76 Comments

From what I understand, the Warriors could sign Mo Wagner but he wouldn't be allowed to play in the playoffs?

Still, might not be a bad idea to get him on a couple 10 days, another big body in case Looney or Draymond can't go.

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OT but god I hate seeing Westbrook get visibly frustrated at his teammates when they mess up his "dimes". I'm sure his teammates gets frustrated at him when he goes 7-35 while they lose. Can't imagine having a guy like that on this team.

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It's not good to let his frustration leak out so visibly all the time, but I understand where he's coming from. He's creating a lot of VERY good looks, and his teammates are not cashing them in. After seeing last year's squad, especially Mr. Cauley-Stein, clank so many absolute gimmes, Dub Nation has to know the despair that comes with it. But yeah, Westbrook has only so much room to get upset when he's scoring so inefficiently himself.

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Teammates always say great things about him so I think we're just missing something

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Wow, Jaylen Brown was 17/20 (40 pts) from the field last night as the Celtics beat the Lakers.

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Go Bears!!!!

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Apr 16, 2021Liked by punk basketball

“This won’t end well” department...

1. Steph casually dribbling into traffic

2. Draymond thread-the-needle pass

3. Bazemore stop-and-pop pull-up jumper

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Man those Bazemore midranges aren't even straight enough to hit rim sometimes. The one he made at the end of the game was pretty amazing, it looked like it had less of a chance than all the other bricks he shot. His 3 is so much better than his midrange.

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I should add, the midrange he shot at the end that looked hopeless actually went in with a soft touch. Truly an agent of chaos.

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I’m guessing that’s from practicing 3’s more and from more specific spots just behind the arc, so he has more muscle memory, as opposed to mid-ranges which tend to be from more random spots.

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Speaking un-straight shots: was that attempted three by Okoro the worst shot in NBA history? Missed the cup by like 10 feet, long and wide left. He’d still have some work to do with the putter from there.

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I still remember the Blake Griffin side of the backboard 3 during the Mark Jackson years with young Baze on the bench

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That was hilarious! We had the funniest bench in the league those years

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author

Personally, I kinda dig Bazemore as an agent of chaos. You're right about the no-no-yes of his shot, but he's got that "head down and take it in" ethos that I've been missing since Barboda

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Bazemore is a clear asset to the Warriors, especially on a minimum contract. I'd be thrilled to have him back for another minimum next season. Ideally, if they re-tool the roster correctly, he'll be used as more of the finisher he is rather than the playmaking PG Mark Jackson incorrectly thought he was.

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Offensively, yeah. It's on the other end where the agent of chaos thing can go horribly wrong when evil Bazemore shows up

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Apr 16, 2021Liked by punk basketball

He does a lot of good defensively too. I'm honestly not as frustrated with Baze like a lot of you are. I take in the good more than the bad, I guess

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I'll be honest I've been hard on him. He's played well considering the current situation of a team doesn't require everyone to play like a savvy vet because we're not realistically competing for a championship + we're paying him scraps. I like him as a nuclear option aka the 11th-12th guy off the bench when the other rotational guys are struggling but I don't trust him as a regular

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but he's good for this team right now and we don't have any better options so we're riding with Bazemore until the sun sets (until this season is over)

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Apr 16, 2021Liked by punk basketball

I feel like Bazemore has perfect 1-to1 ratio of great vs boneheaded plays.

He gotta keep the balance I guess lol

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lmaoooooo

For real though, his defensive impact metrics are pretty damn nice! And Baze shows up in a lot of our best lineups FWIW

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Apr 16, 2021Liked by punk basketball

Well, Steph snapped his streak of shooting the lights out from three, but still racked up a ton of points AND he made the behind-the-back pass count. I got scared when they came out looking like the disjointed road Warriors who can't make threes (a team we've seen a bit too much of, this season), but JUAN TOSCANO-ANDERSON put the team on his back and kicked Cleveland's ass (with a little help from Kevon Looney and some other guys). Shout-out to Wiggins' stealthy six assists, too, Poole with a some healthy contributions, Draymond as usual playing lock-down defense, and Lee and Bazemore chipping in too.

This group (not coincidentally, including a bunch of guys who were on the team before this season and with more experience in general) really know how to play Warriors ball. Their defense in particular was really solid in the 2nd and 3rd quarters: guys made the right rotations, didn't get beat off the ball, applied pressure in a lot of the right places... definitely too many fouls in the 3rd but, eh, nobody's perfect. Hopefully they can keep up these good habits if/when EP and KO are back in the rotation, and they'll hold up against teams that are more offensively skilled than the Cavs.

I get the sense that, next season, Juanito, DLee, Poole, and Bazemore will be welcomed back with excitement, and I doubt anything crazy enough happens in the offseason for us to break up the core 3 or give up Maple Jordan either. JW coming back from injury will be an interesting one, and we'll have to see how long it takes Klay to get his wind back. My money's on Oubre is gone and the other guys will be scrapping for roster spots.

As for the rest of this season, the next two will be real tough, but maybe we can steal one. The only nice thing about this shortened season (aside from us fans not having to wait long to see the next game) is that a 10-day contract sure seems to buy you a couple more basketball games than usual, so we'll probably get a few more glances at GPII before it's done.

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Apr 16, 2021Liked by punk basketball

Here's the rest of the schedule

@Celtics

@Sixers

@Wizards

Nuggets

Kings

Mavs

@Wolves

@Rockets

@Pelicans

@Pelicans (B2B)

Thunder

Thunder

Jazz

Suns (B2B) (WHY CAN'T WE PLAY THE SUNS NOT ON A B2B!!!)

Pelicans

Grizzilies

If we only win the games we should, worst case we'd end up 0.500.

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Which is good why now?

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those are 7 VERY winnable games after the Kings/Mavs tossup, and a nice soft end pair of games as well.

TL; DR: WE GOIN STREAKING!

(later though, first, we gotta get through some tough ones)

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Apr 16, 2021Liked by punk basketball

Looking at the teams ahead of us in the standings: Dallas' upcoming schedule is the easiest in the league, with almost exclusively bottom-feeder teams left, and meanwhile Portland are looking at one of the hardest remaining schedules. Though, three of Portland's toughest (UTA, PHX, DEN) are the last games of the season, so it might be easier than it appears for them to hold 6th seed+. Memphis's remaining opponents are slightly easier than ours, but they have a lot of traveling to do still, starting with an absolutely brutal road trip: @CHI, @MIL(b2b), @DEN, @LAC, @PORx2, @DEN(b2b).

A probable scenario is we hope to squeeze into 8th seed and fly up to Portland for the upper play-in bracket, and if we get Dame Timed again then we host either MEM, SAS, or NOP for the right to face Utah in the 1st round. (Utah is highly likely to be the 1 seed, with a very easy schedule left. The #2 seed is more nebulous, but I'm thinking Clippers.) If we only need 1/2 instead of 2/2 that will be huuuuge for getting through, especially with how consistently inconsistent the team has been so far.

If we were somehow to climb all the way up to 7th that would be extra cool because (coronavirus permitting) we'd guarantee at least two high-stakes games with fans at Chase Center! (1 + actual playoffs if we win, 2 if we lose both play-ins.)

But that's wishful thinking, and we're going to probably have our hands full just maintaining enough consistency to battle Memphis for 8th and hold our place over San Antonio and New Orleans. The good news is, San Antonio's schedule is going to give them the business with 19 games remaining (we only have 16) and many of them real tough. New Orleans doesn't have it as bad and they're a couple games further back, but the three head-to-heads between us and them are going to weigh heavily in that placement.

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> Dallas' upcoming schedule is the easiest in the league, ....

Luka has been turning it on / regressing to the mean too. It's going to be real hard to catch them

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Apr 16, 2021Liked by punk basketball

Suns game is a makeup for the game we missed esrlier in the season when the Suns couldn’t field a roster due to COVID protocols.

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I thought the game at the end of the first half of the season was the makeup? That was also a b2b.

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Whoops you are correct!

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Yup, that was a road game that was made up as the last game before the all-star break. We've had 4 scheduled games against the Suns - all of them with us on the b2b and the Suns rested :(

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Ah makes sense. Just unfortunate that we can't play them without b2b. Hard to get a good guage

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11-5 because they will be working Oubre back in. 14-2 if it’s seamless and Oubre doesn’t impact Baze, Looney, Lee, or JTA’s minutes.

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Apr 16, 2021Liked by punk basketball

It was pretty funny when Nico got a steal right after getting subbed in, led a breakaway that looked like an exact reenactment of his embarrassing bobbled breakaway from a game ago, and then made the right pass to GPII only to watch him miss a dunk off of the rim so hard it might have hit the ceiling. Nico must have been relieved he made the pass at least.

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I missed the entire game so it was good to see the Dubs got a W and 4 wins in a row for the 1st time this season!!

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They started slow on the back to back and still took care of business.

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As long as they TCB. Reminds me of a BTO song from my high school days. Yes. I'm old. LOL

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Whenever I hear that song I think of that Jim Belushi movie where he does the beverly hills cop unofficial house sitting move between breaking out of and back into prison.

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So I’m a generation behind i think. Love the song though!

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Apr 16, 2021Liked by punk basketball

Contenders.

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Apr 16, 2021Liked by punk basketball

REAL TOUGH schedule to finish; last 16 games; hope our guys pull it off and Steph gets scoring title to boot. I took a peek ahead and saw Boston, Philadelphia, Denver, Utah, Phoenix, Pels twice on B2B, and, so forth. Pray for no injuries....

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Good, it’ll be a chance to hone their game against good competition for the playoff run.

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Yeah, my worry was getting too relaxed beating the non playoff teams right before playoffs. Want to see if we actually got any better

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Apr 16, 2021Liked by punk basketball

So, that was the last back-to-back for the Warriors until May and that’s a baseball series @NO. Only one other back-to-back at the end of the season.

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And it's a home b2b, right?

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Apr 16, 2021Liked by punk basketball

Yep. It’s a doozie though, Utah followed by Phoenix. They may be locked in and resting starters by then, hopefully.

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Notable stats:

Warriors:

Toscano-Anderson: (+21)

20 points 8/9 FGs 3/4 three pointers 1/2 FTs

7 rebounds (2 off.) 3 assists 1 turnover 1 steal 1 block

Wiggins: (+20)

23 points 9/16 FGs 5/8 three pointers

6 rebounds 6 assists 1 turnover

Looney: (+24)

8 points 4/7 FGs 0/1 three pointer

10 rebounds (4 off.) 2 assists 1 turnover

Poole: (+21)

14 points 5/12 FGs 2/8 three pointers 2/3 FTs

4 assists 3 steals

Curry: (+5)

33 points 12/25 FGs 4/13 three pointers 5/5 FTs

4 rebounds 5 assists 4 turnovers 2 blocks

Cavaliers:

Sexton: (-29)

30 points 10/19 FGs 3/5 three pointers 7/10 FTs

4 rebounds (2 off.) 2 assists

Allen: (-1)

17 points 6/7 FGs 5/6 FTs

14 rebounds (2 off.) 1 assist 5 turnovers 2 steals

Garland: (-2)

20 points 7/20 FGs 2/7 three pointers 4/5 FTs

4 rebounds (1 off.) 7 assists 1 turnover 1 steal

Okoro: (+3)

6 points 3/8 FGs 0/2 three pointers

1 rebound (1 off.) 2 assists 1 turnover 3 steals

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Final stats:

Warriors:

51.1% shooting (47/92 FGs)

17/46 three pointers

8/10 FTs

47 rebounds (9 off.)

33 assists

16 turnovers

9 steals

5 blocks

Cavaliers:

43.2% shooting (35/81 FGs)

10/31 three pointers

21/27 FTs

39 rebounds (8 off.)

21 assists

15 turnovers

11 steals

2 blocks

Points in paint:

Warriors: 56

Cavaliers: 44

Fastbreak points:

Warriors: 8

Cavaliers: 13

Points off turnovers:

Warriors: 22

Cavaliers: 21

Bench points:

Warriors: 45

Cavaliers: 23

https://derpicdn.net/img/2015/8/21/962504/medium.gif

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Probably killing Wiseman seeing the team dominate without him. It's lesser competition but still I'm sure that part doesn't matter to him.

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Meh, prolly more killing him that just when things were looking up for him he goes down for a long rehab.

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Apr 16, 2021Liked by punk basketball

Both can be true

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I mean to be fair, them dominating without him has kinda been the norm already

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True. Poor James has had a tough 1st year, but he's shown plenty of flashes. Hopefully, he gets well soon and starts getting in that work with KG. If he can make a jump next year, that will be very welcome.

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The problem with this injury is there's a chance he even misses training camp for a second year in a row... which would just be jaw droppingly bad timing.

But I agree, really hope James can come back strong and keep improving, and I have faith he will. The important question will be does he improve enough that they can give him big playing time without sabotaging Steph/Klay/Dray's careers.

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He’s trying to impact the game the wrong way though. Wiseman has been purely selfish in his offensive development this year instead of trying to make the team better.

The last thing the Warriors need is the offense running through Wiseman while Curry and Green are on the floor. X1000 when Klay is back.

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Apr 16, 2021Liked by punk basketball

So JTA gets the game ball - right?

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And hopefully a full contract next season!

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It’d cost luxury tax $ but it might be wise to lock JTA in for a few years now.

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He did from the Warriors broadcast crew. Seems like a no brainer, and well deserved.

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Apr 16, 2021Liked by Eric Apricot, punk basketball, Daniel Hardee

I just came here to say that THERE CAN NEVER BE ENOUGH JUANITO VIDEOS, Eric!

Also, four games in a row! I feel INVINCIBLE!

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