the Warriors' 98-96 loss to the Los Angeles Clippers in Game 3 on Thursday, I asked an admittedly poorly structured question Jackson about whether he would consider changing Stephen Curry’s rest pattern to give him more minutes against Darren Collison.

His answer (beyond the justifiable confusion due to the way I asked it) was prototypical Jackson: he was going to do his thing regardless of how the Clippers chose to handle their business. That form of bravado may hold some cachet in certain corners of the basketball world but counterpunching continues to be the Warriors’ best chance of beating the Clippers without Andrew Bogut.

It should be pretty clear at this point that Lob City has a clear advantage when both teams play with their current starting lineups. David Lee has trouble on both ends of the floor since Jackson foolishly keeps him on Blake Griffin one-on-one while the Clippers can sic DeAndre Jordan on him to snuff out the offense. While he tried reducing Jermaine O’Neal’s minute load to limited success, a Blake Griffin ravaging to start the third quarter finally forced Jackson to go small and sit Lee for an extended period. It worked reasonably well and can provide some understanding on how an undermanned Golden State squad can pull out enough games to make it interesting.

What makes the situation so much more frustrating is that Doc Rivers leaves himself open to these counterpunches by sticking to his ways. Being the better team has its advantages but he has left the door open as soon as Jackson and the Warriors can walk through it.

There are a few adjustments that would make a major difference in each game:

1. Make sure Stephen Curry is on the floor whenever Chris Paul sits

While I phrased this in my question to Jackson post-game in terms of playing Curry when Darren Collison is on the floor, the real crux of the matter is that Curry should log as many minutes as possible without Paul out there. CP3 said post-game that defense has been his focus this series and the action on the court has borne that out. In fact, Paul has been the Clippers' only reliable defender on Curry through three games. Since Jackson consistently hides Curry on other Clippers when the Warriors are on defense, shifting his minutes to take advantage of opposing sub patterns could get Curry into a scoring rhythm and also provide a competitive advantage at a time the Warriors are getting killed because of Jackson’s foolhardy obsession with separating the starters and bench players. It would also provide more opportunities for Curry to play with Harrison Barnes and Draymond Green who are much better offensive players when sharing the court with Golden State’s only reliable shot creator.

2. Play David Lee as little as possible when both Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan are on the floor unless the spacing gets much more intelligent

One of the challenges of playing conventionally with an inferior lineup is that while you can choose your covers on the defensive end your opponent can too. In this series, Lee has been absolutely demolished on offense when the Clippers put Jordan on him since DAJ has significant physical advantages over Lee, while the undersized lefty does not have a deep array of moves to take advantage of his excessive aggression as a shot blocker. Lee is somewhat famous for rarely pump faking which plays right into DeAndre’s strengths as a defender.

While the Warriors can hide Lee on Jordan on defense, they simply have not done it enough through three games. Instead, Jackson has given Lee an unwinnable assignment trying to wrangle someone more athletic and talented in Blake Griffin. I do not blame Lee in the slightest for struggling here- one of the most important jobs of a coach is to put his players in positions where they will not fail and Jackson has done one of his All-Stars no favors.

That said, a competent offense could flow from using Lee as the five against Jordan. Having Lee’s primary place on the floor be 15-18 feet from the hoop on one side or the other would force the Clippers to make a choice and either open up driving lanes for close shots and kickouts or yield tons of open looks. Something close to five out could totally work in a spot that has vexed the team so far.

3. Improve the offense by emphasizing ball movement and activity of players not involved in the primary action

Some of these offensive flaws were demonstrated well in the third quarter when the Warriors’ offense went into a ditch due to some easily correctable mistakes. The Clippers have a series of defenders who have a propensity to lose the player they are guarding over the course of a play (Klay does this as well) and the Warriors have done shockingly little to exploit that flaw. While quality ball movement and players being active off the ball are hallmarks of quality offenses regardless of opponent, they work especially well against the Clippers. There were numerous plays where the guys involved in the primary action (like a pick and roll) were the only ones actually doing anything and in some situations Curry actually ended up right in the stagnant area they occupied, opening up their defenders to help out and reducing the number of ways he could release the pressure of the defense. Making sure every player knows when to at least get out of the way would do wonders to generate more open looks and prevent some of the turnovers that have fueled the LA fast break.

4. Start Draymond Green

While replacing Lee with Green would largely make the tweak of No. 2, swapping him for Jermaine O’Neal could do the trick as well if implemented well. Green’s defensive versatility allows Golden State to be more aggressive in switching and also reduce the strain on Curry on that end. We have also seen this season that Green plays much better offensively with Curry and starting both of them creates more opportunities for that to happen.

Over the course of the season, as well as these three games, it has been readily apparent that the Clippers consistently play much closer to their ceiling as a team than the Warriors. While both teams have flaws, Rivers has done an excellent job hiding some of them while also accentuating the strengths of his best players. I have been consistently impressed by how well the Clippers handle their appalling lack of interior depth and the combination of injuries and disappointing play of swingmen other than JJ Redick and Jamal Crawford.

Instead of using the regular season as a way of figuring out all of the various combinations so that the team knows what works and how to handle unforeseen events, the Warriors have been on unfamiliar terrain for the entire series due to Bogut’s injury. Despite knowing that Festus Ezeli’s return was doubtful at best for quite some time, they never developed a plan for how to handle Bogut missing time and never picked up a reliable third center, though Hilton Armstrong has actually looked shockingly functional in a few minutes of time. Waiting to use creativity and break convention until the necessity of a last resort often means that the improvements come too late. That stubbornness helped exacerbate poor stretches that led to home collapses against Washington, New York, and Cleveland in the regular season (which Jackson feebly tried to justify pre-game by pointing out that those teams were doing better than expected more recently) and made this series much harder to win.

Hopefully the Warriors still have enough time to get bold and give themselves the best chance of winning each game and eventually the series.