When things are as rough as they are with the Golden State Warriors, you will absolutely take moral victories. So yes, the Warriors lost yet again - their 45th on the season - but a number of players kicked in meaningful contributions (they just couldn’t compete with Zion Williamson’s 28 points and 7 rebounds).
Golden State was led by Damion Lee (22 points, 4 rebounds, 4 assists), and Juan Toscano-Anderson (16 points, 5 rebounds, and some really solid defense against Williamson).
Poole was taking Jrue Holiday off the dribble repeatedly.
As always, this is just a placeholder for the community to congregate and work through yet another loss. Daniel Hardee will be along tomorrow with your full recap.
Multiple Warriors will head to LA tomorrow for the Kobe Bryant memorial service, before returning to action Tuesday - when they host the Sacramento Kings.
Kirk Lacob explaining why he likes Dragan Bender. Kirk Lacob. For reasons that have nothing to do with Bender, we're so fucked once the Curry era is over lol. Enjoy it while it lasts.
GhostRidingTheInjuryCart: Enter the Dragan!
EricApricot: D Lee is track to score 100 points. If this continues, the game should be close. There’s no way GSW keeps hitting 50% from 3
BadlyBrowned: Bowman needs to figure out his 3pt shot, because a no-shoot 6'1" PG is a no-go in the NBA...
Servant Of Luna: Pelicans: 16/38 threes, Warriors: 11/32 threes. Why do everyone destroy us beyond the arc?
EricApricot: Well, if Wiggins had shot better than 3-16, the game would have definitely been Close Enough To Make It Exciting™
I really hope the Warriors work really heavily on their 3pt defense. They're 30th this year and it's the single biggest reason they're the worst team in the league as opposed to middle of the pack bad. Steph and Klay will help somewhat, but the team as a whole has dropped down from a 2016-2017 peak in 3P%. Maybe it's partly bad luck, but it's an incredibly worrying trend.
The Warriors heavily prioritize helping inside the paint, and so even last year with all the long and smart defenders that had played together for years, the Warriors had stretches where they looked vulnerable to swing passes and kickouts off penetration for wide open 3s.
Now we have smaller, shorter, and less experienced/less snart defenders out there.
Well, one thing to consider - the Bucks this year are putting on one of the best defensive performances ever...yet they're 3rd to last in 3's given up, and a bit below average in the shooting % on those shots. What do the Bucks do well? They protect the paint better than anyone.
The second best defensive team in the league is also bottom 3 in 3's allowed (Raptors), though they at least have the best 3pt% defense. So giving up 3's may not be that terrible, though being dead last in 3pt% given up certainly needs improvement.
Yeah, I think even in 16-17 the Warriors gave up like the 10th most 3ptA, but were great at Opp. 3pt%. I still think even starting last year the Warriors were lapsing into giving up wide open 3s though.
Obviously, you dont want to give up open dunks and layups, but the Warriors tend to do it to a fault and tend to help too much / too hard inside.
Things like moving to double in the post before the ballhandler has started his dribble, making it an easy read and pass for the ballhandler. Or players helping way too hard one pass away even when their man is a shooting threat (I recall Ky Bowman helping one pass away off of Melli last night).
Probably the biggest issue is I find that our secondary rotations after the primary help defender rotates tends to be slow and/or out of position a lot. Instead of "helping the helper" our secondary guys are still be cheating inside and thus can't close out well when the ball gets kicked out to the perimeter.
Even when healthy our wings will be Klay and Wiggins, two guys with not so great reputations with their off-ball defensive awareness....
And there's a confounding variable in both the Bucks and DurantDubs v1. They were killing teams by so much, the other team had to start taking 3s to stay in it at all. That's certainly not an issue this year.
I think if there was one thing I would focus on its better defending the corner. Protect the paint, sure, but open corner 3's? Those are death by another name just as surely.
Yeah agreed, I think our personal of the last couple of seasons kind of just made the 3p defence happen themselves through their experience and smarts. It definitely doesn't look like a priority for this team scheme wise
It is pretty crazy though how not only did the small ball death line up change the league offensively, but the switch everything defence that team ran also heavily influenced the league as well.
How often has a teams utter domination change the league on both sides of the ball like the warriors did
Randomly, since I happened to be paying attention to this: a bunch of Dubs helped too far off Melli and Reddick, contributing to the Pels beating us on threes. Bowman was one of the ones I remember seeing make that mistake (he had a pretty fantastic game otherwise though); not sure who else, maybe Poole and Smiley?
But you know who didn't make that mistake, despite having a really lackluster game otherwise? Kevon Looney. The moment he came in, he was glued to Melli in the half court and followed him around without giving a lot of room to shoot. Always a smart, disciplined defender, that guy.
Zion is a matchup nightmare, hope the pels somehow squeeze into the 8 seed so I can watch him go straight through Lebron's chest a few times. Sheesh that kid's gonna be scary in a few years
Crazy to see someone that can bully Paschall around out there. How many wings do you think are stronger than Paschall? The only ones I can think of are Zion and LeBron, and I'm not even sure LeBron is stronger than him.
Yeah, you start to get into the big wings that can play Center (PJ Tucker comes to mind as someone that just doesn't move when they get banged into - but even he is nowhere near the imposing overall presence of Bron and Zion)
I keep hearing people use Barkley as a comparison, which I can see. But to me honestly watching him feels more like watching a 6ft6 Shaq. The level of strength, size and explosiveness is insane.
Genuinely hope he stays healthy, because he is going to be an absolute menace in this league if he does.
Duby, if we want folks to comment in here/join, we need be a user-friendly site. That means chronological order of the comments and responses as they come in, that we may best follow the thread, and not the weighing BS! There, I've said my piece and will say no more. I imagine this comment will go to the bottom of the thread, anyway.
As Apricot has mentioned below, this is high on our list of requests for Substack. It's just brutal for the game threads, if nothing else.
I have to warn you that I know nothing about computers, but as a non-expert that uses them daily, I'd like to think a simple toggle to switch between this system and a "sort by new" wouldn't be all that hard.
Bottom line is that we know, we care, and we are working on it!!
Yes, we all hate it. Believe me nobody at LGW wants it the current way. The alternatives are my bookmarklet, or we keep bothering Substack to improve the comments.
I actually don't hate it. Sure, I prefer SBNation's way of doing things, but I find this tends to make it fairly easy to keep up with new comments since new comments tends to go to the top.
But there is now way to tell if you've actually read the comment, So in longer comments sections it is very hard to follow. I don't care how they accomplish this but I can see how most users would appreciate a better way to manage their reading.
I do like the Vox way better, chronological with unread comments color coded yellow. I don't care about giving someone a lawn either. 5 "hearts" is green to me now.
No doubt, like I said, SBNation's way is better, but I've also dealt with worse than this. As long as they don't have the full functionality of read/next comment yet this seems to work pretty well I think.
I do see it Substack’s way though. They have a model based on comment TO THE AUTHOR. So for that, they want to surface the “best” comment. We are based on people talking TO EACH OTHER.
Substack person here. We really appreciate all the feedback, and appreciate you bearing with us.
First things first: I've made the sort order (reverse) chronological for you guys. You comment at the top, new comments show up at the top, and the order of the old stuff doesn't change. (*reverse* chronological because it was a faster change for us to make and try out)
Let me know if that helps!
One Q I have: is the desire for chronological basically so that it's easy to deal with while the game is live? Would it be nice if it was chronological for the first day, but then if you went back to an old thread it would start with the top comments, or would that be too confusing?
For me it’s following the thread. Especially during a live game. I get some may like a reverse thread but it loses the flow for me. When I go back to a thread and the order changes it’s pretty frustrating (even trying to find this comment was a challenge). Thanks for asking for feedback, hopefully it can get worked out soon.
If use device with a physical keyboard, bookmarklet solution mentioned in Apricot's post "Experimenting ...." seems a good workaround for now. With physical keyboard, you get GSOM like functionality in all aspects.
Using the same on phone will order the comments the right way but you cant do "Next Unread" (atleast not for now).
See that article for other caveats.
Installation in either case takes couple of minutes.
Eric, is there any way I can either change the font size or zoom in on the page. I mostly read on my Android and the font size is awfully small for old eyes. Also, when the replies get too many and the comments start piling there becomes a point where the text moves to the right and right off my phone screen. It becomes impossible to read as my screen cannot move right on this page. I know I'm missing some great fan comments!
Toscano-Anderson looked like an NBA rotation player this game, easily. He made shots at a good rate, dished out dimes, and was impressive on defense.
And yeah, my current opinion on Bender is he does not look like an NBA player. Constantly out of position, easily taken off-balance by guards on the perimeter, and not nearly effective enough at defending the paint. Sure, Jrue Holiday and Zion Williamson are not easy matchups, but there are plenty more tough matchups in the NBA. The positioning thing is something the coaching staff (Zaza!!) can probably work on with him, and he shoots threes well enough to be an intriguing fit with the Splash Bros, but he certainly looks like *a project* right now.
T-A looked great earlier in the season when we called him up. The margins are so thin between NBA rotation and a life in the G League, but I really like him and hope he sticks (somewhere, if not here)
Being competitive to a good team and losing makes feel bubbly inside. Leading by double digits to a marginal team just to blow said lead with hideous defense (Here's looking at you Damion Lee) and Dragan Bender going full Jeremy Pargo is really starting to make this shit unenjoyable
I stopped watching the game as closely when it became obvious we were going to lose...but I really don't remember hideous D from Damion Lee, were there any specific possessions standing out in your mind?
I really hope the Warriors work really heavily on their 3pt defense. They're 30th this year and it's the single biggest reason they're the worst team in the league as opposed to middle of the pack bad. Steph and Klay will help somewhat, but the team as a whole has dropped down from a 2016-2017 peak in 3P%. Maybe it's partly bad luck, but it's an incredibly worrying trend.
It's a trend years in the making.
The Warriors heavily prioritize helping inside the paint, and so even last year with all the long and smart defenders that had played together for years, the Warriors had stretches where they looked vulnerable to swing passes and kickouts off penetration for wide open 3s.
Now we have smaller, shorter, and less experienced/less snart defenders out there.
Well, one thing to consider - the Bucks this year are putting on one of the best defensive performances ever...yet they're 3rd to last in 3's given up, and a bit below average in the shooting % on those shots. What do the Bucks do well? They protect the paint better than anyone.
The second best defensive team in the league is also bottom 3 in 3's allowed (Raptors), though they at least have the best 3pt% defense. So giving up 3's may not be that terrible, though being dead last in 3pt% given up certainly needs improvement.
Yeah, I think even in 16-17 the Warriors gave up like the 10th most 3ptA, but were great at Opp. 3pt%. I still think even starting last year the Warriors were lapsing into giving up wide open 3s though.
Obviously, you dont want to give up open dunks and layups, but the Warriors tend to do it to a fault and tend to help too much / too hard inside.
Things like moving to double in the post before the ballhandler has started his dribble, making it an easy read and pass for the ballhandler. Or players helping way too hard one pass away even when their man is a shooting threat (I recall Ky Bowman helping one pass away off of Melli last night).
Probably the biggest issue is I find that our secondary rotations after the primary help defender rotates tends to be slow and/or out of position a lot. Instead of "helping the helper" our secondary guys are still be cheating inside and thus can't close out well when the ball gets kicked out to the perimeter.
Even when healthy our wings will be Klay and Wiggins, two guys with not so great reputations with their off-ball defensive awareness....
And there's a confounding variable in both the Bucks and DurantDubs v1. They were killing teams by so much, the other team had to start taking 3s to stay in it at all. That's certainly not an issue this year.
I think if there was one thing I would focus on its better defending the corner. Protect the paint, sure, but open corner 3's? Those are death by another name just as surely.
"They were killing teams by so much, the other team had to start taking 3s to stay in it at all."
I wonder how true that is. Has anyone done anything to look at it?
I will admit, I do not know. I've heard it espoused by others but won't claim to have seen any research on it.
Yeah agreed, I think our personal of the last couple of seasons kind of just made the 3p defence happen themselves through their experience and smarts. It definitely doesn't look like a priority for this team scheme wise
It is pretty crazy though how not only did the small ball death line up change the league offensively, but the switch everything defence that team ran also heavily influenced the league as well.
How often has a teams utter domination change the league on both sides of the ball like the warriors did
Randomly, since I happened to be paying attention to this: a bunch of Dubs helped too far off Melli and Reddick, contributing to the Pels beating us on threes. Bowman was one of the ones I remember seeing make that mistake (he had a pretty fantastic game otherwise though); not sure who else, maybe Poole and Smiley?
But you know who didn't make that mistake, despite having a really lackluster game otherwise? Kevon Looney. The moment he came in, he was glued to Melli in the half court and followed him around without giving a lot of room to shoot. Always a smart, disciplined defender, that guy.
Was bummed. Not from the loss but I really wanted to see Zion go up against Green.
Zion is a matchup nightmare, hope the pels somehow squeeze into the 8 seed so I can watch him go straight through Lebron's chest a few times. Sheesh that kid's gonna be scary in a few years
If he stays healthy... Heck of a lot of weight to be throwing around
More like if the guys guarding him can stay healthy. You see what he was doing to poor Smiley last night?
yeah, he outweighs him by 70+ pounds.
He's got that brutal combination of size and speed like LeBron. Pretty much everyone will be either too small for him, or big enough and too slow.
Crazy to see someone that can bully Paschall around out there. How many wings do you think are stronger than Paschall? The only ones I can think of are Zion and LeBron, and I'm not even sure LeBron is stronger than him.
Yeah, you start to get into the big wings that can play Center (PJ Tucker comes to mind as someone that just doesn't move when they get banged into - but even he is nowhere near the imposing overall presence of Bron and Zion)
I keep hearing people use Barkley as a comparison, which I can see. But to me honestly watching him feels more like watching a 6ft6 Shaq. The level of strength, size and explosiveness is insane.
Genuinely hope he stays healthy, because he is going to be an absolute menace in this league if he does.
Duby, if we want folks to comment in here/join, we need be a user-friendly site. That means chronological order of the comments and responses as they come in, that we may best follow the thread, and not the weighing BS! There, I've said my piece and will say no more. I imagine this comment will go to the bottom of the thread, anyway.
I hear you bro.
As Apricot has mentioned below, this is high on our list of requests for Substack. It's just brutal for the game threads, if nothing else.
I have to warn you that I know nothing about computers, but as a non-expert that uses them daily, I'd like to think a simple toggle to switch between this system and a "sort by new" wouldn't be all that hard.
Bottom line is that we know, we care, and we are working on it!!
It really almost makes this site unreadable. (But I still try).
Yes, we all hate it. Believe me nobody at LGW wants it the current way. The alternatives are my bookmarklet, or we keep bothering Substack to improve the comments.
I actually don't hate it. Sure, I prefer SBNation's way of doing things, but I find this tends to make it fairly easy to keep up with new comments since new comments tends to go to the top.
But there is now way to tell if you've actually read the comment, So in longer comments sections it is very hard to follow. I don't care how they accomplish this but I can see how most users would appreciate a better way to manage their reading.
I do like the Vox way better, chronological with unread comments color coded yellow. I don't care about giving someone a lawn either. 5 "hearts" is green to me now.
I hope LGW can make this better soon 😎
No doubt, like I said, SBNation's way is better, but I've also dealt with worse than this. As long as they don't have the full functionality of read/next comment yet this seems to work pretty well I think.
I do see it Substack’s way though. They have a model based on comment TO THE AUTHOR. So for that, they want to surface the “best” comment. We are based on people talking TO EACH OTHER.
Does this mean they are working to change it or is their intent to keep the comments as is?
The exchange basically goes
US: "Here's a list of features we want, need, and some far out requests."
Substack: "Ok, here's our response with either near term, long term, or not possible"
I need to double check, but the sorting comments was something they were looking into
Substack person here. We really appreciate all the feedback, and appreciate you bearing with us.
First things first: I've made the sort order (reverse) chronological for you guys. You comment at the top, new comments show up at the top, and the order of the old stuff doesn't change. (*reverse* chronological because it was a faster change for us to make and try out)
Let me know if that helps!
One Q I have: is the desire for chronological basically so that it's easy to deal with while the game is live? Would it be nice if it was chronological for the first day, but then if you went back to an old thread it would start with the top comments, or would that be too confusing?
(Thanks again for your feedback and patience)
For me it’s following the thread. Especially during a live game. I get some may like a reverse thread but it loses the flow for me. When I go back to a thread and the order changes it’s pretty frustrating (even trying to find this comment was a challenge). Thanks for asking for feedback, hopefully it can get worked out soon.
Thanks Duby. I appreciate that you guys all seem to know what works well and are communicating that to those in charge.
yeah, and the coolest part (to me, anyways) is that now that we aren't under Vox anymore, I know that these suggestions actually carry some weight.
Vox crammed in extra adds, called it "improved features" and then stuffed all complaints directly to their spam folders
Which will happen when Curry returns, so I hope Substack realizes this.
If use device with a physical keyboard, bookmarklet solution mentioned in Apricot's post "Experimenting ...." seems a good workaround for now. With physical keyboard, you get GSOM like functionality in all aspects.
Using the same on phone will order the comments the right way but you cant do "Next Unread" (atleast not for now).
See that article for other caveats.
Installation in either case takes couple of minutes.
Working on the phone Next Unread...
Eric, is there any way I can either change the font size or zoom in on the page. I mostly read on my Android and the font size is awfully small for old eyes. Also, when the replies get too many and the comments start piling there becomes a point where the text moves to the right and right off my phone screen. It becomes impossible to read as my screen cannot move right on this page. I know I'm missing some great fan comments!
Thank you for all you do! 😎
I’ll put on request list... have some showstopper bugs to work out first
I can't believe Dragan hasn't even practiced with the team! He has a lot of promise.
Bender the robot looked pretty bad on D. I found myself yelling multiple times "YOU ARE 7' TALL" as he backpedaled away from the pelicans.
Toscano Anderson on the other hand looked much better than in his previous games on defense. His shot looks decent too. I hope we keep him around.
Toscano-Anderson looked like an NBA rotation player this game, easily. He made shots at a good rate, dished out dimes, and was impressive on defense.
And yeah, my current opinion on Bender is he does not look like an NBA player. Constantly out of position, easily taken off-balance by guards on the perimeter, and not nearly effective enough at defending the paint. Sure, Jrue Holiday and Zion Williamson are not easy matchups, but there are plenty more tough matchups in the NBA. The positioning thing is something the coaching staff (Zaza!!) can probably work on with him, and he shoots threes well enough to be an intriguing fit with the Splash Bros, but he certainly looks like *a project* right now.
I really like him too. My daughter asked who he is. I told her his name ans she said his name is "wonton"? So now we call him wonton.
He had me at "snatch the ball from Westbrook"....
T-A looked great earlier in the season when we called him up. The margins are so thin between NBA rotation and a life in the G League, but I really like him and hope he sticks (somewhere, if not here)
Ron Adams 🤔
Top players:
Pelicans:
Holiday: (+21)
23 points 10/17 FGs 3/7 three pointers
7 rebounds (2 off.) 15 assists 5 turnovers 1 block
Williamson: (+20)
28 points 13/20 FGs 1/1 three pointer 1/6 FTs
7 rebounds (6 off.) 2 assists 1 turnover 1 steal
Melli: (+5)
20 points 7/8 FGs 6/7 three pointers
5 rebounds (3 off.) 1 assist 1 turnover 1 block
Honorable mention:
Ingram: (+14)
17 points 5/18 FGs 2/7 three pointers 5/5 FTs
4 rebounds 5 assists 3 turnovers 2 steals
Favors: (+13)
6 points 3/4 FGs 0/1 FT
11 rebounds (2 off.) 1 assist 1 block
Warriors:
Lee: (-8)
22 points 9/15 FGs 4/8 three pointers
4 rebounds 4 assists 3 turnovers 1 steal 1 block
Poole: (-20)
19 points 8/14 FGs 1/4 three pointers 2/3 FTs
5 rebounds 5 assists 4 turnovers
Toscano-Anderson: (+6)
16 points 6/10 FGs 3/5 three pointers 1/1 FT
8 rebounds 3 assists 1 turnover 1 steal 2 blocks
Bowman: (-7)
15 points 6/12 FGs 0/3 three pointers 3/3 FTs
6 rebounds (2 off.) 7 assists 1 turnover 3 steals 1 block
Honorable mention:
Paschall: (-16)
13 points 5/9 FGs 0/2 three pointers 3/4 FTs
5 rebounds (1 off.) 2 turnovers 1 steal
Final stats:
Pelicans:
46.9% shooting (46/98 FGs)
17/42 three pointers
6/13 FTs
52 rebounds (14 off.)
34 assists
13 turnovers
7 steals
5 blocks
Warriors:
43.5% shooting (40/92 FGs)
11/35 three pointers
10/15 FTs
28 assists
15 turnovers
9 steals
7 blocks
Points in paint:
Pelicans: 52
Warriors: 46
Fastbreak points:
Pelicans: 27
Warriors: 13
Points off turnovers:
Pelicans: 15
Warriors: 17
Bench points:
Pelicans: 39
Warriors: 37
https://derpicdn.net/img/view/2012/12/4/172269.gif
Being competitive to a good team and losing makes feel bubbly inside. Leading by double digits to a marginal team just to blow said lead with hideous defense (Here's looking at you Damion Lee) and Dragan Bender going full Jeremy Pargo is really starting to make this shit unenjoyable
I stopped watching the game as closely when it became obvious we were going to lose...but I really don't remember hideous D from Damion Lee, were there any specific possessions standing out in your mind?
I mostly remember Jrue deciding to go unstoppable, Melli making us pay any time we gave him any space, and Zion just doing beastly Zion things.