Wow. Celtics took a 10 point-lead 5:23 into the 1st quarter. They failed to score for 3+ minutes, and the 76ers climbed all the way to take the lead back.
An coach Kerr himself is off social media - I hope they are listening to him! - Although all the complaining leaking out suggests that the player-coach dialogue us not working well!
- In 15 minutes he can destroy leads, creat fouls and generally f*** it up all in favor of the other team.
Frankly JP, and seeing JK in the 4th quarter playing like he is amongst lower mortals makes me really keen to see these spoil sports get shipped out this post season
Anybody here have examples of other supporting cast cause such shitty vibes for the DUBS over the last 14 years?
Are these players complaining or articulating their competitive spirit? Would you want a bunch of guys that were happy being on the bench? If you asked directly, "do you think you should play ahead of Steph/Klay/Dray?" what would they answer? My understanding is that Kerr ran Vets vs. Youngsters in early scrimmages to help people understand the pecking order.....
So I am not concerned about these guys saying they want to play more. It's up to Myers (no doubt with input from Kerr) to decide whether more value can be extracted from these guys on the trade market this summer.
I'm not concerned either and think the "article" is just some shit stirring. The way the youth could avoid adding fodder would be to give a non-answer like "listen I need to stay ready, coming off the bench is hard but I trust coach to put us in a position to succeed, this org won 4 championships for a reason, etc." That they didn't give that answer is more an indication of youth I think? None of the quotes struck me as particularly egregious
This quote from Kuminga, “and then things just flip out of nowhere without you knowing what’s going on”, is concerning because it sounds like he doesn’t know why he isn’t getting minutes. You would hope that Kerr is telling him why. Poole is playing a lot more than JK but is also complaining about his reduced minutes. Again, I hope that Kerr is telling Poole his mistakes because Poole keeps making the same ones repeatedly.
What does JK “playing like he is amongst lower mortals" mean? I’m honestly stumped here and have been for weeks. I watched Kuminga’s every move, waiting for the alleged bad body language. He passed to assists, he hit a patient three, he played defense at appropriate garbage time levels. What was he supposed to do, high five everyone in the team at each stoppage of play? I don’t get it. There was the one where he had an open three and swung it to Moody for an even more open three. Isn’t that what he’s supposed to do? Isn’t that the essence of Kerr ball?
He was fine in garbage time… not dominant, good defensively, completely unable to score effectively in garbage time setting, which isn’t really a knock on him, since it’s just weird janky offense all around
His body language just looked like he is disinterested in being in there - maybe I was hyperfocused on his every move since I want him to succeed so much - but I am not the only one who felt that. Multiple callers on 957 the game felt exactly the same!
He’s a professional NBA player who always does what the coaches ask of him and took great steps in his understanding of the game this year to help the team a great deal; and as a result he is getting zero minutes. Why is his body language in garbage time even a question? Because Kerr isn’t playing him. He’s a great coach, he makes winning decisions, but that doesn’t mean Kuminga is somehow a whiny disgruntled punk for wanting to play and even expecting to. I don’t have a clue what they talk about behind closed doors but if Kuminga at some point said to Kerr “This is bullshit” he’d get my support. Nothing wrong with wanting to play. Rather have that than a guy who doesn’t
His G league Ignite coach used to talk about how Jalen Green had a great attitude. When asked about JK...he just smiled and declined to comment. Another player chosen for his physical attributes who, it was hoped, would develop a 'team mentality.' He has not. As with Poole, it's all about him, not the team.
I vaguely remember that and I think it was Jarrett Jack (who was a veteran player on the team and not a coach), but I'm not sure and am certainly not going to try to look it up.
Not much of an assertion. I have no idea what JK's attitude is. This is just a forum, not a court of law. Rumor mongering is what it is all about. I don't have time to find the article.
Those people tend to have pretty terrible opinions, like throwing in the towel on the Sacramento series after Game 2 (and Game 6), or saying that the team had to trade Klay in order to compete this year, or that the team desperately needed Andre Drummond to win another title. All of these arguments I have heard by 95.7 callers and those aren't even the most hare-brained takes. They are like the callers to any sports radio station; some of the biggest prisoners of the moment that exist.
15 mins from JMG won us the game last night. JP is just downright whiny at this point, what have you shown for us to play u 30 mins plus a game, blown leads? You lost your right to end games when u have a string of games where u lost us the games from lack of ball control down the stretch. We can find a slashing guard who doesn’t play defense quite easily in the Free market. One thing that makes this interesting though is his ft making ability. His 3s are replaceable since he’s average at best on that.
(a) a 10-0 run early in the 2nd to turn a 35-28 Lakers lead to a 38-35 Warriors lead.
(b) a 13-2 run late in Q2 to stretch a 2-point lead into double digits
(c) a 14-4 early in Q3 to widen the lead to 18
(d) a 14-5 run in the middle of Q3 to really seal the deal
Of those, JMG wasn't on the floor for (a) or (b) but he did contribute to (c) and (d). Poole was part of (b) and (d) although the main things he did were collect DReb and make assists—also, commit fouls, which limited him to about 16 minutes this game. JMG actually played less than 13 minutes and his +/- was slightly worse than Poole's.
The players who actually won us the game were Klay, Draymond, and probably Wiggins—they were in for the majority of those key moments. Of course, other players contributed in ways big and small including Steph, JMG, Moody, and Looney.
You could argue that it's more about what the alternative was for those JMG minutes, but given how Poole had easily the best +/- on the Warriors in the first game, I'd say he's perfectly capable of contributing to winning basketball and criticizing his defense while praising JMG is not exactly fair.
Well if you dig that deep then I’d agree with most of what ure saying.
JMG changed the game for us, he really flexed the floor and gave us options.
My point about JP still stands when it comes to replacing him I believe, I’m also not going to dig into the upcoming free agency market for data. Fact is he does have a whiny attitude and thay can contribute to hurting team chemistry. That’s something a +/- can not tell you. His attitude stinks.
DeMarco was right, too. Draymond did play like shit (his own words) in the first three quarters. Out of control. He settled down and played good defense in Q4, but it was just a little too late.
i had formatted this lol... it was easy to see we've had a lot of variety. 5 different players have been our 5th man, 5 different players have been our 6th man, 5 different players have been our 7th man, 5 different players have been our 8th man, 6 different players have been our 9th man.
After the mass school shooting that included the murder of eight children and a security guard at a Belgrade school, Dallas star Luka Doncic has committed to pay for those funeral services and grief counseling for classmates and staff.
Doncic has deep family ties to the Belgrade, Serbia region and a spokesperson for the Luka Doncic Foundation tells ESPN of his immediate plans to take care of the funerals and counseling -- and a long-term commitment to provide whatever other assistance is needed.
Steve Kerr on Budenholzer: "My first response is not shock but disappointment ... this is the business we're in. Expectations for every team are so high, and only one team can win. We all believe Bud deserved better, but we're all aware this is the job we chose."
I think EVERYONE is missing the key to the Warriors win. It was Poole's quick foul trouble that limited his time on the court! Let's hope he can repeat that performance -better than hitting some 3s and giving up that or more on the other side...
He's frustrated... he should be frustrated. He's also an emotional guy, not some stoic like Looney. Dre has had to have that talk with Dray... for obvious reasons.
I really have to stress this point; it'd be easier to grasp his actions if his bread was on the line or not guaranteed. But the guy landed a near-max contract, even outdoing Wiggins and probably Draymond too. So, why not just concentrate on winning the championship? It would set the stage for a sweet trade and boost his rep. Honestly, this kind of shortsighted behavior just baffles me.
So, something's been niggling at my brain for the last couple hours.
Before the series started, Timpf predicted that the Dubs would need to run a lot of high PnR with Curry to counteract the AD-led paint defense of the Lakers. He was fairly certain that their base motion offense wasn't going to cut it, and talked extensively about how the Lakers perimeter defenders because of their length and athleticism would most likely be able to successfully top-lock the Dubs' guards and chase over the screens successfully with back pressure. High PnR counters that as it pulls everything further out and AD can't drop as deep into the paint as he does, creating greater space in the paint. High PnR also gives Curry more room to operate as he can reject the screen or the screener can flip the screen, which gives him an extra option forcing the defender to be slow a half step.
And we saw exactly that play out all game 2. Furthermore, we also saw the motion offense work successfully when AD was on the bench.
So the niggle is: If Timpf, who's at best, a lay analyst and commentator, could see this, I have to believe the Dubs' coaches also saw this despite their 36 hour turnaround to Game 1. Then, why didn't they execute this earlier?
Game 1 essentially came down to a random ending where the Dubs tried motion offense all game, and eventually went down double-digits after hitting brick wall after brick wall. In the closing minutes, they switched it up and went to more Curry-centric high PnR, closed the gap, and they made it a random ending game. If they had gone to this strategy just a few minutes earlier, their chances of winning the game would've improved. Why not try it Q2? or Q3 after it was clear the motion offense was stalling and the Lakers were flirting with double-digit leads?
I get the reasons for not doing this as a default G1 offense, and I get why the motion offense gets everyone involved better, but goddamn, G1 and G2 offenses were night and day, and it really feels like the Dubs missed an opportunity by not making an earlier adjustment during G1. Was it Kerr's stubbornness at trying to hold onto his motion offense and make it work in spite of 3.5 quarters (as well as 3 regular season games) of evidence that it wasn't working? Or did the Dubs just not see it until the end of the game? Or am I overstating this one adjustment, and G2 was actually about something else altogether?
I think it's G1 that was about something else. Everything about that game indicates Dubs were in energy conservation mode for three quarters, hoping to have enough for a push in the 4th. I'm pretty sure they intended all along to wait go to Curry on ball until about when they did. Just watching, Curry obviously didn't have enough left to be on ball all game. I do agree that they were about 3-4 minutes late in implementing. I'm not sure anyone would have anticipated the extent of on-ball success in Q4 though.
Could be that coaches thought it best to just let the Warriors play without too much extra thinking of new schemes etc. -especially after the long series and and emotional game seven.
See what transpired in game one, how the Lakers were playing, get a feel for what might work, etc. Then watch the film, talk to the players about possibilities and options, and see what they all would come up with. as a style of play.
Whatever the reasons it worked for game two ! Next one is a different (new) game.
Every time the Warriors get in a rut or lose a single playoff game, lots of fans and observers says "Kerr needs to run more Curry P&R! Why does he insist on so much of this beautiful game motion offense stuff when it's not working?!?!!". This is not new or insightful, imo. It may be mostly correct in this instance... and we'll see how the series goes along with how the Lakers adjust.
IMO, the motion offense shows you a ton of how a defense is reacting, what they're doing well, and where are the advantages. There's so much motion and so many different actions that you generate so much data about how to appraoch the rest of the series. You have to win 4 of 7 games, so risking one game for valuable data is worthwhile... it's like Wordle, your first 2-3 words should always be guesses with new letters to gain data so you can use that data trying to guess the right word in the last 3-4 tries.
Timpf is a Lakers and LeBron super-fan, a sharp basketball analytical mind, and has been following them under a microscope all season. The Warriors staff had a day and a half at best to turn from "how the heck do we beat the Kings" to "what should we do against the Lakers"? And as Eric notes, Steph must have been exhausted.
Yes, I think that's probably true, or saw things with a different emphasis or color to them. It's literally his job, and he's good at it, and the Lakers as I said are his #1 focus.
Also, it's one thing to see something as an opportunity and another to be responsible for trying it out in real time against a real opponent with consequences. Arm-chair quarterbacking is always easier because if you're wrong there are no real consequences.
My speculation is that one factor was that Steph was wiped after going Super Saiyan in SAC Game 7 with so much on-ball creation and emotional drama, just a day and a half earlier, so they wanted to explore non-Steph heavy approaches first.
I get that... but then they went with it for the closing minutes of the game, and it literally ended up being a random ending. JP just needed to channel Steph a little bit better for that 30' shot. I guess hindsight is 20/20, but it seems like just a handful of more posessions of Steph-centric high PnR instead of stilted motion offense that couldn't penetrate would've pushed game 1 out of the "random ending" category and secured a W.
I'm guessing they had so many problems, they had to pick one to try to fix in game 1.
Draymond leaving the reservation mentally.
ineffective DDV
Steph being kept under wraps.
Slowing AD down.
?? there were more, but I'm forgetting the specifics.
I would guess that they mostly were trying to get Draymond focused and find a way to slow down AD (he really had a monster of a game). It's more than possible that they trusted Steph would figure out how to be effective (he's done so before), so it wasn't the most urgent thing.
Probably true. I think when it’s unfolding in-game, you don’t know if it’s the scheme, the execution or the matchups, so they probably kept trying to turn all those knobs before they found something that worked.
It just felt like Steph High PnR should've been one of the first knobs they turned, not one of the last knobs, and not turning it earlier cost them game 1.
The incredible shrinking hardon strikes again.
Wow. Celtics took a 10 point-lead 5:23 into the 1st quarter. They failed to score for 3+ minutes, and the 76ers climbed all the way to take the lead back.
Harden needs another trip to Vegas.
I'm hoping that the Warriors, particularly the young players, are staying away from social media.
Would be smart, I know Kerr suggested it to Wiseman so I assume he suggested it to all of them.
An coach Kerr himself is off social media - I hope they are listening to him! - Although all the complaining leaking out suggests that the player-coach dialogue us not working well!
Good luck with that.
jordan Poole is completely wrong in this article
https://www.basketballnetwork.net/latest-news/jordan-poole-and-multiple-warriors-players-arent-happy-with-their-roles
- In 15 minutes he can destroy leads, creat fouls and generally f*** it up all in favor of the other team.
Frankly JP, and seeing JK in the 4th quarter playing like he is amongst lower mortals makes me really keen to see these spoil sports get shipped out this post season
Anybody here have examples of other supporting cast cause such shitty vibes for the DUBS over the last 14 years?
Update: link fixed - thank you @Being
Tangentially, I've noticed that Lester Quinones is bringing a lot of energy and enthusiasm to the bench during games.
Are these players complaining or articulating their competitive spirit? Would you want a bunch of guys that were happy being on the bench? If you asked directly, "do you think you should play ahead of Steph/Klay/Dray?" what would they answer? My understanding is that Kerr ran Vets vs. Youngsters in early scrimmages to help people understand the pecking order.....
So I am not concerned about these guys saying they want to play more. It's up to Myers (no doubt with input from Kerr) to decide whether more value can be extracted from these guys on the trade market this summer.
I'm not concerned either and think the "article" is just some shit stirring. The way the youth could avoid adding fodder would be to give a non-answer like "listen I need to stay ready, coming off the bench is hard but I trust coach to put us in a position to succeed, this org won 4 championships for a reason, etc." That they didn't give that answer is more an indication of youth I think? None of the quotes struck me as particularly egregious
Agree totally. As a devoted fan, I believe it is my job is to support ALL the players until they no longer become our players.
And often we support many of them even when they are with other teams, just love the Dubs spirit !
They aren't egregious at all, the headline to the article is mostly clickbait.
This quote from Kuminga, “and then things just flip out of nowhere without you knowing what’s going on”, is concerning because it sounds like he doesn’t know why he isn’t getting minutes. You would hope that Kerr is telling him why. Poole is playing a lot more than JK but is also complaining about his reduced minutes. Again, I hope that Kerr is telling Poole his mistakes because Poole keeps making the same ones repeatedly.
What does JK “playing like he is amongst lower mortals" mean? I’m honestly stumped here and have been for weeks. I watched Kuminga’s every move, waiting for the alleged bad body language. He passed to assists, he hit a patient three, he played defense at appropriate garbage time levels. What was he supposed to do, high five everyone in the team at each stoppage of play? I don’t get it. There was the one where he had an open three and swung it to Moody for an even more open three. Isn’t that what he’s supposed to do? Isn’t that the essence of Kerr ball?
It's called a bullshit narrative, ideologies, cognitive dissonance
He was fine in garbage time… not dominant, good defensively, completely unable to score effectively in garbage time setting, which isn’t really a knock on him, since it’s just weird janky offense all around
His body language just looked like he is disinterested in being in there - maybe I was hyperfocused on his every move since I want him to succeed so much - but I am not the only one who felt that. Multiple callers on 957 the game felt exactly the same!
He’s a professional NBA player who always does what the coaches ask of him and took great steps in his understanding of the game this year to help the team a great deal; and as a result he is getting zero minutes. Why is his body language in garbage time even a question? Because Kerr isn’t playing him. He’s a great coach, he makes winning decisions, but that doesn’t mean Kuminga is somehow a whiny disgruntled punk for wanting to play and even expecting to. I don’t have a clue what they talk about behind closed doors but if Kuminga at some point said to Kerr “This is bullshit” he’d get my support. Nothing wrong with wanting to play. Rather have that than a guy who doesn’t
This. I don't get the narrative that is being pushed by the media here. Either way it looks bad for both JK and Kerr.
Poole is a different case. He is getting his minutes, he has just been bad.
His G league Ignite coach used to talk about how Jalen Green had a great attitude. When asked about JK...he just smiled and declined to comment. Another player chosen for his physical attributes who, it was hoped, would develop a 'team mentality.' He has not. As with Poole, it's all about him, not the team.
I vaguely remember that and I think it was Jarrett Jack (who was a veteran player on the team and not a coach), but I'm not sure and am certainly not going to try to look it up.
Do you have a reference for this assertion?
Not much of an assertion. I have no idea what JK's attitude is. This is just a forum, not a court of law. Rumor mongering is what it is all about. I don't have time to find the article.
I don't think you should aim to have the same opinions as people who call in to 95.7
Huh?
Those people tend to have pretty terrible opinions, like throwing in the towel on the Sacramento series after Game 2 (and Game 6), or saying that the team had to trade Klay in order to compete this year, or that the team desperately needed Andre Drummond to win another title. All of these arguments I have heard by 95.7 callers and those aren't even the most hare-brained takes. They are like the callers to any sports radio station; some of the biggest prisoners of the moment that exist.
His effort and process were pretty good for garbage time, imo
15 mins from JMG won us the game last night. JP is just downright whiny at this point, what have you shown for us to play u 30 mins plus a game, blown leads? You lost your right to end games when u have a string of games where u lost us the games from lack of ball control down the stretch. We can find a slashing guard who doesn’t play defense quite easily in the Free market. One thing that makes this interesting though is his ft making ability. His 3s are replaceable since he’s average at best on that.
JMG played well, especially compared to the regular season, but the lineup data doesn't fully agree with you: http://popcornmachine.net/gf?date=20230504&game=LALGSW
I'd say the key moments in this game were:
(a) a 10-0 run early in the 2nd to turn a 35-28 Lakers lead to a 38-35 Warriors lead.
(b) a 13-2 run late in Q2 to stretch a 2-point lead into double digits
(c) a 14-4 early in Q3 to widen the lead to 18
(d) a 14-5 run in the middle of Q3 to really seal the deal
Of those, JMG wasn't on the floor for (a) or (b) but he did contribute to (c) and (d). Poole was part of (b) and (d) although the main things he did were collect DReb and make assists—also, commit fouls, which limited him to about 16 minutes this game. JMG actually played less than 13 minutes and his +/- was slightly worse than Poole's.
The players who actually won us the game were Klay, Draymond, and probably Wiggins—they were in for the majority of those key moments. Of course, other players contributed in ways big and small including Steph, JMG, Moody, and Looney.
You could argue that it's more about what the alternative was for those JMG minutes, but given how Poole had easily the best +/- on the Warriors in the first game, I'd say he's perfectly capable of contributing to winning basketball and criticizing his defense while praising JMG is not exactly fair.
Well if you dig that deep then I’d agree with most of what ure saying.
JMG changed the game for us, he really flexed the floor and gave us options.
My point about JP still stands when it comes to replacing him I believe, I’m also not going to dig into the upcoming free agency market for data. Fact is he does have a whiny attitude and thay can contribute to hurting team chemistry. That’s something a +/- can not tell you. His attitude stinks.
They play as a team, they win as a team... let's not bicker and argue about who defended who...
Broken link
https://www.basketballnetwork.net/latest-news/jordan-poole-and-multiple-warriors-players-arent-happy-with-their-roles
- just fixed - thank you
What a great E1P - "Mother Muffin warrios" - thats just EPIC!
Draymond attributes his game 2 improvement to assistant coach DeMarco. Strength in Numbers, baby.
https://sports.yahoo.com/why-chris-demarco-warriors-unsung-181550200.html
DeMarco was right, too. Draymond did play like shit (his own words) in the first three quarters. Out of control. He settled down and played good defense in Q4, but it was just a little too late.
Klay Thompson in the 2018-2019 playoffs (21 games): 57.5% TS on 22.1% USG
Klay Thompson in the 2022-2023 playoffs (9 games): 57.9% TS on 24.2% USG
Vintage Klay. I am hoping this version also gets close to a 20 ish sample size. Haha
Same as it ever was.
I've got nothing but flowers for Klay, a psycho killer who was burning down the house in G2, a once in a lifetime Warrior.
MPG rank (min>5) :
sac 1: curry, klay, green, loon, wigs, jp, gp2, ddv, jk
sac 2: curry, wigs, klay, green, gp2, loon, jp, ddv, mm
sac 3: curry, klay, wigs, loon, jp, ddv, mm, jk, jmg, lamb
sac 4: curry, klay, wigs, loon, green, jp, ddv, gp2, mm
sac 5: curry, wigs, loon, klay, green, jp, ddv, gp2
sac 6 curry, klay, wigs, loon, jp, green, ddv, mm, gp2
sac 7: green, curry, wigs, klay, loon, jp, gp2, mm, ddv
lal 1: curry, klay, green, wigs, jp, loon, ddv, gp2, jmg, mm
lal 2: klay, wigs, curry, ddv, green, mm, jp, jmg, loon, jk, gp2, lamb
i had formatted this lol... it was easy to see we've had a lot of variety. 5 different players have been our 5th man, 5 different players have been our 6th man, 5 different players have been our 7th man, 5 different players have been our 8th man, 6 different players have been our 9th man.
After the mass school shooting that included the murder of eight children and a security guard at a Belgrade school, Dallas star Luka Doncic has committed to pay for those funeral services and grief counseling for classmates and staff.
Doncic has deep family ties to the Belgrade, Serbia region and a spokesperson for the Luka Doncic Foundation tells ESPN of his immediate plans to take care of the funerals and counseling -- and a long-term commitment to provide whatever other assistance is needed.
https://twitter.com/wojespn/status/1654213930477326336
Steve Kerr on Budenholzer: "My first response is not shock but disappointment ... this is the business we're in. Expectations for every team are so high, and only one team can win. We all believe Bud deserved better, but we're all aware this is the job we chose."
https://twitter.com/johnhollinger/status/1654265868115746816
NBA officials tonight:
76ers vs. Celtics: Scott Foster (#48), Ben Taylor (#46), Mark Lindsay (#29), Aaron Smith (#51)
Suns vs. Nuggets: Zach Zarba (#15), James Williams (#60), Sean Corbin (#33), Justin Van Duyne (#64)
Suns win, finally. Not as sure about the other game. I’d like to see Philly win.
I want to personally apologize for doubting JMG the GOAT
Samsies, he is all that we ever wanted afterall
Quality over quantity!
I think EVERYONE is missing the key to the Warriors win. It was Poole's quick foul trouble that limited his time on the court! Let's hope he can repeat that performance -better than hitting some 3s and giving up that or more on the other side...
Ouch !
@Tim Kawakami
5/4/23 7:56pm during game 2
“Poole walked into the tunnel after he was taken out and Iguodala went down there with him. Now Poole is back for Curry.“
Igoudala gets the assist of the game here.
Coincidentally, his only assist of the year.
As hot a take as gazpacho
He's frustrated... he should be frustrated. He's also an emotional guy, not some stoic like Looney. Dre has had to have that talk with Dray... for obvious reasons.
Should just let him walk straight out of chase - crap attitude is spreading to others in the team looks like
Clown
There's a reason Kerr said he needed Iguodala lol, he knew what type of season this could be even if the organization didn't.
If by "the organization" you mean Bob, I suspect Bob knew.
Bob is devil’s advocate this season, pay the man so he’ll stop fooling around with found money
that’s the leadership right there or babysitting qualities
Poole really acting funny these days
I might use a different word than funny, but agree with the general sentiment. This guy just can't get out of his own way.
Entitled?
Yep, or self-centered, immature, etc. Could also remove "acting" from the statement.
I really have to stress this point; it'd be easier to grasp his actions if his bread was on the line or not guaranteed. But the guy landed a near-max contract, even outdoing Wiggins and probably Draymond too. So, why not just concentrate on winning the championship? It would set the stage for a sweet trade and boost his rep. Honestly, this kind of shortsighted behavior just baffles me.
I hope he has a hell of rest of the playoffs so he’ll boost his value
fouled and fouled again
6pts and 5 fouls, that’s a goat statline
So, something's been niggling at my brain for the last couple hours.
Before the series started, Timpf predicted that the Dubs would need to run a lot of high PnR with Curry to counteract the AD-led paint defense of the Lakers. He was fairly certain that their base motion offense wasn't going to cut it, and talked extensively about how the Lakers perimeter defenders because of their length and athleticism would most likely be able to successfully top-lock the Dubs' guards and chase over the screens successfully with back pressure. High PnR counters that as it pulls everything further out and AD can't drop as deep into the paint as he does, creating greater space in the paint. High PnR also gives Curry more room to operate as he can reject the screen or the screener can flip the screen, which gives him an extra option forcing the defender to be slow a half step.
And we saw exactly that play out all game 2. Furthermore, we also saw the motion offense work successfully when AD was on the bench.
So the niggle is: If Timpf, who's at best, a lay analyst and commentator, could see this, I have to believe the Dubs' coaches also saw this despite their 36 hour turnaround to Game 1. Then, why didn't they execute this earlier?
Game 1 essentially came down to a random ending where the Dubs tried motion offense all game, and eventually went down double-digits after hitting brick wall after brick wall. In the closing minutes, they switched it up and went to more Curry-centric high PnR, closed the gap, and they made it a random ending game. If they had gone to this strategy just a few minutes earlier, their chances of winning the game would've improved. Why not try it Q2? or Q3 after it was clear the motion offense was stalling and the Lakers were flirting with double-digit leads?
I get the reasons for not doing this as a default G1 offense, and I get why the motion offense gets everyone involved better, but goddamn, G1 and G2 offenses were night and day, and it really feels like the Dubs missed an opportunity by not making an earlier adjustment during G1. Was it Kerr's stubbornness at trying to hold onto his motion offense and make it work in spite of 3.5 quarters (as well as 3 regular season games) of evidence that it wasn't working? Or did the Dubs just not see it until the end of the game? Or am I overstating this one adjustment, and G2 was actually about something else altogether?
I think it's G1 that was about something else. Everything about that game indicates Dubs were in energy conservation mode for three quarters, hoping to have enough for a push in the 4th. I'm pretty sure they intended all along to wait go to Curry on ball until about when they did. Just watching, Curry obviously didn't have enough left to be on ball all game. I do agree that they were about 3-4 minutes late in implementing. I'm not sure anyone would have anticipated the extent of on-ball success in Q4 though.
Could be that coaches thought it best to just let the Warriors play without too much extra thinking of new schemes etc. -especially after the long series and and emotional game seven.
See what transpired in game one, how the Lakers were playing, get a feel for what might work, etc. Then watch the film, talk to the players about possibilities and options, and see what they all would come up with. as a style of play.
Whatever the reasons it worked for game two ! Next one is a different (new) game.
Every time the Warriors get in a rut or lose a single playoff game, lots of fans and observers says "Kerr needs to run more Curry P&R! Why does he insist on so much of this beautiful game motion offense stuff when it's not working?!?!!". This is not new or insightful, imo. It may be mostly correct in this instance... and we'll see how the series goes along with how the Lakers adjust.
IMO, the motion offense shows you a ton of how a defense is reacting, what they're doing well, and where are the advantages. There's so much motion and so many different actions that you generate so much data about how to appraoch the rest of the series. You have to win 4 of 7 games, so risking one game for valuable data is worthwhile... it's like Wordle, your first 2-3 words should always be guesses with new letters to gain data so you can use that data trying to guess the right word in the last 3-4 tries.
Kerr is playing the long game - no need to show any more cards than necessary. A single game does not make a series.
Timpf is a Lakers and LeBron super-fan, a sharp basketball analytical mind, and has been following them under a microscope all season. The Warriors staff had a day and a half at best to turn from "how the heck do we beat the Kings" to "what should we do against the Lakers"? And as Eric notes, Steph must have been exhausted.
So you’re saying Timpf saw things the Dubs coaches didn’t see?
Yes, I think that's probably true, or saw things with a different emphasis or color to them. It's literally his job, and he's good at it, and the Lakers as I said are his #1 focus.
Also, it's one thing to see something as an opportunity and another to be responsible for trying it out in real time against a real opponent with consequences. Arm-chair quarterbacking is always easier because if you're wrong there are no real consequences.
My speculation is that one factor was that Steph was wiped after going Super Saiyan in SAC Game 7 with so much on-ball creation and emotional drama, just a day and a half earlier, so they wanted to explore non-Steph heavy approaches first.
I get that... but then they went with it for the closing minutes of the game, and it literally ended up being a random ending. JP just needed to channel Steph a little bit better for that 30' shot. I guess hindsight is 20/20, but it seems like just a handful of more posessions of Steph-centric high PnR instead of stilted motion offense that couldn't penetrate would've pushed game 1 out of the "random ending" category and secured a W.
I'm guessing they had so many problems, they had to pick one to try to fix in game 1.
Draymond leaving the reservation mentally.
ineffective DDV
Steph being kept under wraps.
Slowing AD down.
?? there were more, but I'm forgetting the specifics.
I would guess that they mostly were trying to get Draymond focused and find a way to slow down AD (he really had a monster of a game). It's more than possible that they trusted Steph would figure out how to be effective (he's done so before), so it wasn't the most urgent thing.
Only so many things you can work on at once.
Probably true. I think when it’s unfolding in-game, you don’t know if it’s the scheme, the execution or the matchups, so they probably kept trying to turn all those knobs before they found something that worked.
It just felt like Steph High PnR should've been one of the first knobs they turned, not one of the last knobs, and not turning it earlier cost them game 1.
Nice to be transitioning from the old mother cupcake warriors. Rebranding FTW.