The Golden State Warriors will meet the Dallas Mavericks in the 2022 NBA Western Conference Finals that will begin from Game 1 at the Chase Center in San Francisco on Wednesday.

During the Warriors' five straight Finals trips between 2015 and 2019, they met their opponent, the Cleveland Cavaliers, led by a historic playmaker LeBron James, four times in a row. The Warriors won three of those four series. Now they are about to meet the best playmaker of the new generation, 23-year-old Luka Doncic, and his Mavericks.

Having averaged 31.5 points, 10.1 rebounds and 6.6 assists in the playoffs so far, Doncic maximized the power of his individual attack while being surrounded by four sharpshooters most of the time in the games. Neither three-time Defensive Player of the Year Rudy Gobert of the Utah Jazz nor first-overall draft of 2018 Deandre Ayton of the Phoenix Suns could contain him in mismatch defensive possessions. Royce O'Neal of the Jazz, Jae Crowder and Mikal Bridges of the Suns are all reliable defenders, but none of them can slow Doncic down in isolation possessions.

Now, can the Warriors do the job with the defensive resources they have? Gary Payton II, who suffered a left elbow fracture against the Memphis Grizzles, may return for the team during the West Finals. However, he is a great choice for guarding explosive perimeters like Ja Morant, but not so good at facing Doncic, who beats him in both size and power.

The Warriors still have Klay Thompson, Andrew Wiggins, Draymond Green and, maybe Andre Iguodala to defend Doncic. In fact, even when they beat James in the old days, none of them took care of James alone. The Warriors prefer to make the opponents' ace work hard to score as many points as possible by himself instead of getting the rest of the team involved in offense.

That should be their plan for the West Finals because some of the Mavericks' shooters were quite fatal during the previous two series. Dorian Finney-Smith averages 2.7 triples at 42.2 percent; Spencer Dinwiddie averages two triples at 40 percent; Maxi Kleber averages 2.2 triples at 49.2 percent; Davis Bertans averages 1.2 triples at 43.2 percent and Reggie Bullock averages 2.7 triples at 38.9 percent.

All of them have a good chance to make the Warriors pay if the team is distracted too much by Doncic, who already has master-level vision and passing ability. Even if Doncic is not in his best form, Dinwiddie and Jalen Brunson already showed they can make good offensive contributions as well, The Warriors don not want to expose Stephen Curry to either of them too much.

Therefore, the Warriors will need to outperform the Mavericks on the offensive front to win the West Finals. Despite their league's sixth-best defensive rating of 109.4, the Mavericks don't have any defender good enough to be named for the All-Defensive Teams. Their secret is smart choice in double-teaming as well as following fast and reasonable rotating. They will surely double-team Curry and exploit Green's inability to make shots from outside to guard the Warriors' shooters. Unlike the Mavericks, the Warriors don't have a five-out offensive scheme. Their head coach Steve Kerr prefers a balanced lineup between offense and defense instead of betting everything on one side.

That's why the Warriors try to stick to their give-and-go offense in spite of the massive turnovers it may cause. Green can set second pick for Curry for him to receive the ball in open spots. The Mavericks don't have size advantage over the Warriors, not do they have solid protection of the paint. These are all disadvantages for the Warriors to exploit and, in order to do so, Thompson must shoot at his career level and Wiggins needs to stay aggressive offensively. Kevon Looney, who dominated rebounding in Game 6 against the Grizzlies, can be a surprising move as well for the Warriors.

If history is any reference, Doncic will average 30+points, 10 rebounds and 7+assists during the West Finals however the Warriors defend him. What really matters is how he gets them. Exhausting him by slowing him down away from the paint proved workable, but not enough. Curry, who became a much better slasher this season and Jordan Poole, who is a very sharp dagger driving from the weak side with his big strides, shouldn’t let Doncic go when they have a chance to consume him in isolation possessions. Even Wiggins should try to do it when he has the chance.

As for the Mavericks, their combination of Doncic and lethal 3-point shooters has the potential to make epic scoring performance when things go their way. They are unlikely to do it in as many as four games, but the closer they get to playing like this, the less burden Doncic will need to shoulder by himself.