April 16, 2025 • 44 mins
Jason reacts LIVE after the Golden State Warriors survived a play-in battle against the Memphis Grizzlies and now move on to face the Houston Rockets in round one of the NBA playoffs. Steph Curry and Jimmy Butler carried the Dubs while Ja Morant and Desmond Bane led a late Grizzlies run that gave them the lead in the fourth quarter.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
The volume.
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Speaker 3 (01:45):
Slash audio.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
All right, welcome to Hoops tonight. You're at the volume
heavy two to everybody hopefull. You guys are having a
great week. We've officially made it to postseason basketball. We've
lived up to the expectations. The play in games have
been pretty highly entertaining over the course of the last
few years, and the Grizzlies and the Warriors gave us
another great one tonight as the Warriors escape down the stretch,
(02:19):
a crazy run from the Memphis Grizzlies, a couple of terrible.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
Calls that went against them late.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
I want to talk a little bit about that off
the top and just why avoiding the play in is
so important. We're gonna spend the later portion of the
show talking a little bit about the Houston series, and then,
like we always do on these lives, we're gonna do
about ten to fifteen minutes of mail bag questions from
the chat. So if you want to get questions in,
just make sure you're subscribe to the channel, drop your
questions in the chat. Jackson's gonna hop on with us
(02:46):
and we'll go through some questions for ten fifteen minutes.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
You guys know the job before we get started. Subscribe
to the.
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Hoops and I YouTube channel so you don't miss any
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We have brand new social media feeds on Twitter, Instagram,
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(03:10):
do a mailback, So drop your mailbag questions in YouTube
comment so that we can get to them throughout the
remainder of the season.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
All right, let's talk some basketball. So I have a
great deal.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Of familiarity with the play in game. I have rooted
for my Lakers team through three of them already, and
they've all been just like this, guys, there's no like, oh,
we're gonna just beat Memphis and go into the two seven.
It's like, no, we survived. Remember the three Rims game
after Lebron hit the game winner over Steph the one
(03:41):
was it four years ago?
Speaker 3 (03:42):
Now? The Wolves game.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
We had that huge three that Dennis Schroeder hits, and
then all of a sudden, Anthony Davis is fouling a
shooter in the corner and we're going to overtime and
we're just like barely surviving the Timberwolves.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
The inn last year.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
It's like, the Lakers beat the shit out of the
Pelican on that Sunday game, and you're like, Oh, we're
gonna be good when we go there to play them
again on Tuesday, and it's like, No, all of a sudden,
z Ion is just playing the greatest game he's ever
played and just knifing through Lebron and ad like butter
And if it wasn't for a hamstring injury, that game
probably would have come down to the final handful of possessions.
(04:19):
That's just what the play in game is like. And
that is why the Warriors wanted so badly to win
that game on Sunday. There was an easy silver lining
to point to to be like, oh, well, would you
rather play your next four weeks of this super high
leverage basketball against the Lakers in the first round and
then most likely the Clippers in the second round, or
(04:40):
would you rather face the Rockets in the first round
and then the Lakers in the second round. I think
we all would agree. I think most people that I
speak to would agree that the Clippers are a better team,
a more dangerous team than the Rockets. And so yeah,
you can kind of draw that out. But Ultimately, if
you can avoid that game, if you can avoid what
you just went through tonight, I could have gone the
(05:01):
other way just on a couple plays here and there, right,
And that's why the Warriors wanted to win that game
on Sunday so bad. That's why you want to avoid
that situation. I talk all the time when you ended,
when you end up in a close gain, there is
always the possibility that a bad call could go against you,
and tonight it happened twice down the stretch for the Warriors,
(05:23):
and they managed to overcome it. But like, that's exactly
why that situation is so stressful, and that's why every
game matters over the course of the regular season as
you try to dig yourself out of that specific situation.
But I want to talk a little bit about Jimmy Butler,
and so we are changing our Microsoft segment. We've been
doing it based on overcoming adversity over the course of
the last couple of months, but we're focusing it more
(05:45):
on the player of the week now and we're going
to focus that on Jimmy. Welcome to Course Correction brought
to you by Microsoft. Just like star players and teams
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(06:09):
you're in the NBA, you have your own hurdles to face.
In this segment, we will highlight the player of the
week that has risen to the occasion when his team
needed him. Whatever challenge you're facing, Microsoft empowers you with
the expertise to say bring it on. This week, we're
discussing Jimmy Butler in his massive night to help the
Warriors escape the plan. I talked after the Clippers game
(06:30):
about how there were some silver linings obviously right, and
one of the biggest ones there was, you know, Steph
looks amazing, but also Jimmy, who had not really done
a lot of volume scoring for the Warriors over the
course of the stretch post deadline. It was a lot
of like just connective, additive stuff, stuff that wasn't necessarily
(06:51):
going to show up in the box score, but that
was clearly helping the team on both ends of the floor.
But the championship ceiling that this team has if there's
one there, and we're going to talk a little bit
about that after we get done with this game. But
with if that championship ceiling is there, it depends on
Jimmy also being a volume scorer. And after he was
a very effective volume scorer in that Clippers game, did
(07:14):
it again tonight. Thirty eight points, seven rebounds, six assists,
led a dominant stretch early in the game to explode
the lead. While Steph Curry was off the floor. He
got to the free throw line eighteen times. Just was
awesome in this game. I want to zoom in specifically
on Jimmy's ability to get to the foul line for
(07:35):
a second. I've talked a lot about this, and I
always have to like kind of like split these two
concepts because my attitude towards them is very different. Like
foul grifting as a league wide problem not something I love.
I would like it if the game of basketball was
primarily rewarding players for making basketball plays. But as long
(07:56):
as it's allowed, grifting is a very important skill element. Now,
just like any skill, you can lean on it too much.
There are passers that lean on their playmaking too much
and don't look enough to be aggressive as scores. There
are big power players, think like a Pala Bancaro or
Joe El Embiid, that sometimes will rely on their jump
(08:16):
shot too much when they have gifts that will take
them downhill towards the rim. Embiid Enharden over the years
relied too much on their foul grifting at the expense
of their ability to weaponize their other skills. But foul
grifting is a very important skill to generate offense in
this league. Jimmy Butler does it, in my opinion, in
(08:38):
a more esthetically appealing way because it's less of like
some of the really janky stuff. And what he'll do
is he'll just take like little bizarre angles towards the basket,
where like instead of driving at an angle to where
he can more easily get a shot off, he'll drive
at an angle that is more aggressive towards the rim
(08:59):
defender and actually just designed to get a foul. He'll
take off at a weird spot, like he'll take off
a little bit earlier, he'll take off a little bit late.
He'll tweak his angles and tweak his takeoffs to get
guys to just jumping land on top of his shoulders.
It's a very impressive gift that he has to get
defenders out of position and to get to the foul line.
(09:21):
And this was a Warriors team free All Star break
that was twenty third in the NBA in free throw
attempts per game. And Jimmy has just added this entire
other element to this offense. And you don't win that
game tonight if Jimmy Butler doesn't bring that element. It
came as part of a super versatile attack and on
(09:41):
both ends of the floor. He was excellent on defense
in this game, tied up Zach Edy a bunch of
times underneath the basket. On offense, not just the grifting
to getting to the basket consistently as a cutter and
as a slasher. He was attacking Santi al Dama and
Zach Geedy all over the floor doing a ton of damage.
Incredible night from Jimmy Butler when his team desperately needed him.
(10:03):
Thirty eight seven and six like playoff Jimmy has been
around with like the Warriors have actually played about five
straight like true must win games here to end the season.
But that one and the one on Sunday are your
too true. Like that result directly swings where you're at
in the playoffs, and Jimmy's just been fantastic in both games,
(10:25):
and I think that bodes really well for the Warriors
in the big picture.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
That is it for this week's course correction.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
Remember Microsoft's AI solutions empower you to take bold steps
into make informed decisions, sparking new ideas to help drive
your business forward. With Microsoft is your trusted partner, you
can navigate your journey with confidence, finding innovative solutions, and
reaching new possibilities. Visit Microsoft dot com slash challengers to
learn more. I want to talk about Steph for a
(10:51):
little bit here. I was really impressed by the way
that he just showed some resilience with the way he
dealt with memphisis physicality, just like everyone's been doing to
Steph for fifteen years now, ten years now, twelve years now.
Just was grabbing and holding him off the ball every
single time that he's trying to get open on screening
actions and stuff. And this has been the game plan
(11:13):
against Steph forever. It's a very good game plan to
use when you get in the postseason because basically every
star when you get into the postseason is playing basketball.
With a defender that has two hands on him. It's
just super super physical, whether it's on the ball or
it's off the ball. And one of the things that
Steph did late in the game that I thought was
really smart is he started to use that physicality to
(11:33):
his advantage. Hit two big threes down the stretch, and
the first one was a play with John Conchard with
about six minutes left, where he was kind of setting
John Conchard up right around the elbow for him to
come off of a screening action. I think with Looney
if I remember correctly, along the left wing, and if
you watch, Steph like kind of sat there and set
his man up and did a textbook set your man
(11:55):
up for a screen and kind of push off kind
of thing, just walked into Conchar's chest and then just
gave him a little shove as he took off. And
that's the thing. These games are super physical. They are bloodbats.
This is a contact sport were the defense is going
to be allowed to do a lot of shit to you,
but you're also going to be allowed to do a
lot of shit to the defense. And I thought it
(12:16):
was awesome that instead of succumbing to the physicality Steph
brought the physicality at the tail end of the game.
It was just a little tighter on his screening actions,
a little more physical on his off ball defender, shoving off,
getting that separation and getting some clean looks for himself.
And then the last one was just that classic corner
drop off action hit Draymond right as Steph is sprinting
(12:37):
off of that cut off of the left wing to
the left corner. Two clean looks, and then adds in
just for fun, a classic Steph flair, that triple pump
fake move that he uses on Scottie Pippen Junior to
hit the shot. I think he finished with thirty seven
tonight on a night where it looked like he didn't
have it early in the game, and that just goes
to show you, like these it's a marathon, not a sprint.
Speaker 3 (12:59):
That was a long game.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
It looked like Memphis was dead in the water two
separate times, and they battled back. It looked like Steph
didn't have it going early in the game. But you
just keep going, You just keep plugging away, you keep
trying to find your advantages, you keep trying to solve
the puzzle, and it's just about breaking through, and you
could tell there was a good amount of relief from
Steph when he ran down the floor after that triple
(13:20):
pump fake sequence, because he felt like he had solved
the puzzle in that particular game. Now, the Warriors put
themselves into a tricky position by committing a couple of
silly fouls down the stretch and gifting the Grizzlies with
some free points and some sloppy turnovers, and they just
ended up in a situation where it was a little
closer than it needed to be. But when push come
to shove and it came time to solve the puzzle,
(13:43):
the Warriors were able to solve the puzzle. I was
very impressed overall with Golden State's defense during the early
portion of the game. I thought they lost control of
it a little bit. It's always hard to like restart
the motor after you let it shut off, and I
think that they fell victim to that a little bit.
But early in the game, I was really with the
Warriors just physicality. Ball pressure forced a lot of turnovers.
(14:05):
Grizzlies really lost control of the transition game early as
they just succumb to the ball pressure, rushed made some
sloppy errors passing out of those traps, passing out of
that ball pressure, and they gave up a bunch of
fast break opportunities the other way. The Warriors finished with
twenty seven points off of memphis twenty turnovers in this
(14:26):
game and in general too. Just that speeding up of
the perimeter players has a lot to do with the
Warrior's ability to cover ground on the perimeter. I was
prepping this morning for the Clippers Nuggets series. I recorded
the previews for Denver LA and for La Minnesota this morning.
They are both coming out tomorrow, so you guys will
(14:47):
get full series previews on those two tomorrow. Series previews
for both of the two seven matchups. I'm recording those tomorrow.
They'll be going up on Thursday, as we released them
throughout the week. But as I was prepping for that
Clippers Nuggets series, I was digging into some statistics involving
the defenses in how many wide open threes they allow
(15:07):
or unguarded threes as they call them on Synergy, and
Denver predictably was bottom five in allowing unguarded threes. As
I've just been talking a lot about their pick and
roll defense and how they've really struggled with at the
level coverage and giving up those two on ones on
the weak side, and how they just end in open
threes all the time. Well, guess who has the second
best defense at not allowing those unguarded catch and shoot threes.
(15:33):
The Golden State Warriors. And you know one of the
you know we always debate like the concept of like
eye test versus digging into these like catch all metrics
and how do you properly evaluate a player. Well, sometimes
there's both. Sometimes you have a clear thing that shows
up when you're watching the film, and then the numbers
also clearly demonstrated. I have talked all year about how
(15:54):
the Warriors have been the most impressive closeout team that
I've watched, and their ability to get out the perimeter
from having a foot in the paint, to chase a
defender off the three point line or to make him
rush his release and to cause that to be a
lower quality attempt. And that is just on display in
these early games from Golden State. Here at this point
(16:15):
in the postseason, they are flying around. They look really
really good on defense. As a Laker fan, I'm thankful
that we won't have to see those guys until an
extra round against Houston. So let's talk about Houston for
a minute. This is a kind of an interesting matchup.
If you would have asked me after the Laker game
(16:36):
if Golden State would dispatch if Houston relatively quickly, I
would have said yes. I would have said they would
have gotten rid of them. This is the fifth consecutive,
like really important game that the Warriors played where they
looked a little shaky. They came out of the Laker
game and went into that Rockets game and Jimmy and
Steff both struggled. They lose, and then they goed into
(16:57):
the Spurs game and they play well enough to win,
but then they make execution mistakes down the end and
they lose. And then they go to Portland and they win.
But then they have this home game against the Clippers
and they lose. And then they have this game against
Memphis at home and they're trailing in the fourth quarter,
and it just they just lacked some of that like
oomph that they had in.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
The week before.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
And so now I'm kind of having a hard time
getting a read on this team because I feel like
reality is probably somewhere in the middle right like They're
probably not the team that won every damn game after
they got Jimmy, but they're also probably not the team
that has struggled mightily over the course of the last
week and a half. I think the kind of consistent
thing I've seen is that Steph and Jimmy have been
(17:37):
able to leverage their gifts in these last two games
against these really higher quality opponents to be effective. But
the rest of the roster has been really inconsistent, and
that is a trend that scares me a little bit
as the Warriors head into the postseason. Houston is a
very difficult matchup for Golden State, just in terms of
the types of athletes that they have. Of grabbing and
(18:00):
holding his staph tonight, It's gonna be a lot more
of that over the course of the next two weeks,
except for it's gonna be bigger and better athletes. It's
not gonna be Scottie Pippen Jr. It's gonna be Dylan Brooks.
It's gonna be a Men Thompson, it's gonna be Tari Eason.
It's gonna be big, strong, super athlete every single possession
(18:21):
for that entire series. And you know from the dynamic
that took place out of the game last Sunday that
emy Udoka views it as a weakness for this team.
He've used it as like we get physical, they start crying.
That's the way he views it. And so you know
that he's preaching that if you don't think im Udoka
has been saying over and over and over again to
(18:42):
his guys, this team doesn't want to play physical basketball,
we can beat them up. I guarantee you that's what
he's been saying. I guarantee you. If the team had
a watch party tonight, he was pointing to him and saying,
look at this. We can do a better version of
this when we face them in that series. And so again,
I think that's going to be really the big swing
(19:02):
in the series is Steph specifically how he handles that physicality.
Doesn't take a lot of critical thinking to say that
he needs to be better than he was last week
on Sunday, right, Like, he can't average three points a
game against Houston, that's not going to work. STEP's going
to have to be more effective than that. But I'm
(19:22):
actually going to point a little bit towards Jimmy Butler
and a role that Jonathan Kaminga could have in a
series like this. In that type of series, you need
your athletes. As you saw tonight, Jimmy just has this
ability to leverage his size and strength to be successful
in that environment. I talk about this all the time
(19:44):
with Kawhi, with Lebron, with Luca, with Jimmy Butler. When
you get into an environment where physicality is rewarded, the bigger,
stronger athletes tend to go up a level, and Jimmy
Butler is just such a great asset to have in
that setting. But when you're going against Houston, you're going
to have some physical advantages in the form of being
(20:05):
able to get Jimmy the ball through screening action with Steph,
either advantage as they put two on Steph, or switches
where Jimmy can go at a Fred van Vliet where
Jimmy could go at even like an Amen Thompson. Jimmy
has a strength advantage there, and so weaponizing that throughout
the series is going to be huge. And this is
why I think Jonathan Kaminga is going to be a
(20:25):
player that Steve Kerr is going to have to give
a little bit more opportunity to. As we head into
that series. Jonathan Kaminga is an APEX athlete. Among APEX athletes,
he is one of the few guys that is going
to see the APEX Houston athletes in front of him
and be like, I can still go around and over
the top of these guys.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
He's going to be a.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
Guy that's going to be able to generate advantages in
that environment. And so I do think it'll be a
series where they have to lean more on Jonathan Kaminga
and Jimmy Butler. The other side of the ball, though,
is where the series is going to be one. If
the Warriors can take care of the ball and they
can stay out of transition, they can trap Houston in
the half court. If we see the defense we saw
(21:06):
in the first half tonight and for stretches against the
Clippers on Sunday, if we see that defense engaged in
the half court against Houston, they should be able to
shut them down. And again, when it comes down to
series picks, I always say the same thing, which team
do I feel like can make each other's units more uncomfortable?
(21:27):
Is the Warrior defense more capable of making the Rockets
offense uncomfortable than the Rockets defense can make the Warriors
offense uncomfortable. That is a dynamic because I think this
Warriors defense is truly special. I think they are capable
of doing more damage to Houston's offense. And so I'll
be picking the Warriors to win that series. But it's
(21:50):
gonna be a pain in the ass. It's gonna be
two really tough weeks. It's gonna be a lot of
physicality on Steph. You saw Steff get a little banged
up tonight. He's grabbing at his tailbone, he's grabbing at
his thumb. It's gonna be that kind of series. And
so execution, avoiding the late game mistakes from tonight, avoiding
the late game mistakes from the San Antonio game, making
sure that you deal with this team quickly is going
(22:13):
to be important because if you get rid of them
in five games, that's where you could buy yourself four
to five days off and give yourself a much better
chance to be physically prepared for a series against the
Lakers or against the Timberwolves. This is a series that
if you let a drag and it goes to six games,
it goes to seven games, that's where it could end
up being a series that wears the Warriors down in
(22:35):
a way that the progressive fatigue just gets too much
to handle over the course of a four series playoff.
Front gonna be an interesting series, though Again, as I said,
I'm going to be working on that preview tomorrow.
Speaker 3 (22:47):
It'll be up during the day on Thursday.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
Before we get to our chat mailbag, just brief thoughts
on Memphis. I thought their defensive front court, which I've
talked a lot about over the course the last couple weeks,
just zach Edy and Zante al Dama, the two of
them just can't guard. They can't guard in space. Zachidy
looked lost in like seventeen different ways tonight. He looked
lost defending on the perimeter. He struggled on the glass
(23:11):
a few times. Every time he caught anything around the basket,
he was getting stripped down low like big Man one
oh one, stuff like don't hold the ball down by
your waist in front of you, like every smaller player
is just gonna go grab it. Just they're in a
situation where they just don't have the pieces necessary in
the front court to be a good defense, and so
it already is an uphill climb for John Moran, and
(23:33):
Desmond Bay and they had a little nice run there
in the second half, but they weren't able to keep
up with Jimmy and Steph and when you factor in
the weakness of that defensive front court, it was just
too much for them to overcome it and get anything
out of Jaron Jackson in this game. I think it's
really important for Memphis to have some serious conversations after
this season about their core foundation as of the roster
(23:56):
and what types of players they're building around, because right now,
it's like Moranton Bain is a good backcourt, but how
is Moranton Bain ranking among back courts in the NBA?
It's is it top is it top seven? Is the
top eight? I mean, we can dig into that this summer,
but that's not a very that's not exactly an elite
defensive backcourt. And then you go on that on the
(24:18):
wing position, you've never been the same since you've lost
Dylan Brooks. Yeah, Jalen Wells had his moments this year,
but he's just not the same type of imposing athlete.
Jared Jackson can't defend a rebound well enough at the
five to be a five, so you have to play
him at the four, which means you have to end
up playing him alongside this other front court player, and
that other front court player they have to play him
alongside just isn't good enough right now. And so I
(24:39):
think the Grizzlies have to have some really tough conversations
with themselves this summer about the way their roster is constructed.
All right, let's get Jackson out here. Let's take about
ten fifteen minutes of questions, and then we will be
done for the night.
Speaker 1 (24:53):
Let's do it. We are going to start with a
zach Ny question. What was the idea with putting Zach
Edy on Butler for the majority of the game. I
understand Darren Butler to shoot, but Jimmy got whatever he
wanted off the bounce.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
Anyways, I thought he did a better job in the
second half of staying out of foul trouble and being
more anticipatory of like his angles. It's a really tough
spot to put Zach Edy in for one game. Over
the course of a series. It's something that might have
been a little bit more achievable as Zach just got
better at anticipating in the types of moves that Jimmy
would make. But It's just a really tough spot, especially
(25:28):
with the type of grifter that Jimmy is. You know,
you do that against a guy that's more of just
a straight power player. Zach can just kind of anticipate,
beat him to spots, force him to shoot over the top.
But Jimmy's one of those guys where it's like, as
soon as Zach just gets a little bit squirrely with
his footwork and gets out of position one way or
the other, Jimmy's just taken a weird driving angle and
(25:48):
drawing a foul on him. But I think the idea
was probably mostly geared around baiting or praying on Jimmy's
unwillingness to take jump shots. I think they thought if
Zach edy was on him and he was playing off,
maybe he would just be willing to pass instead of
just taking the easy jumpers that he was given in
But I thought even Jimmy hit enough jumpers to kind
of keep them honest in that regard. He hit a
(26:08):
little jab step three in the first half. I thought
that little baseline step back he hit and crutch time
was super important too.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
Yeah, I agree, and I mean I think the Grizzlies
are just to your point about their front core defense.
They're in a tough spot regardless, Like what's what are
you supposed to do? Exact like the Warriors? You're not
There's yeah, we got to be good options against I
mean against some some teams he can survive. But against
the team like the Warriors with that many with that
much motion, of that many high a Q players, I
mean your cooked either way. All right, next one we got.
(26:38):
We've got enough fair amount of COMMINGA questions. So I
know we talked about him a little bit already, but
let's follow up here. Uh hey, Jason loved the show.
Why is Steve Kurs sticking with Moses Moody in the
starting lineup when he's a massive three point slop of
the past ten to fifteen games. Why not play Kaminga
in that spot? And I think we can sort of
just expand it too. I mean you already touched on
him having a role in this Rocket series. But another
(26:59):
question we got was about what it will be challenging
for Kaminga to reintegrate himself back into the rotation after
he's got a couple of DMPs. It's it is a
weird spot I think for Kaminga and the team in general.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
So I think it's a little more complicated because Moody
hasn't been shooting the ball as well, although he did
end up hitting a three tonight, a three where it
looked like he got fouled on it too. The idea
there is like, let's let's get back to like the
core concept because even beyond the starting lineup, it's going
(27:30):
back to the press conference where Steve Kerr was it
was it after the I think it was after the
Blazers game, might have been after the Spurs game, but
he basically said, like the Kaminga, Jimmy Butler, Jerrymunt Green
lineups just can't play. And I think it's a couple
of different things. One the role on defense that you
want Cominga to play as this like on ball defender.
Speaker 3 (27:51):
I think he's probably a little more.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
Imposing than Moody for certain types of matchups, but Moody
is also a little better in other types of matchups,
and I would argue that Moody is a little steadier
as an on ball defender. So now as we look
on the offensive end of the floor, within the context
of Jimmy Draymond is Steph being on the floor, Kaminga
is going to be operating either as a corner spot
(28:16):
up player or as a read and react player in
the middle of the floor. Is he as good as
a read and react player in the middle of the
floor as Moses Moody. No, he's actually one of the
worst players on the team in that specific role. And
is he as good as as Moses Moody as like
just a knockdown corner three point shooter, even though Moody's
going through a cold spell. I would argue Diminga is
(28:37):
equally as flaky in that type of role. And so honestly,
within the context of the starting unit or within the
context of Jimmy and Draymond being on the floor, Kaminga's
just not good at the types of things they need
with that type of group, right, And I do believe
that you're going to need him, especially in the Houston series,
(28:57):
in different types of lineups. So like put him out
there in a lineup with like Quinton Post, with Jimmy
and Jonathan Kaminga and have him like kind of like
you know how, like the Jimmy group was super successful
in that like late first quarter, early second tonight but
then kind of lost steam in the late third early
(29:18):
fourth tonight. That's where it's like, Okay, Jimmy had it
going in the first shift there, didn't have it going
in that second half shift. Having the ability to go
to another like real downhill threat that can generate some
offense but has some spacing because Quinton Post is like
a legit knockdown guy. Like that's the difference. The difference
between Quinton Post and a traditional spacing five is like
(29:40):
if it's a traditional spacing five, if it's Nikolavusovitch, for instance,
you're like, let's see him make a couple before we
even do anything. Quinn Post is like a legit awesome shooter,
Like if you leave him open, you're gonna get burnt.
Zachi ed he lost him twice in transition early in
this game, and he just nailed both of them. You
can't give Quinton Post open looks. He will the spacing
enough to where Jonathan Kaminga has some more driving lanes
(30:03):
when Draymond's out there, when Jimmy's out there, when Kaminga
is out there, there's just a lot of ability to
pack the paint, not enough IQ to actually pick it
apart appropriately, it's just not the right fit. And so
I don't think Frankly, to answer the question, I don't
think there's any case for Kaminga to start these games.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
Yeah, I agree, I do think to your point, it's
pretty that being said, it is pretty easy to think
about lineups where he can be successful, like a pods
kuminga Jimmy Post group with like Gary Payton your buddy, Like,
it's pretty easy to think about lineup where he can
be very successful and very important in a series like this.
And I'm so in agreement about Quintin Post. I mean,
(30:40):
I think he's been just so awesome and it's it's
gonna be really I think it's gonna be crucial in
this series for against the team that plays two bigs
a lot.
Speaker 3 (30:48):
Well really quickly for you.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
As the next question, the like to follow up your
point about putting lineups together too, like you need to
put lineups together that fit his style, so like put
him with play finishers like that, and then if you
want to have another player on the floor that's more
of a playmaking talent, it is Jimmy, but if you
have him out there with play finishers.
Speaker 3 (31:05):
So let's say it is. Let's say it's you know
healed or it's you know healed and.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
Post and let's say like like maybe like a like
a Gee Santos, I don't know, like another guy that
you feel like knock down, catch at two jump shots.
Change the style of the offense when he's out there
to cater to him, be like, Okay, here's the deal, Jonathan,
Like for the next three minutes here to start the
fourth quarter, We're gonna let you clear the side and
(31:33):
ISO and let's see what you can do and we
can we can play off of it. Like that's my thing,
is like, especially for the Houston series in particular, like
don't just play him and then play Warriors basketball and
have him pee down his leg again as he doesn't
know how to play Warriors basketball. Put him in a
situation where he can play Jonathan kaminga basketball. Jonathan's really
good I shouldn't say really good, but he's really capable
(31:54):
as like a face up.
Speaker 3 (31:55):
Player, as a post up player.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
When he has an advantage and when he has space
around him, you can put together lineups that put him
in that sort of situation.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
Percent I mean, any anytime you're getting Shanngoon or Steven
Adam switched on Jonathan Kumena. It should be give him
the ball and clear out like that is a that
is a dunk every time that happened. So it's not
like he can't be useful in this series. All right,
next question, This is a super Chat question, So thank
you guys for the super Chat questions. Do you think
teams are more injury prone this season? And if so,
(32:24):
do you think that's a matter of less practicing around
the league. I've heard a lot of former NBA players
weigh in on this sort of lack of practice time issue.
Speaker 2 (32:31):
So I have a really hard time having any sort
of strong opinion on this front because I think the
data is all wonky.
Speaker 3 (32:38):
One.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
I'm not super familiar with the data too. I think
the data is kind of impossible to account for just.
Speaker 3 (32:44):
How like.
Speaker 2 (32:46):
The way the eras have shifted kind of changes the data. So,
for example, like I think the medical staffs today are
having a lot more of these kinds of conversations. How's
your body feeling today? Well, I'm a little sore. Well
where are you sore?
Speaker 3 (33:04):
Well?
Speaker 2 (33:05):
Here, here and here? Well, okay, tell me about this one.
You've actually mentioned this one, like three days in a row.
What's the deal with this one? Yeah, it's just been
kind of sore. Okay, you're not playing tonight. I think
there's been a lot more of that kind of stuff,
where like the barrier to entry for like getting onto
the floor versus being sat for a game is just
different than it was all these years ago. And so
it's hard for me to say exactly in terms of
(33:26):
like what of those is a legitimate injury versus just
like a rest situation. And I think it probably has
a little bit to do in terms of the more
serious injuries, like the season ending type of stuff that
we've seen a tick up a little bit over the
last couple of years. I think it just has to
do with how spread out the game is, Like you
(33:46):
just have to cover so much more ground these days.
There's more possessions in a game. You're sprinting more in
transition in a game than you ever have been before.
You're covering ground in rotation more in a game than
you ever have before. There's just a lot of sprinting
folks and then coming to a complete stop as fast
as you possibly can, and then changing direction and going
the other way. Like all of you guys who play basketball. No,
(34:08):
you do that a few times, your feet start to hurt.
Now imagine doing it for an eighty two game regular season.
You can imagine how you might start breaking down.
Speaker 1 (34:15):
Yeah, absolutely, all right. What this is a fun question.
What series or potential future series, let's say, excluding the
first round series, in a second or third round series,
what are the series that you'd be most excited for
to watch.
Speaker 3 (34:26):
As a fan? Lakers Warriors would be incredible. I think that.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
I've been torn on the OKC versus potentially Denver versus
potentially the Clippers.
Speaker 3 (34:41):
I Jokic did beat Okac.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
On the road like a month ago, but it was
a game where Jadep got hurt, but they beat him
I think twice this year, and Jokic just looked really
good in that matchup, So part of me wants to
say Denver, But then the Clippers have just looked like
a really imposing team, and I think Kawhi would do
a lot of damage attacking Smalls in that series. I'm
gonna go with I'm gonna go with Clippers Thunder on
(35:07):
the other side of the bracket out East, I.
Speaker 3 (35:10):
Would love I would love to see.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
Nick Celtics in a series, just because I think that
that could get pretty interesting, and I don't think the
Pistons have the Jews for a series like that, even
though I think the Pistons have the ability to potentially
upset the Knicks, and then I would I'm rooting for Yiannis.
I don't know if you guys have been watching Yannis
as of late, but like, Giannis is fucking crushing it, man,
and like legitimately taking a leap as a playmaker before
(35:39):
our eyes, and there's like a there's a legitimate basketball
case to make right now that the Bucks are better
just giving the ball to Yannis than running the offense
they've been running with Dame, which is just how insanely
good Yiannis has been. So I would vote for Yannis
as a second round matchup against the Cavs as a
series that I would like to see.
Speaker 1 (35:58):
Yeah, I agree with all that, and I think all
after the first round, whatever happens with the Thunder is
going to be fascinating because they're just so polarizing. It's
like you're not giving them enough credit. They're this historic team,
historic defense. You don't believe in the Thunder or like
or or the opposite, right, And the narratives are going
to play it in real time, whether they beat the
Clippers or beat the Nuggets or lose to them, whether
(36:20):
they end up getting to the conference finals. With the finals,
it's just the narratives around the thunder are just they're
just so fun.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
There's either gonna be some people taking some victory laps. Well,
there's going to be people taking victory laps on either
side of it. But the beautiful thing you mentioned it
it plays out in real time. That's the beautiful thing
about the NBA playoffs. Well, you could talk shit, I
could talk shit, I can make a pick.
Speaker 3 (36:39):
You can make a pick.
Speaker 2 (36:41):
I could say you guys are wrong in the comments.
You guys could tell me in the comments that I'm wrong.
It really doesn't matter. The games are gonna get played
and a team's gonna advance. And that's the beautiful thing
is this all just gets settled between the lines. That's
the beauty of basketball.
Speaker 1 (36:51):
Absolutely. All right, let's do one more. How do you
see the Steve Kerr and Ema Udoka matchup? What do
you think of their what do you think their strategies
will be and how can a team out coach another.
Speaker 2 (37:01):
So emy Udoka as a playoff coach, I looking back
at the series against the Warriors, I was critical of
him at the time for running as much drop coverage
as he did. His case for it was to keep
the Warriors out of their four on three type of
(37:23):
predicament that they can put you in. Essentially like if
you let the Warriors play the way they did at
the tail end of the twenty fifteen finals, where they're
just getting wide open the corner threes and dunks all
series long, you can lose. And there's some truth to that.
But the counter is is that when you run a
bunch of drop against Steph Curry, there's always the potential
that he could get flaming hot, and he did in
(37:44):
the one game where they could not afford for Steph
Curry to get flaming hot, which was in Game four,
and it beat them, And so I was like, that
was really my only exposure to emy Udoka As a
chess match coach. I think Steve Kerr is one of
the best chests match coaches in the league, as having
rooted against him in a playoff series many times, I
(38:06):
just think he's really good at picking up on the
trends of the series, identifying what's working and adjusting accordingly.
He'll bail on their emotion offense and lean on high
pick and roll for Steph if that's what the series
calls for. He is a very malleable coach when he
gets into the postseason. So my instinct is to say
that Steve Kerr has a tactical advantage and that he
may Udoka is mainly going to be an influence on
(38:28):
the series in terms of just trying to get the
Rockets to beat the shit out of the Warriors on
every single possession. But we just don't have a ton
of data points with emy Udoka as a tactician.
Speaker 3 (38:37):
If that makes sense, I was.
Speaker 1 (38:38):
Going to I have the exact same, exact sametake that
he may feels like a little a slightly more stubborn coach,
but we don't have the sample size. That being said,
it's so interesting that he has his personnel now. Also
is better in drop like, you're not switching with Steve,
You're not really switching with Steven Adams or Singhuin.
Speaker 3 (38:55):
I would assume they're.
Speaker 1 (38:56):
Not going to switch with those guys, and I would
assume he's not gonna blitz based on his path, his
past sort of history, So it'll be interesting to see.
It's not like his personnel is different from in the
front court in that sense. What kind of adjustments he
makes going against the team that he lost to in
the finals. What a different team obviously.
Speaker 3 (39:11):
A few years ago. And I think, and I've spoken with.
Speaker 1 (39:14):
With Draymond about this, how how much he loves Steve's
ability and he thinks Steve is the best playoff adjuster
coach in NBA history. I mean, he's biased, obviously.
Speaker 3 (39:23):
But it's is right. I think he's right.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
And I think the like even the giving kaminga two DMPs,
like he's going to play in a Rocket series. He's
not getting DMPs every game, and he but he's had
two straight DMPs and he is just so willing and
has the team so bought in culturally that he to
trust his moves. It's a really impressive sort of ecosystem
they've created. I mean, I'm sure part of that is
(39:48):
Stephen dre is sort of buying it as well, but
he's he really is able to make whatever movie he
thinks is right. And I feel like a lot of
coaches will just stick to what their their thing more
than what actually might be the best thing to win
to win.
Speaker 2 (40:00):
So you're saying that the Warriors locker room does not
agree with Jim Park.
Speaker 3 (40:04):
With perspective, Jim Park, Jim Park.
Speaker 2 (40:09):
I will to spend a few more minutes on the
Rockets matchup the I think I think you're right. I
think they're gonna run drop with their man looks with Shangun.
I think part of the reason why Udoka feels very
good about that is the Amen Thompson problem, which is
that he's just very gifted at staying attached over the
(40:29):
top of screens. Because in theory, if you can stay
attached over the top of a screen against a non shooter,
so against pick and pop, you're conceding open threes on
the kickback, but against a Looney, against a Draymond, against
a screener, that's not going to be a like a
really deadly shooting threat. As long as you can stay
attached over the top, it doesn't really matter how bad
(40:50):
the drop coverage big is, because you're not going to
get any separation in the mid range. He's going to
funnel you right into the size at the rim where
it gets tricky is for Golden State if they can
set really good screens. So like how the game, how
the series is officiated in terms of the types of
screens that Draymond and Luonie are allowed to set is
(41:11):
going to be important. And then the second piece of
it is the zone looks. So I think we can
all agree. One of the issues that's kind of popped
up for the Warriors over the course of the last
couple of weeks has been shooting.
Speaker 3 (41:24):
It's just been inconsistent.
Speaker 2 (41:26):
It's like one game against the Lakers, everybody makes every
damn three, and then for a week later, for a
week after that, no one can make anything. There's a
certain amount of inconsistency in the shooting of this roster
that makes them a little susceptible to zone looks. The
Rockets are going to run a ton of zone especially
with Steven Adams on the floor. They've been running variations
(41:48):
of it with Jalen or with Jabari Smith as they're
under the rim guy where he kind of like comes
up out of the out of the paint a little
bit more, and then they'll run versions of it where
Steven Adams just sits underneath the back, but they're gonna
have to beat that with high level playmaking sequences or.
Speaker 3 (42:05):
With jump shooting.
Speaker 2 (42:06):
And the when they faced off last week on Sunday,
they ran ten possessions I believe, of zone and only
scored six points on him. So that that's where it
could get a little tricky. Is like, it doesn't really
matter if you set monster screens and drop and cause
all these issues if you can't shoot the Rockets out
of their zone. And so I think there's a This
is an interesting series. There's a lot of really fun
(42:26):
subplots within this series that get like what if Dylan
Brooks shoots fifty percent from three? You know, Like like
like Jalen Green is a weird wild card in the
sense that he is a guy that takes like eight
nine crazy difficult pull up jump shots a game, and
like he'll have games where he has thirty seven and
you lose. I've been on the other side of that
in a game the Lakers lost in Houston earlier this year.
(42:49):
Like there's a there's a lot of of of wild
cards here. The Rockets are not a two seed by accident.
They're a damn good team, but the Warriors are smarter.
The Warrior are more skilled. The Warriors are more experienced.
As long as they can hold onto the rope and
win the execution battle, I think they have a really
good chance to win that series.
Speaker 3 (43:08):
We got anything else to night or is that it?
I think let's call it there, all right, guys, as.
Speaker 2 (43:11):
Always been sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting us and
supporting the show. Tomorrow we're going to have our breakdowns
of the two series out in the Western Conference, the
Nuggets Clippers and the Lakers Timberwolves. Then Thursday we're also
going to have the two seven breakdowns. I also am
going to do a brief video, short video like ten
to fifteen minute video that just goes over my contender
rankings because we didn't get a chance to do that.
(43:31):
I was trying to get Sam Vasini on the show.
We had something worked out, but he's actually in the
States right now doing a bunch of he's like super
connected in the league and doing a bunch of stuff
where he's been unavailable. So not going to be able
to do the Sam Vassini Contender rankings this year. So
I'll just do a shorter version of it for the
channel and then right around the corner from the playoffs.
Can't wait. It's been a blast. It's going to be
(43:51):
a crazy two months. I appreciate you guys for supporting us.
We will see you tomorrow.
Speaker 3 (43:55):
What's up guys.
Speaker 2 (43:56):
As always, I appreciate you for listening to and supporting
OOPS tonight. It would actually be really helpful for us
if you guys would take a second and leave a
rating and a review.
Speaker 3 (44:05):
As always, I appreciate you guys.
Speaker 2 (44:06):
Supporting us, but if you could take a minute to
do that, I'd really appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (44:11):
The volume
The volume.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
The NBA eighty two game grind is done, and now
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Speaker 3 (00:14):
I can't wait.
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Speaker 3 (01:45):
Slash audio.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
All right, welcome to Hoops tonight. You're at the volume
heavy two to everybody hopefull. You guys are having a
great week. We've officially made it to postseason basketball. We've
lived up to the expectations. The play in games have
been pretty highly entertaining over the course of the last
few years, and the Grizzlies and the Warriors gave us
another great one tonight as the Warriors escape down the stretch,
(02:19):
a crazy run from the Memphis Grizzlies, a couple of terrible.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
Calls that went against them late.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
I want to talk a little bit about that off
the top and just why avoiding the play in is
so important. We're gonna spend the later portion of the
show talking a little bit about the Houston series, and then,
like we always do on these lives, we're gonna do
about ten to fifteen minutes of mail bag questions from
the chat. So if you want to get questions in,
just make sure you're subscribe to the channel, drop your
questions in the chat. Jackson's gonna hop on with us
(02:46):
and we'll go through some questions for ten fifteen minutes.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
You guys know the job before we get started. Subscribe
to the.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
Hoops and I YouTube channel so you don't miss any
more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore Jconlts.
You guys don't miss announcement. So forget about a podcast
for you wherever get your podcasts under Hoops Tonight it's
also super helpful be leaveing in a review on that front.
We have brand new social media feeds on Twitter, Instagram,
and Facebook. We're releasing content throughout the remainder or moving
forward to Jackson's doing some incredible work there. Make sure
you guys follow us there, and then every week we
(03:10):
do a mailback, So drop your mailbag questions in YouTube
comment so that we can get to them throughout the
remainder of the season.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
All right, let's talk some basketball. So I have a
great deal.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Of familiarity with the play in game. I have rooted
for my Lakers team through three of them already, and
they've all been just like this, guys, there's no like, oh,
we're gonna just beat Memphis and go into the two seven.
It's like, no, we survived. Remember the three Rims game
after Lebron hit the game winner over Steph the one
(03:41):
was it four years ago?
Speaker 3 (03:42):
Now? The Wolves game.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
We had that huge three that Dennis Schroeder hits, and
then all of a sudden, Anthony Davis is fouling a
shooter in the corner and we're going to overtime and
we're just like barely surviving the Timberwolves.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
The inn last year.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
It's like, the Lakers beat the shit out of the
Pelican on that Sunday game, and you're like, Oh, we're
gonna be good when we go there to play them
again on Tuesday, and it's like, No, all of a sudden,
z Ion is just playing the greatest game he's ever
played and just knifing through Lebron and ad like butter
And if it wasn't for a hamstring injury, that game
probably would have come down to the final handful of possessions.
(04:19):
That's just what the play in game is like. And
that is why the Warriors wanted so badly to win
that game on Sunday. There was an easy silver lining
to point to to be like, oh, well, would you
rather play your next four weeks of this super high
leverage basketball against the Lakers in the first round and
then most likely the Clippers in the second round, or
(04:40):
would you rather face the Rockets in the first round
and then the Lakers in the second round. I think
we all would agree. I think most people that I
speak to would agree that the Clippers are a better team,
a more dangerous team than the Rockets. And so yeah,
you can kind of draw that out. But Ultimately, if
you can avoid that game, if you can avoid what
you just went through tonight, I could have gone the
(05:01):
other way just on a couple plays here and there, right,
And that's why the Warriors wanted to win that game
on Sunday so bad. That's why you want to avoid
that situation. I talk all the time when you ended,
when you end up in a close gain, there is
always the possibility that a bad call could go against you,
and tonight it happened twice down the stretch for the Warriors,
(05:23):
and they managed to overcome it. But like, that's exactly
why that situation is so stressful, and that's why every
game matters over the course of the regular season as
you try to dig yourself out of that specific situation.
But I want to talk a little bit about Jimmy Butler,
and so we are changing our Microsoft segment. We've been
doing it based on overcoming adversity over the course of
the last couple of months, but we're focusing it more
(05:45):
on the player of the week now and we're going
to focus that on Jimmy. Welcome to Course Correction brought
to you by Microsoft. Just like star players and teams
navigating performance hurtles. Business decision makers today are under immense
pressure to get things right. They must rise to the aka,
turning challenges into opportunities. Microsoft empowers these visionaries with AI solutions,
simplified cloud and data management, and trustworthy responsible AI. When
(06:09):
you're in the NBA, you have your own hurdles to face.
In this segment, we will highlight the player of the
week that has risen to the occasion when his team
needed him. Whatever challenge you're facing, Microsoft empowers you with
the expertise to say bring it on. This week, we're
discussing Jimmy Butler in his massive night to help the
Warriors escape the plan. I talked after the Clippers game
(06:30):
about how there were some silver linings obviously right, and
one of the biggest ones there was, you know, Steph
looks amazing, but also Jimmy, who had not really done
a lot of volume scoring for the Warriors over the
course of the stretch post deadline. It was a lot
of like just connective, additive stuff, stuff that wasn't necessarily
(06:51):
going to show up in the box score, but that
was clearly helping the team on both ends of the floor.
But the championship ceiling that this team has if there's
one there, and we're going to talk a little bit
about that after we get done with this game. But
with if that championship ceiling is there, it depends on
Jimmy also being a volume scorer. And after he was
a very effective volume scorer in that Clippers game, did
(07:14):
it again tonight. Thirty eight points, seven rebounds, six assists,
led a dominant stretch early in the game to explode
the lead. While Steph Curry was off the floor. He
got to the free throw line eighteen times. Just was
awesome in this game. I want to zoom in specifically
on Jimmy's ability to get to the foul line for
(07:35):
a second. I've talked a lot about this, and I
always have to like kind of like split these two
concepts because my attitude towards them is very different. Like
foul grifting as a league wide problem not something I love.
I would like it if the game of basketball was
primarily rewarding players for making basketball plays. But as long
(07:56):
as it's allowed, grifting is a very important skill element. Now,
just like any skill, you can lean on it too much.
There are passers that lean on their playmaking too much
and don't look enough to be aggressive as scores. There
are big power players, think like a Pala Bancaro or
Joe El Embiid, that sometimes will rely on their jump
(08:16):
shot too much when they have gifts that will take
them downhill towards the rim. Embiid Enharden over the years
relied too much on their foul grifting at the expense
of their ability to weaponize their other skills. But foul
grifting is a very important skill to generate offense in
this league. Jimmy Butler does it, in my opinion, in
(08:38):
a more esthetically appealing way because it's less of like
some of the really janky stuff. And what he'll do
is he'll just take like little bizarre angles towards the basket,
where like instead of driving at an angle to where
he can more easily get a shot off, he'll drive
at an angle that is more aggressive towards the rim
(08:59):
defender and actually just designed to get a foul. He'll
take off at a weird spot, like he'll take off
a little bit earlier, he'll take off a little bit late.
He'll tweak his angles and tweak his takeoffs to get
guys to just jumping land on top of his shoulders.
It's a very impressive gift that he has to get
defenders out of position and to get to the foul line.
(09:21):
And this was a Warriors team free All Star break
that was twenty third in the NBA in free throw
attempts per game. And Jimmy has just added this entire
other element to this offense. And you don't win that
game tonight if Jimmy Butler doesn't bring that element. It
came as part of a super versatile attack and on
(09:41):
both ends of the floor. He was excellent on defense
in this game, tied up Zach Edy a bunch of
times underneath the basket. On offense, not just the grifting
to getting to the basket consistently as a cutter and
as a slasher. He was attacking Santi al Dama and
Zach Geedy all over the floor doing a ton of damage.
Incredible night from Jimmy Butler when his team desperately needed him.
(10:03):
Thirty eight seven and six like playoff Jimmy has been
around with like the Warriors have actually played about five
straight like true must win games here to end the season.
But that one and the one on Sunday are your
too true. Like that result directly swings where you're at
in the playoffs, and Jimmy's just been fantastic in both games,
(10:25):
and I think that bodes really well for the Warriors
in the big picture.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
That is it for this week's course correction.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
Remember Microsoft's AI solutions empower you to take bold steps
into make informed decisions, sparking new ideas to help drive
your business forward. With Microsoft is your trusted partner, you
can navigate your journey with confidence, finding innovative solutions, and
reaching new possibilities. Visit Microsoft dot com slash challengers to
learn more. I want to talk about Steph for a
(10:51):
little bit here. I was really impressed by the way
that he just showed some resilience with the way he
dealt with memphisis physicality, just like everyone's been doing to
Steph for fifteen years now, ten years now, twelve years now.
Just was grabbing and holding him off the ball every
single time that he's trying to get open on screening
actions and stuff. And this has been the game plan
(11:13):
against Steph forever. It's a very good game plan to
use when you get in the postseason because basically every
star when you get into the postseason is playing basketball.
With a defender that has two hands on him. It's
just super super physical, whether it's on the ball or
it's off the ball. And one of the things that
Steph did late in the game that I thought was
really smart is he started to use that physicality to
(11:33):
his advantage. Hit two big threes down the stretch, and
the first one was a play with John Conchard with
about six minutes left, where he was kind of setting
John Conchard up right around the elbow for him to
come off of a screening action. I think with Looney
if I remember correctly, along the left wing, and if
you watch, Steph like kind of sat there and set
his man up and did a textbook set your man
(11:55):
up for a screen and kind of push off kind
of thing, just walked into Conchar's chest and then just
gave him a little shove as he took off. And
that's the thing. These games are super physical. They are bloodbats.
This is a contact sport were the defense is going
to be allowed to do a lot of shit to you,
but you're also going to be allowed to do a
lot of shit to the defense. And I thought it
(12:16):
was awesome that instead of succumbing to the physicality Steph
brought the physicality at the tail end of the game.
It was just a little tighter on his screening actions,
a little more physical on his off ball defender, shoving off,
getting that separation and getting some clean looks for himself.
And then the last one was just that classic corner
drop off action hit Draymond right as Steph is sprinting
(12:37):
off of that cut off of the left wing to
the left corner. Two clean looks, and then adds in
just for fun, a classic Steph flair, that triple pump
fake move that he uses on Scottie Pippen Junior to
hit the shot. I think he finished with thirty seven
tonight on a night where it looked like he didn't
have it early in the game, and that just goes
to show you, like these it's a marathon, not a sprint.
Speaker 3 (12:59):
That was a long game.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
It looked like Memphis was dead in the water two
separate times, and they battled back. It looked like Steph
didn't have it going early in the game. But you
just keep going, You just keep plugging away, you keep
trying to find your advantages, you keep trying to solve
the puzzle, and it's just about breaking through, and you
could tell there was a good amount of relief from
Steph when he ran down the floor after that triple
(13:20):
pump fake sequence, because he felt like he had solved
the puzzle in that particular game. Now, the Warriors put
themselves into a tricky position by committing a couple of
silly fouls down the stretch and gifting the Grizzlies with
some free points and some sloppy turnovers, and they just
ended up in a situation where it was a little
closer than it needed to be. But when push come
to shove and it came time to solve the puzzle,
(13:43):
the Warriors were able to solve the puzzle. I was
very impressed overall with Golden State's defense during the early
portion of the game. I thought they lost control of
it a little bit. It's always hard to like restart
the motor after you let it shut off, and I
think that they fell victim to that a little bit.
But early in the game, I was really with the
Warriors just physicality. Ball pressure forced a lot of turnovers.
(14:05):
Grizzlies really lost control of the transition game early as
they just succumb to the ball pressure, rushed made some
sloppy errors passing out of those traps, passing out of
that ball pressure, and they gave up a bunch of
fast break opportunities the other way. The Warriors finished with
twenty seven points off of memphis twenty turnovers in this
(14:26):
game and in general too. Just that speeding up of
the perimeter players has a lot to do with the
Warrior's ability to cover ground on the perimeter. I was
prepping this morning for the Clippers Nuggets series. I recorded
the previews for Denver LA and for La Minnesota this morning.
They are both coming out tomorrow, so you guys will
(14:47):
get full series previews on those two tomorrow. Series previews
for both of the two seven matchups. I'm recording those tomorrow.
They'll be going up on Thursday, as we released them
throughout the week. But as I was prepping for that
Clippers Nuggets series, I was digging into some statistics involving
the defenses in how many wide open threes they allow
(15:07):
or unguarded threes as they call them on Synergy, and
Denver predictably was bottom five in allowing unguarded threes. As
I've just been talking a lot about their pick and
roll defense and how they've really struggled with at the
level coverage and giving up those two on ones on
the weak side, and how they just end in open
threes all the time. Well, guess who has the second
best defense at not allowing those unguarded catch and shoot threes.
(15:33):
The Golden State Warriors. And you know one of the
you know we always debate like the concept of like
eye test versus digging into these like catch all metrics
and how do you properly evaluate a player. Well, sometimes
there's both. Sometimes you have a clear thing that shows
up when you're watching the film, and then the numbers
also clearly demonstrated. I have talked all year about how
(15:54):
the Warriors have been the most impressive closeout team that
I've watched, and their ability to get out the perimeter
from having a foot in the paint, to chase a
defender off the three point line or to make him
rush his release and to cause that to be a
lower quality attempt. And that is just on display in
these early games from Golden State. Here at this point
(16:15):
in the postseason, they are flying around. They look really
really good on defense. As a Laker fan, I'm thankful
that we won't have to see those guys until an
extra round against Houston. So let's talk about Houston for
a minute. This is a kind of an interesting matchup.
If you would have asked me after the Laker game
(16:36):
if Golden State would dispatch if Houston relatively quickly, I
would have said yes. I would have said they would
have gotten rid of them. This is the fifth consecutive,
like really important game that the Warriors played where they
looked a little shaky. They came out of the Laker
game and went into that Rockets game and Jimmy and
Steff both struggled. They lose, and then they goed into
(16:57):
the Spurs game and they play well enough to win,
but then they make execution mistakes down the end and
they lose. And then they go to Portland and they win.
But then they have this home game against the Clippers
and they lose. And then they have this game against
Memphis at home and they're trailing in the fourth quarter,
and it just they just lacked some of that like
oomph that they had in.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
The week before.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
And so now I'm kind of having a hard time
getting a read on this team because I feel like
reality is probably somewhere in the middle right like They're
probably not the team that won every damn game after
they got Jimmy, but they're also probably not the team
that has struggled mightily over the course of the last
week and a half. I think the kind of consistent
thing I've seen is that Steph and Jimmy have been
(17:37):
able to leverage their gifts in these last two games
against these really higher quality opponents to be effective. But
the rest of the roster has been really inconsistent, and
that is a trend that scares me a little bit
as the Warriors head into the postseason. Houston is a
very difficult matchup for Golden State, just in terms of
the types of athletes that they have. Of grabbing and
(18:00):
holding his staph tonight, It's gonna be a lot more
of that over the course of the next two weeks,
except for it's gonna be bigger and better athletes. It's
not gonna be Scottie Pippen Jr. It's gonna be Dylan Brooks.
It's gonna be a Men Thompson, it's gonna be Tari Eason.
It's gonna be big, strong, super athlete every single possession
(18:21):
for that entire series. And you know from the dynamic
that took place out of the game last Sunday that
emy Udoka views it as a weakness for this team.
He've used it as like we get physical, they start crying.
That's the way he views it. And so you know
that he's preaching that if you don't think im Udoka
has been saying over and over and over again to
(18:42):
his guys, this team doesn't want to play physical basketball,
we can beat them up. I guarantee you that's what
he's been saying. I guarantee you. If the team had
a watch party tonight, he was pointing to him and saying,
look at this. We can do a better version of
this when we face them in that series. And so again,
I think that's going to be really the big swing
(19:02):
in the series is Steph specifically how he handles that physicality.
Doesn't take a lot of critical thinking to say that
he needs to be better than he was last week
on Sunday, right, Like, he can't average three points a
game against Houston, that's not going to work. STEP's going
to have to be more effective than that. But I'm
(19:22):
actually going to point a little bit towards Jimmy Butler
and a role that Jonathan Kaminga could have in a
series like this. In that type of series, you need
your athletes. As you saw tonight, Jimmy just has this
ability to leverage his size and strength to be successful
in that environment. I talk about this all the time
(19:44):
with Kawhi, with Lebron, with Luca, with Jimmy Butler. When
you get into an environment where physicality is rewarded, the bigger,
stronger athletes tend to go up a level, and Jimmy
Butler is just such a great asset to have in
that setting. But when you're going against Houston, you're going
to have some physical advantages in the form of being
(20:05):
able to get Jimmy the ball through screening action with Steph,
either advantage as they put two on Steph, or switches
where Jimmy can go at a Fred van Vliet where
Jimmy could go at even like an Amen Thompson. Jimmy
has a strength advantage there, and so weaponizing that throughout
the series is going to be huge. And this is
why I think Jonathan Kaminga is going to be a
(20:25):
player that Steve Kerr is going to have to give
a little bit more opportunity to. As we head into
that series. Jonathan Kaminga is an APEX athlete. Among APEX athletes,
he is one of the few guys that is going
to see the APEX Houston athletes in front of him
and be like, I can still go around and over
the top of these guys.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
He's going to be a.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
Guy that's going to be able to generate advantages in
that environment. And so I do think it'll be a
series where they have to lean more on Jonathan Kaminga
and Jimmy Butler. The other side of the ball, though,
is where the series is going to be one. If
the Warriors can take care of the ball and they
can stay out of transition, they can trap Houston in
the half court. If we see the defense we saw
(21:06):
in the first half tonight and for stretches against the
Clippers on Sunday, if we see that defense engaged in
the half court against Houston, they should be able to
shut them down. And again, when it comes down to
series picks, I always say the same thing, which team
do I feel like can make each other's units more uncomfortable?
(21:27):
Is the Warrior defense more capable of making the Rockets
offense uncomfortable than the Rockets defense can make the Warriors
offense uncomfortable. That is a dynamic because I think this
Warriors defense is truly special. I think they are capable
of doing more damage to Houston's offense. And so I'll
be picking the Warriors to win that series. But it's
(21:50):
gonna be a pain in the ass. It's gonna be
two really tough weeks. It's gonna be a lot of
physicality on Steph. You saw Steff get a little banged
up tonight. He's grabbing at his tailbone, he's grabbing at
his thumb. It's gonna be that kind of series. And
so execution, avoiding the late game mistakes from tonight, avoiding
the late game mistakes from the San Antonio game, making
sure that you deal with this team quickly is going
(22:13):
to be important because if you get rid of them
in five games, that's where you could buy yourself four
to five days off and give yourself a much better
chance to be physically prepared for a series against the
Lakers or against the Timberwolves. This is a series that
if you let a drag and it goes to six games,
it goes to seven games, that's where it could end
up being a series that wears the Warriors down in
(22:35):
a way that the progressive fatigue just gets too much
to handle over the course of a four series playoff.
Front gonna be an interesting series, though Again, as I said,
I'm going to be working on that preview tomorrow.
Speaker 3 (22:47):
It'll be up during the day on Thursday.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
Before we get to our chat mailbag, just brief thoughts
on Memphis. I thought their defensive front court, which I've
talked a lot about over the course the last couple weeks,
just zach Edy and Zante al Dama, the two of
them just can't guard. They can't guard in space. Zachidy
looked lost in like seventeen different ways tonight. He looked
lost defending on the perimeter. He struggled on the glass
(23:11):
a few times. Every time he caught anything around the basket,
he was getting stripped down low like big Man one
oh one, stuff like don't hold the ball down by
your waist in front of you, like every smaller player
is just gonna go grab it. Just they're in a
situation where they just don't have the pieces necessary in
the front court to be a good defense, and so
it already is an uphill climb for John Moran, and
(23:33):
Desmond Bay and they had a little nice run there
in the second half, but they weren't able to keep
up with Jimmy and Steph and when you factor in
the weakness of that defensive front court, it was just
too much for them to overcome it and get anything
out of Jaron Jackson in this game. I think it's
really important for Memphis to have some serious conversations after
this season about their core foundation as of the roster
(23:56):
and what types of players they're building around, because right now,
it's like Moranton Bain is a good backcourt, but how
is Moranton Bain ranking among back courts in the NBA?
It's is it top is it top seven? Is the
top eight? I mean, we can dig into that this summer,
but that's not a very that's not exactly an elite
defensive backcourt. And then you go on that on the
(24:18):
wing position, you've never been the same since you've lost
Dylan Brooks. Yeah, Jalen Wells had his moments this year,
but he's just not the same type of imposing athlete.
Jared Jackson can't defend a rebound well enough at the
five to be a five, so you have to play
him at the four, which means you have to end
up playing him alongside this other front court player, and
that other front court player they have to play him
alongside just isn't good enough right now. And so I
(24:39):
think the Grizzlies have to have some really tough conversations
with themselves this summer about the way their roster is constructed.
All right, let's get Jackson out here. Let's take about
ten fifteen minutes of questions, and then we will be
done for the night.
Speaker 1 (24:53):
Let's do it. We are going to start with a
zach Ny question. What was the idea with putting Zach
Edy on Butler for the majority of the game. I
understand Darren Butler to shoot, but Jimmy got whatever he
wanted off the bounce.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
Anyways, I thought he did a better job in the
second half of staying out of foul trouble and being
more anticipatory of like his angles. It's a really tough
spot to put Zach Edy in for one game. Over
the course of a series. It's something that might have
been a little bit more achievable as Zach just got
better at anticipating in the types of moves that Jimmy
would make. But It's just a really tough spot, especially
(25:28):
with the type of grifter that Jimmy is. You know,
you do that against a guy that's more of just
a straight power player. Zach can just kind of anticipate,
beat him to spots, force him to shoot over the top.
But Jimmy's one of those guys where it's like, as
soon as Zach just gets a little bit squirrely with
his footwork and gets out of position one way or
the other, Jimmy's just taken a weird driving angle and
(25:48):
drawing a foul on him. But I think the idea
was probably mostly geared around baiting or praying on Jimmy's
unwillingness to take jump shots. I think they thought if
Zach edy was on him and he was playing off,
maybe he would just be willing to pass instead of
just taking the easy jumpers that he was given in
But I thought even Jimmy hit enough jumpers to kind
of keep them honest in that regard. He hit a
(26:08):
little jab step three in the first half. I thought
that little baseline step back he hit and crutch time
was super important too.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
Yeah, I agree, and I mean I think the Grizzlies
are just to your point about their front core defense.
They're in a tough spot regardless, Like what's what are
you supposed to do? Exact like the Warriors? You're not
There's yeah, we got to be good options against I
mean against some some teams he can survive. But against
the team like the Warriors with that many with that
much motion, of that many high a Q players, I
mean your cooked either way. All right, next one we got.
(26:38):
We've got enough fair amount of COMMINGA questions. So I
know we talked about him a little bit already, but
let's follow up here. Uh hey, Jason loved the show.
Why is Steve Kurs sticking with Moses Moody in the
starting lineup when he's a massive three point slop of
the past ten to fifteen games. Why not play Kaminga
in that spot? And I think we can sort of
just expand it too. I mean you already touched on
him having a role in this Rocket series. But another
(26:59):
question we got was about what it will be challenging
for Kaminga to reintegrate himself back into the rotation after
he's got a couple of DMPs. It's it is a
weird spot I think for Kaminga and the team in general.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
So I think it's a little more complicated because Moody
hasn't been shooting the ball as well, although he did
end up hitting a three tonight, a three where it
looked like he got fouled on it too. The idea
there is like, let's let's get back to like the
core concept because even beyond the starting lineup, it's going
(27:30):
back to the press conference where Steve Kerr was it
was it after the I think it was after the
Blazers game, might have been after the Spurs game, but
he basically said, like the Kaminga, Jimmy Butler, Jerrymunt Green
lineups just can't play. And I think it's a couple
of different things. One the role on defense that you
want Cominga to play as this like on ball defender.
Speaker 3 (27:51):
I think he's probably a little more.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
Imposing than Moody for certain types of matchups, but Moody
is also a little better in other types of matchups,
and I would argue that Moody is a little steadier
as an on ball defender. So now as we look
on the offensive end of the floor, within the context
of Jimmy Draymond is Steph being on the floor, Kaminga
is going to be operating either as a corner spot
(28:16):
up player or as a read and react player in
the middle of the floor. Is he as good as
a read and react player in the middle of the
floor as Moses Moody. No, he's actually one of the
worst players on the team in that specific role. And
is he as good as as Moses Moody as like
just a knockdown corner three point shooter, even though Moody's
going through a cold spell. I would argue Diminga is
(28:37):
equally as flaky in that type of role. And so honestly,
within the context of the starting unit or within the
context of Jimmy and Draymond being on the floor, Kaminga's
just not good at the types of things they need
with that type of group, right, And I do believe
that you're going to need him, especially in the Houston series,
(28:57):
in different types of lineups. So like put him out
there in a lineup with like Quinton Post, with Jimmy
and Jonathan Kaminga and have him like kind of like
you know how, like the Jimmy group was super successful
in that like late first quarter, early second tonight but
then kind of lost steam in the late third early
(29:18):
fourth tonight. That's where it's like, Okay, Jimmy had it
going in the first shift there, didn't have it going
in that second half shift. Having the ability to go
to another like real downhill threat that can generate some
offense but has some spacing because Quinton Post is like
a legit knockdown guy. Like that's the difference. The difference
between Quinton Post and a traditional spacing five is like
(29:40):
if it's a traditional spacing five, if it's Nikolavusovitch, for instance,
you're like, let's see him make a couple before we
even do anything. Quinn Post is like a legit awesome shooter,
Like if you leave him open, you're gonna get burnt.
Zachi ed he lost him twice in transition early in
this game, and he just nailed both of them. You
can't give Quinton Post open looks. He will the spacing
enough to where Jonathan Kaminga has some more driving lanes
(30:03):
when Draymond's out there, when Jimmy's out there, when Kaminga
is out there, there's just a lot of ability to
pack the paint, not enough IQ to actually pick it
apart appropriately, it's just not the right fit. And so
I don't think Frankly, to answer the question, I don't
think there's any case for Kaminga to start these games.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
Yeah, I agree, I do think to your point, it's
pretty that being said, it is pretty easy to think
about lineups where he can be successful, like a pods
kuminga Jimmy Post group with like Gary Payton your buddy, Like,
it's pretty easy to think about lineup where he can
be very successful and very important in a series like this.
And I'm so in agreement about Quintin Post. I mean,
(30:40):
I think he's been just so awesome and it's it's
gonna be really I think it's gonna be crucial in
this series for against the team that plays two bigs
a lot.
Speaker 3 (30:48):
Well really quickly for you.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
As the next question, the like to follow up your
point about putting lineups together too, like you need to
put lineups together that fit his style, so like put
him with play finishers like that, and then if you
want to have another player on the floor that's more
of a playmaking talent, it is Jimmy, but if you
have him out there with play finishers.
Speaker 3 (31:05):
So let's say it is. Let's say it's you know
healed or it's you know healed and.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
Post and let's say like like maybe like a like
a Gee Santos, I don't know, like another guy that
you feel like knock down, catch at two jump shots.
Change the style of the offense when he's out there
to cater to him, be like, Okay, here's the deal, Jonathan,
Like for the next three minutes here to start the
fourth quarter, We're gonna let you clear the side and
(31:33):
ISO and let's see what you can do and we
can we can play off of it. Like that's my thing,
is like, especially for the Houston series in particular, like
don't just play him and then play Warriors basketball and
have him pee down his leg again as he doesn't
know how to play Warriors basketball. Put him in a
situation where he can play Jonathan kaminga basketball. Jonathan's really
good I shouldn't say really good, but he's really capable
(31:54):
as like a face up.
Speaker 3 (31:55):
Player, as a post up player.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
When he has an advantage and when he has space
around him, you can put together lineups that put him
in that sort of situation.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
Percent I mean, any anytime you're getting Shanngoon or Steven
Adam switched on Jonathan Kumena. It should be give him
the ball and clear out like that is a that
is a dunk every time that happened. So it's not
like he can't be useful in this series. All right,
next question, This is a super Chat question, So thank
you guys for the super Chat questions. Do you think
teams are more injury prone this season? And if so,
(32:24):
do you think that's a matter of less practicing around
the league. I've heard a lot of former NBA players
weigh in on this sort of lack of practice time issue.
Speaker 2 (32:31):
So I have a really hard time having any sort
of strong opinion on this front because I think the
data is all wonky.
Speaker 3 (32:38):
One.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
I'm not super familiar with the data too. I think
the data is kind of impossible to account for just.
Speaker 3 (32:44):
How like.
Speaker 2 (32:46):
The way the eras have shifted kind of changes the data. So,
for example, like I think the medical staffs today are
having a lot more of these kinds of conversations. How's
your body feeling today? Well, I'm a little sore. Well
where are you sore?
Speaker 3 (33:04):
Well?
Speaker 2 (33:05):
Here, here and here? Well, okay, tell me about this one.
You've actually mentioned this one, like three days in a row.
What's the deal with this one? Yeah, it's just been
kind of sore. Okay, you're not playing tonight. I think
there's been a lot more of that kind of stuff,
where like the barrier to entry for like getting onto
the floor versus being sat for a game is just
different than it was all these years ago. And so
it's hard for me to say exactly in terms of
(33:26):
like what of those is a legitimate injury versus just
like a rest situation. And I think it probably has
a little bit to do in terms of the more
serious injuries, like the season ending type of stuff that
we've seen a tick up a little bit over the
last couple of years. I think it just has to
do with how spread out the game is, Like you
(33:46):
just have to cover so much more ground these days.
There's more possessions in a game. You're sprinting more in
transition in a game than you ever have been before.
You're covering ground in rotation more in a game than
you ever have before. There's just a lot of sprinting
folks and then coming to a complete stop as fast
as you possibly can, and then changing direction and going
the other way. Like all of you guys who play basketball. No,
(34:08):
you do that a few times, your feet start to hurt.
Now imagine doing it for an eighty two game regular season.
You can imagine how you might start breaking down.
Speaker 1 (34:15):
Yeah, absolutely, all right. What this is a fun question.
What series or potential future series, let's say, excluding the
first round series, in a second or third round series,
what are the series that you'd be most excited for
to watch.
Speaker 3 (34:26):
As a fan? Lakers Warriors would be incredible. I think that.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
I've been torn on the OKC versus potentially Denver versus
potentially the Clippers.
Speaker 3 (34:41):
I Jokic did beat Okac.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
On the road like a month ago, but it was
a game where Jadep got hurt, but they beat him
I think twice this year, and Jokic just looked really
good in that matchup, So part of me wants to
say Denver, But then the Clippers have just looked like
a really imposing team, and I think Kawhi would do
a lot of damage attacking Smalls in that series. I'm
gonna go with I'm gonna go with Clippers Thunder on
(35:07):
the other side of the bracket out East, I.
Speaker 3 (35:10):
Would love I would love to see.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
Nick Celtics in a series, just because I think that
that could get pretty interesting, and I don't think the
Pistons have the Jews for a series like that, even
though I think the Pistons have the ability to potentially
upset the Knicks, and then I would I'm rooting for Yiannis.
I don't know if you guys have been watching Yannis
as of late, but like, Giannis is fucking crushing it, man,
and like legitimately taking a leap as a playmaker before
(35:39):
our eyes, and there's like a there's a legitimate basketball
case to make right now that the Bucks are better
just giving the ball to Yannis than running the offense
they've been running with Dame, which is just how insanely
good Yiannis has been. So I would vote for Yannis
as a second round matchup against the Cavs as a
series that I would like to see.
Speaker 1 (35:58):
Yeah, I agree with all that, and I think all
after the first round, whatever happens with the Thunder is
going to be fascinating because they're just so polarizing. It's
like you're not giving them enough credit. They're this historic team,
historic defense. You don't believe in the Thunder or like
or or the opposite, right, And the narratives are going
to play it in real time, whether they beat the
Clippers or beat the Nuggets or lose to them, whether
(36:20):
they end up getting to the conference finals. With the finals,
it's just the narratives around the thunder are just they're
just so fun.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
There's either gonna be some people taking some victory laps. Well,
there's going to be people taking victory laps on either
side of it. But the beautiful thing you mentioned it
it plays out in real time. That's the beautiful thing
about the NBA playoffs. Well, you could talk shit, I
could talk shit, I can make a pick.
Speaker 3 (36:39):
You can make a pick.
Speaker 2 (36:41):
I could say you guys are wrong in the comments.
You guys could tell me in the comments that I'm wrong.
It really doesn't matter. The games are gonna get played
and a team's gonna advance. And that's the beautiful thing
is this all just gets settled between the lines. That's
the beauty of basketball.
Speaker 1 (36:51):
Absolutely. All right, let's do one more. How do you
see the Steve Kerr and Ema Udoka matchup? What do
you think of their what do you think their strategies
will be and how can a team out coach another.
Speaker 2 (37:01):
So emy Udoka as a playoff coach, I looking back
at the series against the Warriors, I was critical of
him at the time for running as much drop coverage
as he did. His case for it was to keep
the Warriors out of their four on three type of
(37:23):
predicament that they can put you in. Essentially like if
you let the Warriors play the way they did at
the tail end of the twenty fifteen finals, where they're
just getting wide open the corner threes and dunks all
series long, you can lose. And there's some truth to that.
But the counter is is that when you run a
bunch of drop against Steph Curry, there's always the potential
that he could get flaming hot, and he did in
(37:44):
the one game where they could not afford for Steph
Curry to get flaming hot, which was in Game four,
and it beat them, And so I was like, that
was really my only exposure to emy Udoka As a
chess match coach. I think Steve Kerr is one of
the best chests match coaches in the league, as having
rooted against him in a playoff series many times, I
(38:06):
just think he's really good at picking up on the
trends of the series, identifying what's working and adjusting accordingly.
He'll bail on their emotion offense and lean on high
pick and roll for Steph if that's what the series
calls for. He is a very malleable coach when he
gets into the postseason. So my instinct is to say
that Steve Kerr has a tactical advantage and that he
may Udoka is mainly going to be an influence on
(38:28):
the series in terms of just trying to get the
Rockets to beat the shit out of the Warriors on
every single possession. But we just don't have a ton
of data points with emy Udoka as a tactician.
Speaker 3 (38:37):
If that makes sense, I was.
Speaker 1 (38:38):
Going to I have the exact same, exact sametake that
he may feels like a little a slightly more stubborn coach,
but we don't have the sample size. That being said,
it's so interesting that he has his personnel now. Also
is better in drop like, you're not switching with Steve,
You're not really switching with Steven Adams or Singhuin.
Speaker 3 (38:55):
I would assume they're.
Speaker 1 (38:56):
Not going to switch with those guys, and I would
assume he's not gonna blitz based on his path, his
past sort of history, So it'll be interesting to see.
It's not like his personnel is different from in the
front court in that sense. What kind of adjustments he
makes going against the team that he lost to in
the finals. What a different team obviously.
Speaker 3 (39:11):
A few years ago. And I think, and I've spoken with.
Speaker 1 (39:14):
With Draymond about this, how how much he loves Steve's
ability and he thinks Steve is the best playoff adjuster
coach in NBA history. I mean, he's biased, obviously.
Speaker 3 (39:23):
But it's is right. I think he's right.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
And I think the like even the giving kaminga two DMPs,
like he's going to play in a Rocket series. He's
not getting DMPs every game, and he but he's had
two straight DMPs and he is just so willing and
has the team so bought in culturally that he to
trust his moves. It's a really impressive sort of ecosystem
they've created. I mean, I'm sure part of that is
(39:48):
Stephen dre is sort of buying it as well, but
he's he really is able to make whatever movie he
thinks is right. And I feel like a lot of
coaches will just stick to what their their thing more
than what actually might be the best thing to win
to win.
Speaker 2 (40:00):
So you're saying that the Warriors locker room does not
agree with Jim Park.
Speaker 3 (40:04):
With perspective, Jim Park, Jim Park.
Speaker 2 (40:09):
I will to spend a few more minutes on the
Rockets matchup the I think I think you're right. I
think they're gonna run drop with their man looks with Shangun.
I think part of the reason why Udoka feels very
good about that is the Amen Thompson problem, which is
that he's just very gifted at staying attached over the
(40:29):
top of screens. Because in theory, if you can stay
attached over the top of a screen against a non shooter,
so against pick and pop, you're conceding open threes on
the kickback, but against a Looney, against a Draymond, against
a screener, that's not going to be a like a
really deadly shooting threat. As long as you can stay
attached over the top, it doesn't really matter how bad
(40:50):
the drop coverage big is, because you're not going to
get any separation in the mid range. He's going to
funnel you right into the size at the rim where
it gets tricky is for Golden State if they can
set really good screens. So like how the game, how
the series is officiated in terms of the types of
screens that Draymond and Luonie are allowed to set is
(41:11):
going to be important. And then the second piece of
it is the zone looks. So I think we can
all agree. One of the issues that's kind of popped
up for the Warriors over the course of the last
couple of weeks has been shooting.
Speaker 3 (41:24):
It's just been inconsistent.
Speaker 2 (41:26):
It's like one game against the Lakers, everybody makes every
damn three, and then for a week later, for a
week after that, no one can make anything. There's a
certain amount of inconsistency in the shooting of this roster
that makes them a little susceptible to zone looks. The
Rockets are going to run a ton of zone especially
with Steven Adams on the floor. They've been running variations
(41:48):
of it with Jalen or with Jabari Smith as they're
under the rim guy where he kind of like comes
up out of the out of the paint a little
bit more, and then they'll run versions of it where
Steven Adams just sits underneath the back, but they're gonna
have to beat that with high level playmaking sequences or.
Speaker 3 (42:05):
With jump shooting.
Speaker 2 (42:06):
And the when they faced off last week on Sunday,
they ran ten possessions I believe, of zone and only
scored six points on him. So that that's where it
could get a little tricky. Is like, it doesn't really
matter if you set monster screens and drop and cause
all these issues if you can't shoot the Rockets out
of their zone. And so I think there's a This
is an interesting series. There's a lot of really fun
(42:26):
subplots within this series that get like what if Dylan
Brooks shoots fifty percent from three? You know, Like like
like Jalen Green is a weird wild card in the
sense that he is a guy that takes like eight
nine crazy difficult pull up jump shots a game, and
like he'll have games where he has thirty seven and
you lose. I've been on the other side of that
in a game the Lakers lost in Houston earlier this year.
(42:49):
Like there's a there's a lot of of of wild
cards here. The Rockets are not a two seed by accident.
They're a damn good team, but the Warriors are smarter.
The Warrior are more skilled. The Warriors are more experienced.
As long as they can hold onto the rope and
win the execution battle, I think they have a really
good chance to win that series.
Speaker 3 (43:08):
We got anything else to night or is that it?
I think let's call it there, all right, guys, as.
Speaker 2 (43:11):
Always been sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting us and
supporting the show. Tomorrow we're going to have our breakdowns
of the two series out in the Western Conference, the
Nuggets Clippers and the Lakers Timberwolves. Then Thursday we're also
going to have the two seven breakdowns. I also am
going to do a brief video, short video like ten
to fifteen minute video that just goes over my contender
rankings because we didn't get a chance to do that.
(43:31):
I was trying to get Sam Vasini on the show.
We had something worked out, but he's actually in the
States right now doing a bunch of he's like super
connected in the league and doing a bunch of stuff
where he's been unavailable. So not going to be able
to do the Sam Vassini Contender rankings this year. So
I'll just do a shorter version of it for the
channel and then right around the corner from the playoffs.
Can't wait. It's been a blast. It's going to be
(43:51):
a crazy two months. I appreciate you guys for supporting us.
We will see you tomorrow.
Speaker 3 (43:55):
What's up guys.
Speaker 2 (43:56):
As always, I appreciate you for listening to and supporting
OOPS tonight. It would actually be really helpful for us
if you guys would take a second and leave a
rating and a review.
Speaker 3 (44:05):
As always, I appreciate you guys.
Speaker 2 (44:06):
Supporting us, but if you could take a minute to
do that, I'd really appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (44:11):
The volume
Host
Jason Timpf
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