Explain One Play: Kevon Looney and ice-cold Steph Curry's gravity save Warriors in wild ending; plus Poole breaks ankles
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Explain One Play: Kevon Looney and ice-cold Steph Curry's gravity save Warriors in wild ending; plus Poole breaks ankles
The good kind of random ending
A list of all Explain One Play articles and videos is at The new Explain One Play index.
The Warriors survived a highly random ending against the Jazz in 2022.01.23.UTA-GSW with some hustling play by Kevon Looney and the gravity of the ice-cold shooting Steph Curry. We look at all the plays down the stretch and look at a very special ankle-breaking bonus play by Jordan Poole.
Co-starring Andrew Wiggins and Otto Porter Jr, along with a benchful of good citizens just trying to keep the court clean. With Jordan Clarkson, Mike Conley Jr, Royce O’Neal, Joe Ingles, and Bojan Bogdanović.
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Explain One Play: Kevon Looney and ice-cold Steph Curry's gravity save Warriors in wild ending; plus Poole breaks ankles
With where Looney was positioned on the clutch rebound+and1, I don't even really think it was lucky. I think if you break down all the places the ball could realistically go given the proximity and softness of Poole's shot, Looney is grabbing the majority of them with his position. If that ball goes to Paschall's side, Looney's probably grabbing it. If it goes to the open, opposite side, Looney is probably fending Ingles off or just using his reach advantage to get that (or perhaps more likely, OPJ is getting that). Unless that ball goes straight to Ingles or is a long rebound, I think the Warriors had it well covered. Poole missed the shot but his great ball fake made it pretty easy for Looney to cover a miss.
And then like you said, a smart play to just go up and get the ball as high as possible before releasing, knowing that the Jazz were too small to get up there.
EDIT: Regarding that transition defense, what they could have done is that Poole could have stayed more with Ingles and trusted that OPJ get O'Neale if he goes to the paint (and give up an O'Neale 3 rather than an Ingles/Bogdanovic 3). It's a bang bang play though and O'Neale is actually shooting a higher percentage from three than those guys, so it's tough to blame Poole for stopping the ball.
For the fast break 3, Wiggins got himself stuck going under the basket for the offensive rebound. Probably he should have just gone back for defense. In a 5 point game with 35 seconds left, you definitely need to prevent transition opportunity first.