But we are 6 teams underneath that. It is still a lot of mileage to gain. Can they really play at the level Steph has created for the rest of the season? Not impossible, just improbable.
Scratch another contender off the Warriors' to-do list. Hot damn, they brought it tonight. Draymond and Looney were on another level defensively and Steph's 4th quarter was 💦💦💦! You wanna know how defensively-intense this game was? The 20-15 third quarter score with two of the most prolific scorers in the NBA should tell you something about that. In fact, the whole team did an amazing job on defense making the Sixers go through multiple guys to get even a decent shot up, spacing and funneling guys to where they knew their teammates were and contesting without fouling.
In the bad games the perimeter guys would funnel people to a spot where the backup defender (often Wiseman) couldn't get into proper position to defend, or even if they did the rotations elsewhere were too delayed and someone was getting an open 3 (or a hard closeout and free throws). This game (and vs Boston, too) the rest of the team was already in the right spot most of the time, so Philly couldn't find the advantage and ended up needing Embiid to take a tough one. And, I'm sure this is something that varies night to night, but based on how they did when we played them, Tatum looks way more unstoppable than Embiid.
I like Oubre coming off the bench right now. I'm still not happy with some of his tunnel vision inefficient shots, but his timing and length on cuts is starting to line up with Poole's ability to catch the defense off-guard, which helps get quality shots for the bench. And he really can use those long arms to great effect on the defensive end.
Sure, the team didn't start the game well at all (how often do you win a game after going down 12-nothing??) but some of that was just decent looks bouncing out and the rest was Seth Curry being on fire and giving his bro a hard time. Don't worry, Seth cooled off in the second half (honestly I blame the rest of Philly not giving him the opportunities) while his big bro was just getting hotter and hotter.
Plus, no new injuries on either side! Always thankful for the health and safety of the players. The league is just so much more fun when guys can actually play.
The one problem with Looney playing so well is that he has a player option for next year. That said, I'm happy for him that he seems to finally be completely healthy.
On the one hand, he deserves to be highly paid, and competing with Wiseman for minutes could be an unrewarding challenge, so I could see why he'd opt out.
On the other hand, with the team looking like this now and the other Splash Bro set to return next season, opting in could be an easy path to lot of fun.
Wiggs and Loon combined for 25 boards, helping us somehow outrebound a team that features Joel Embiid and Dwight Howard. That may be the #2 story of the night.
That's why 7th seed (no travel) and winning first Playin game would be awesome. One game in six days @home should allow for plenty of rest for him and Loon and Dray. I don't think Steph should rest lest he loose what ever he is on. Just kidding.
Any chance the Warriors could pry Thybull away from the 76ers? He looks like he would be awesome in the Warriors system. He moves off ball with purpose on O and plays tough D all game.
Really liked the look of the Poole + Looney + all wings bench lineups. I hope Oubre gets his energy back and they can use those in the playoffs to wreck the other team’s bench.
Looney and Draymond are two of my favorite players. They do everything to help the team win and help Curry look good.
Against certain teams without a punishing backup center (the Kings with Damian Jones?), I really want to see Poole/Lee/Oubre/Wiggins/JTA. I think that'd be a really dangerous lineup.
I just don't buy the Sixers as real contenders. They lack 2 very important ingredients:
1. A high-level perimeter creator capable of scoring and creating for themselves and others.
2. Scheme versatility - Embiid is a DPOY-level drop big, but you can't play drop against the Stephs/Kyries/Hardens/Lillards of this world. And I doubt he has the mobility to consistently hard-double and rotate. Being a big in the modern NBA is really really hard lol.
Well, against the Kyries and Lillard of this world, you can just double them and reap the rewards of their inability to pass. Curry and Harden are problems, but he's unlikely to meet Curry in the playoffs.
I think subpar passers (like the Kyries of this world) can pass out of double teams provided they have really good spacing around them.
And if it's Middleton in the East or Kawhi/PG in the finals, how much value does Embiid lose defensively? We've seen Gobert lose value and he's way better at traditional big man stuff as well as mobility/switchability.
And we all know he's not leading any great offenses with him as the best player due to a lack of creation.
That's kind of a Curry mental mistake as well as he could have dumped the ball off to Bazemore in the corner who probably would have had an open shot. But as you were pointing out, credit Embiid for sticking with him all the way.
The Warriors have yet to play the full strength 76ers this year. Maybe in the finals?
Embiid looks like early season Shaq out there, really late in the season to be looking like that. Teams should go small and run him til he takes himself out of the game.
Apparently Jokic and Embiid are top picks for MVP. Dubs beat Nuggets 116-107, steph goes for 53/6/4, Jokic 27/12/8. Dubs beat 76ers 107-96. Steph goes for 49/3/5, Embiid 28/8/3. No question about it, we got the MVP.
Not gonna lie, I had written him off and thought he was an overrated white guy with a thing for playing his vets too many minutes.
But the Knicks under his watch have become surprisingly good, and the defensive schemes and principles are definitely part of it. I don't know how much of Julius Randle's leap to stardom can be credited to Thibbs but there's no way the team is that cohesive without a very good coach.
He probably is. He took a group of guys from the Island of Misfit NBA Players and has made a team of them. Plus bringing back a couple of his old Bulls players to help him get it done.
Warriors have 9 home games remaining (all with some fans) and 5 road games remaining. 5 games remaining against current top 8 seed teams (3 against non play-in teams). 2 sets of back to backs remaining.
4 games behind the Blazers, 2 games behind the Mavericks (playing them once), 1 game behind the Grizzlies (playing them once).
Get JTA and Paschall healthy and it's time to make a run. And hopefully while they make said run, the Hawks, Celtics, Knicks, Heat, and Hornets keep winning so they can keep their pick.
I wish Paschall the best of health. And also hope that it’s irrelevant to the team’s lineups except for rest days for Looney or Green after the team has its playoff spot locked in.
Will EP actually contribute much going forward? Not to write him off so much...but he was seemingly getting figured out by teams. That small ball 5 moment he was having really fell off.
Damian Jones [unless he signed another 10-day with Sacramento], Omari Spellman, I think Mo Wagner is more of a PF but he was cut by Boston - haven't heard any more lately.
I like Spellman a lot too. Yes - more of a PF but a big body. Can bang with the bigs I think. 6 more fouls. And spares some hits to Draymond & Loon & JTA.
Yup. They should treat Minnesota like a playoff game, but against a team like the Rockets or the Thunder I want to see Paschall absorbing those minutes at center so Looney and Draymond don't have to.
https://www.letsgowarriors.com/p/warriors-eyeing-playoffs-thanks-to 4/20 inspired rantings now activated
Keeping my eyes on Portland as the season comes to a close. They are currently up four games in the standings from us, but:
- they have a six game road trip coming up; Indiana, Memphis, Brooklyn, Boston, Atlanta, Cleveland
- they have three games against Memphis (one game up in the standings from us)
- they are 4-6 in the last ten games
- they have games against the Clippers, Denver x2, the teams up above
- they end the season @Utah, @Phoenix, and vs Denver (although Utah and Phoenix might be resting at that point).
I think Dallas is going to be hard to catch down the stretch, but I would not rule out passing Portland and Memphis and finishing in the 7 spot.
(Dallas has the second-easiest schedule the rest of the way and Portland the fourth-toughest according to tankathon.com)
Too bad we lost the tiebreak to the Blazers - otherwise I'd feel more optimistic about passing them.
So you are thinking Mavs slide up to 6? Somehow I feel more comfortable with 7-8 game against Mavs.
http://www.tankathon.com/remaining_schedule_strength
Game blacked out and could not even tape a replay. Comcast can bite me.
Sports urge dot net is a great place to go for your streaming needs
Really sucks, and it's particularly egregious in the home market.
Dude... same. I was crushed last night. Hoping the re-showing was recordable but haven't checked yet.
They just had the two dweebs on, they apologized that the Giants were on but then went on recapping the game anyway.
https://clutchpoints.com/3-reasons-stephen-curry-is-rightful-mvp-over-joel-embiid-nikola-jokic/amp/
That ESPN article failed to update his numbers in April.
It’s now 40.8 ppg on .751 true shooting (in 10 games).
Greatest month in NBA history?
*In the modern era
Considering Wilt averaged over 50ppg for a whole season, I’m going to guess “Maybe not” 🤷🏼♂️
Efficiency matters too, though.
Greatest non-Wilt should always be assumed, except for free-throw shooting
Definitely up there. And it’s not over yet!
(5 more games; @WAS, DEN, SAC, DAL, @MIN)
https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/31293595/steph-curry-mvp-social-media-reacts-exploits-golden-state-warriors
Do the Warriors lose their pick if they wind up in the League Top 10 or the Conference Top 10?
League.
Then the danger of losing it is slim.
Not THAT slim. They’re only 1.5 games behind Atlanta, who’s in 10th place.
By my count, they are #16 in the league's top 10. They are .500. 16 other teams have better records. Please explain the reference to Atlanta.
But we are 6 teams underneath that. It is still a lot of mileage to gain. Can they really play at the level Steph has created for the rest of the season? Not impossible, just improbable.
5 teams in between though - if 1 or 2 of the Eastern teams play as well as us down the stretch, we could thread that needle!
Scratch another contender off the Warriors' to-do list. Hot damn, they brought it tonight. Draymond and Looney were on another level defensively and Steph's 4th quarter was 💦💦💦! You wanna know how defensively-intense this game was? The 20-15 third quarter score with two of the most prolific scorers in the NBA should tell you something about that. In fact, the whole team did an amazing job on defense making the Sixers go through multiple guys to get even a decent shot up, spacing and funneling guys to where they knew their teammates were and contesting without fouling.
In the bad games the perimeter guys would funnel people to a spot where the backup defender (often Wiseman) couldn't get into proper position to defend, or even if they did the rotations elsewhere were too delayed and someone was getting an open 3 (or a hard closeout and free throws). This game (and vs Boston, too) the rest of the team was already in the right spot most of the time, so Philly couldn't find the advantage and ended up needing Embiid to take a tough one. And, I'm sure this is something that varies night to night, but based on how they did when we played them, Tatum looks way more unstoppable than Embiid.
I like Oubre coming off the bench right now. I'm still not happy with some of his tunnel vision inefficient shots, but his timing and length on cuts is starting to line up with Poole's ability to catch the defense off-guard, which helps get quality shots for the bench. And he really can use those long arms to great effect on the defensive end.
Sure, the team didn't start the game well at all (how often do you win a game after going down 12-nothing??) but some of that was just decent looks bouncing out and the rest was Seth Curry being on fire and giving his bro a hard time. Don't worry, Seth cooled off in the second half (honestly I blame the rest of Philly not giving him the opportunities) while his big bro was just getting hotter and hotter.
Plus, no new injuries on either side! Always thankful for the health and safety of the players. The league is just so much more fun when guys can actually play.
The one problem with Looney playing so well is that he has a player option for next year. That said, I'm happy for him that he seems to finally be completely healthy.
On the one hand, he deserves to be highly paid, and competing with Wiseman for minutes could be an unrewarding challenge, so I could see why he'd opt out.
On the other hand, with the team looking like this now and the other Splash Bro set to return next season, opting in could be an easy path to lot of fun.
Wiggins had some TOUGH rebounds today. Need more of that from him. Though I continue to worry about him getting tired for the playoffs
Wiggs and Loon combined for 25 boards, helping us somehow outrebound a team that features Joel Embiid and Dwight Howard. That may be the #2 story of the night.
That's why 7th seed (no travel) and winning first Playin game would be awesome. One game in six days @home should allow for plenty of rest for him and Loon and Dray. I don't think Steph should rest lest he loose what ever he is on. Just kidding.
May 16: Last Warriors game
May 18-21: Play-In Tournament
May 22: NBA Playoffs start
wow like no rest between play in and playoffs
https://twitter.com/stevejones20/status/1384326771877634054?s=20
Embiid asking Dray why he wont guard him lol
Any chance the Warriors could pry Thybull away from the 76ers? He looks like he would be awesome in the Warriors system. He moves off ball with purpose on O and plays tough D all game.
EP for Thybull... make it so, Bob!
Thybull is wicked hey. Wish we moved up in the draft to get him.
Curry is the show.
Really liked the look of the Poole + Looney + all wings bench lineups. I hope Oubre gets his energy back and they can use those in the playoffs to wreck the other team’s bench.
Looney and Draymond are two of my favorite players. They do everything to help the team win and help Curry look good.
Against certain teams without a punishing backup center (the Kings with Damian Jones?), I really want to see Poole/Lee/Oubre/Wiggins/JTA. I think that'd be a really dangerous lineup.
Agreed. That gives you a little bit of everything -- shooting, slashing, passing, quickness, doesn't give up much on the defensive end except size.
A lot of that is possible because Poole is starting to get more comfortable as a facilitator. Really encouraging to see him play how he did tonight.
I just don't buy the Sixers as real contenders. They lack 2 very important ingredients:
1. A high-level perimeter creator capable of scoring and creating for themselves and others.
2. Scheme versatility - Embiid is a DPOY-level drop big, but you can't play drop against the Stephs/Kyries/Hardens/Lillards of this world. And I doubt he has the mobility to consistently hard-double and rotate. Being a big in the modern NBA is really really hard lol.
Well, against the Kyries and Lillard of this world, you can just double them and reap the rewards of their inability to pass. Curry and Harden are problems, but he's unlikely to meet Curry in the playoffs.
I think subpar passers (like the Kyries of this world) can pass out of double teams provided they have really good spacing around them.
And if it's Middleton in the East or Kawhi/PG in the finals, how much value does Embiid lose defensively? We've seen Gobert lose value and he's way better at traditional big man stuff as well as mobility/switchability.
And we all know he's not leading any great offenses with him as the best player due to a lack of creation.
Also I think he's more mobile laterally than you are giving him credit for. He's no Jokic.
He is somewhat mobile but you can't switch with him though. You're basically forced to play a variant of drop coverage.
Jokic can't do this
https://streamable.com/98wwwc
That's kind of a Curry mental mistake as well as he could have dumped the ball off to Bazemore in the corner who probably would have had an open shot. But as you were pointing out, credit Embiid for sticking with him all the way.
The Warriors have yet to play the full strength 76ers this year. Maybe in the finals?
Embiid looks like early season Shaq out there, really late in the season to be looking like that. Teams should go small and run him til he takes himself out of the game.
I mean they do have an S Curry...
But not the right one.
All the more reason to go with Steph as MVP.
How long would JTA be out? I kinda remember concussion protocol being a week long
Not sure but in the NFL players usually returns within a week
It's based on when the person can pass certain tests, so it isn't a pre set time.
Here is what I found on a quick google search.
A player in the concussion protocol program can’t return to the floor until the following:
He is without concussion-related symptoms at rest.
He has been evaluated by a physician.
He has successfully completed the NBA return-to-participation exertion protocol.
A team physician has discussed the return-to-participation process and decision with the Director of the NBA concussion program, Dr. Jeffrey Kutcher.
Ultimately, the decision as to when a player will return will be made by the team physician.
Thanks
Isn't there like 3 levels of tests he will have to go through?
What’s the soonest he could come back?
I think it could be whenever. Next game. Once you clear the tests you're just good to go
Apparently Jokic and Embiid are top picks for MVP. Dubs beat Nuggets 116-107, steph goes for 53/6/4, Jokic 27/12/8. Dubs beat 76ers 107-96. Steph goes for 49/3/5, Embiid 28/8/3. No question about it, we got the MVP.
They really should just create two awards so this stops being an issue every single year.
MVP goes to the objective most valuable player independent of team record.
MWP goes to the most winningest player, which is the current mvp definition.
2014-15 Steph gets MWP. 2021 Steph gets MVP. 2015-16 Steph gets both.
Splitting it up would just cause more issues since the idea of the award is to crown a “best” player.
Or the NBA can steal the NFL Offensive Player of the Yesr award.....
No doubt we do!
But it should go to either Joker or Joel, they've been winning all season
I sure agree!!
After tonight's games:
1] Jazz - 43-15 - W1
2] Suns - 41-16 - W1
3] Clippers - 40-19 - W1
4] Nuggets - 37-20 - W3
5] Lakers - 35-23 - L1
6] Blazers - 32-24 - L1
7] Mavs - 30-26 - L2
8] Grizzlies - 29-27 - L1
9] Warriors - 29-29 - W1
10] Spurs - 28-28 - W2
11] Pelicans - 25-32 - L3
Minnesota & Houston are tied with the worst record [15-43] after tonight.
Hottest team in the league right now is the Knicks with a 6-game winning streak.
Happy for knicks fans.
Thibbs coach of the year!
*Monty Williams
Not gonna lie, I had written him off and thought he was an overrated white guy with a thing for playing his vets too many minutes.
But the Knicks under his watch have become surprisingly good, and the defensive schemes and principles are definitely part of it. I don't know how much of Julius Randle's leap to stardom can be credited to Thibbs but there's no way the team is that cohesive without a very good coach.
Still playing them too many minutes, tho.
He probably is. He took a group of guys from the Island of Misfit NBA Players and has made a team of them. Plus bringing back a couple of his old Bulls players to help him get it done.
Warriors have 9 home games remaining (all with some fans) and 5 road games remaining. 5 games remaining against current top 8 seed teams (3 against non play-in teams). 2 sets of back to backs remaining.
4 games behind the Blazers, 2 games behind the Mavericks (playing them once), 1 game behind the Grizzlies (playing them once).
Get JTA and Paschall healthy and it's time to make a run. And hopefully while they make said run, the Hawks, Celtics, Knicks, Heat, and Hornets keep winning so they can keep their pick.
I wish Paschall the best of health. And also hope that it’s irrelevant to the team’s lineups except for rest days for Looney or Green after the team has its playoff spot locked in.
Will EP actually contribute much going forward? Not to write him off so much...but he was seemingly getting figured out by teams. That small ball 5 moment he was having really fell off.
It fell off real quickly when teams started playing their 1st string centers against him.
He had some sort of known knee thing. They talked about it right when he started struggling. Maybe the rest will do him some good!
Which proves my point.
They need another body at center imo. Looney can't be playing 34 minutes a night.
Whos out there?
Damian Jones [unless he signed another 10-day with Sacramento], Omari Spellman, I think Mo Wagner is more of a PF but he was cut by Boston - haven't heard any more lately.
Spellman is more of a PF also right? Would like to have him tho fer sure. Could only help
I like Spellman a lot too. Yes - more of a PF but a big body. Can bang with the bigs I think. 6 more fouls. And spares some hits to Draymond & Loon & JTA.
Especially against lesser ooponents
Yup. They should treat Minnesota like a playoff game, but against a team like the Rockets or the Thunder I want to see Paschall absorbing those minutes at center so Looney and Draymond don't have to.
Another body excluding Smailagic lol.
Why’s everyone always bagging on Smiley’s body?
My eyes are getting tired at this point. I read it the way you meant it the 1st time. LOL
Accepted
In case you missed it, Nico Mannion was featured on Shaqtin A Fool (Spoiler alert 🚨: He won.)
https://youtu.be/Da0tRvZfVhg