207 Comments

SCW are on NBA TV rn

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Also on the local channel. Wise still much better offensively than defensively but looking more comfortable, rebounding well, and importantly not fouling. JW's hook near the cup is legit. First breakout shooting game from PBJ has been fun. When he makes it looks Klay-like, and when he misses it also looks Klay-like in that his misses are way off. Since I started watching Rollins has been scoring really well - coupla treys, and his usual good shiftiness inside the arc; still wish he would pass more.

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59 58 OKC/SCW at the half

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My favorite plays of last night were the two offensive garbage time plays:

1. Kuminga gets the ball with Hauser defending him, a clear athletic mismatch. He recognizes this and starts trying to get his teammates in positions so he can draw in the defense and set somebody up. Nobody knows where to go, so Kuminga just says “f it” and gets to the rim easily.

2. Kuminga again finds himself isolated in Hauser, drives across the lane to draw the defense, clearly not actually trying to score, and passes out, then everybody on the team tries the same thing: drive and kick to set somebody up because everybody wanted to help somebody else get a shot up… until Moody gets left holding the bag.

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Stephen Curry Really Has a LOOK AWAY SHOTS Mix 🤯| Golden State Warriors: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRbhVSw3dfs

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You'd think after the Finals, the Celtics wouldnt stick to drop coverage on Steph.

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See below...

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So, what is the Celtics bench this year?

No Gallo, so:

Brogdon

Horford

Grant Williams (assuming Robert Williams starts)

Derrick White

Blake Griffin

Basically the only significant difference is Brogdon. I suspect they may be in the market for an bench upgrade before we are.

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Maybe I'm not watching the opponent correctly, but Derrick White seems to me a much more impactful player than Grant Williams.

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Yeah ... I wasn't putting any order on the list. White is solid, I think.

Grant Williams is a guy they depended on a lot last year. I haven't watched enough Celtics ball to have a sense for how good he is (he was injured in the playoffs, so can't judge from that, necessarily).

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White always shows out against us

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He’s been pretty erratic shooting the three against us, actually. But his defense and hustle are top notch.

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Stephen Curry & Klay Thompson lead Warriors over Celtics, Jayson Tatum Struggles | Hoops Tonight : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v51EiPQ0CFc

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also appreciate his love for Klay - saying he was never worried about Klay at all this season and how great Klay's D was.

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Boston played against the Warriors last night like they fully believe they were the better team in the finals last year. And just happened to lose. So they have learned nothing.

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Still have no idea why Boston is running drop against the warriors.

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Dec 11, 2022·edited Dec 11, 2022

The real answer is there is no good defense against the Warriors when we’re making shots like that and not fouling on the defensive end or turning it over a lot. If they start switching everything we run them through the wringer running screening actions followed by screening actions until they make a mistake, or we spread the floor and get Steph isolated, run pick and roll, etc. During the Finals their defense actually held up pretty well in most of the games and it was their offense that failed them. The game they faired the worst in drop coverage was game one and they won that game…

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Dec 11, 2022·edited Dec 11, 2022

Feels like forever ago, but it was just half a year ago, worth a rewatch:

Why no one guards Steph Curry this way | NBA Finals Game 4 analysis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6_vawdzRok

In that game our ORTG was a decent (but hardly spectacular in this era) 112.6 and scored only 107 points, but our defense held them to an anemic 102.1 ORTG.

https://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/202206100BOS.html

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Without Horford and RWIII and still with the drop too.

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Well, that went just as I had predicted. Of course, y'all didn't know it was Opposite Day at my house so I had Boston bludgeoning the Dubs. Well, will take a Dub W over hurt pride any day. Too bad we have to wait until the playoffs to see that on a regular basis. To the NBA, the Warriors are the monster under the bed. Mostly out of sight, imaginary, until you find yourself in a nightmare playoff series against them.

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The Kuminga performance was a real treat and like fanfic, loved tonight. Honestly gets me more excited than any other Warrior… until Steph hits a 29 footer.

Huge win

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Dec 11, 2022Liked by Eric Apricot, punk basketball, Daniel Hardee

Report from Chase: that “let’s go Warriors” chant that started in the upper bowl in the third quarter? Yeah, that was us. The guy standing and screaming his lungs out when Kuminga took it right at Tatum? Yeah, that was me.

Warriors were in Championship form tonight. We still have Tatum’s number.

One more observation: Jalen Brown loves to go hard at Kuminga. Maybe he heard that Kuminga is supposed to be the next Jalen Brown and wants to establish dominance. Kuminga will be more than Jalen Brown will ever be (ok, that’s irrationally optimistic).

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This win was an early Christmas present. And, more hopefully, a prequel to the Christmas game with Memphis.

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Dec 11, 2022Liked by punk basketball

Is there any way we can stop using Twitter as the tool to embed video and our analysis. The bird site and it's new owners have seriously devolved into a right wing hell scape of Q'non and bad faith arguments.

I know this may be somewhat hard to differentiate vs NBA Twitter in general but there is a real difference.

Also, this win over Boston almost makes up for the pain of the loss to Utah.

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author

I can’t WAIT for basketball twitter to move somewhere else

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Let's not wait. Let's lead!

I am sure someone in this group is technical enough to stand up a Warriors Mastodon server and give us a refuge. Personally, I am @jonahstein@sfba.social but I do not know if the SFBA admins are fans or would welcome a deluge of smack talking fans.

Convincing Slater/Thompson/Etc will be harder but IMO the NBA is the most "woke" league in professional sports, the Warriors are the most "woke" team in the league, so why not us first?

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I really thought we would get clobbered heading into this game, especially with Wiggins out. I’m so glad our players proved me wrong.

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Man, I gotta say, I was not optimistic going into this game. Hard to be more pleased with the result. Still a really tough trip coming up, but at least we're not on a L3 streak coming in. 3-3 road trip would be really nice. Then with an 8-game homestand, maybe we can makeup some ground. But have to build on this. 2 quick losses and these positive vibes go away fast.

Also, I still really like Poole, but he's not an elite shooter, merely a good one. His shot selection is Trae-like and I'm not sure it's good for the team to be so. It does help the spacing though.

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Poole was chuckin last night

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A lot of guys who are inconsistent shooters at 23 become more consistent shooters as they hit their mid-late 20s. Especially hard workers who are already excellent FT shooters like JP.

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See: Wiggins, Andrew

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Other than getting kicked out, did Grant Williams have any effect on the game at all? I didn't see it if he did. He talks a lot, but...

Also, I thought Brogdon scored well against the Dubs in the first half - but I think he only scored 3-4 points in the second half. Box score says he played 23 minutes. How many of those were in the 2nd half?

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NBA Western Conference Standings:

1. Pelicans (17-8)

2. Grizzlies (17-9, 0.5 games behind)

3. Nuggets (16-10, 1.5 GB)

4. Suns (16-10, 1.5 GB)

5. Kings (14-10, 2.5 GB)

6. Trail Blazers (14-12, 3.5 GB)

7. Clippers (15-13, 3.5 GB)

8. Warriors (14-13, 4.0 GB)

9. Jazz (15-14, 4.0 GB)

10. Mavericks (13-13, 4.5 GB)

11. Timberwolves (13-13, 4.5 GB)

12. Thunder (11-15, 6.5 GB)

13. Lakers (10-15, 7.0 GB)

14. Spurs (8-18, 9.5 GB)

15. Rockets (7-18, 10.0 GB)

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Only the Spurs and Rockets are comfortably where they want to be.

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Long story short, Western Conference is intense. No one in the #1-11 spots are safe.

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I predict that the Blazers/Jazz/TWolves will be the odd teams out of those top 11.

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https://twitter.com/957thegame/status/1601806545150361600

Jonathan Kuminga on defending Tatum/Brown tonight:

"I'm confident in guarding anybody in the league."

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Let's hope Giannis doesn't see this comment.

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