Ben Simmons is out for Nets-Suns tonight due to left knee contusion. He returned on Monday after two-month absence, posting 10 points, 11 assists and 8 rebounds vs. Utah. Simmons developed swelling in knee from a hit during game, sources say, but tests showed no further issue.
Sixers star Joel Embiid is out for Thursday's game vs. Utah and will receive further evaluation on his left knee in the next 24 hours, team official tells ESPN.
“When teams are chasing you for 10 years, at some point they’re going to figure it out, make it tough,” Draymond Green said after the game. “You know, it started to get tough. Steve has always been one of the greatest coaches I’ve ever seen at making adjustments, whether that’s in series, whether that’s in games, whether that’s in seasons."
- hmmm, sounds like the dubs FO has surely been reading the great DNHQ commenters!
"You could see it long before he was hurt against the Warriors. Embiid, who missed Philadelphia’s game at Portland on Monday night, looked like a player who pushed himself to play against Golden State because the whole basketball world was screaming in his ear. There are people within the Sixers who are convinced that he played only because of all the scrutiny."
Embid is an adult. I don’t think anybody was twisting his arm to go out and play last night. He is responsible for his actions, whether they were sound or not. We shouldn’t be changing the 65 game rule to accommodate him.
The whole world is always screaming in your ear when you're a celebrity. He chose what to listen to. It's hard to have a lot of people screaming at you, I sympathize with that, but I think he could have also listened to the opposite side. No particularly strong feelings about it but I'm not about to suddenly feel sorry for the guy for playing injured through the storm of user338449897 on TikTok calling him out.
Wow am I not on the side of players whining about the number of games they have to play to qualify for awards and bonuses. First of all, if you object to a contract that offers a bonus for being MVP or all-star or whatnot, don't sign it. You're not a victim here, you're an adult who can negotiate a contract, or ask your agent to. Second of all, if you're injured or impaired, get right in order to help your team. Don't play hurt and blame me because you were *forced* into fighting through injury because you NEEDED to make first team all-NBA. Third of all, the rule is a good change. Draymond lost out on DPOY one year when Kawhi played I think 55 games. That's just not enough. To do something well includes doing it often. Fourth of all, if you do have all these objections, don't expect fan sympathy, at least not this fan. Whether or not you win the award, you will be a multimillionaire and your family will be set up for generations to come. Don't ask us to cry for your lost income, some of your fans are actually struggling paycheck to paycheck. Fifth of all, the awards have always been subject to the whims of things you can't control like injury or the voting quirks of media and fans. Just play well and rest when injured, the rest will sort itself out.
I completely agree. If there’s anyone to blame, it would be the Sixers’ medical staff and coach who let him play and continue to play till the end when he obviously was not 100% okay. And if Embid insisted on playing knowing that he wasn’t 100% good, then he’ll have to share the blame for the injury.
Hey, how about if your job demands you risk your health - physical and/or mental - to earn your bonus this year. Is it your fault if you push through and do it?
Well... do we take the same mentality about people compromising their health for less lucrative careers (e.g. meat packing line workers). There's OSHA for a reason... and professional sports is clearly in a different space. Maybe Haliburton & Embiid can sue the NBA for lost wages due to some of these business practices/incentives... and there's the whole NBAPA, and the "rising tides" effect of perceived increased fan interest/revenue from more stars playing... it's an interesting moral/legal/ethics question, and not a simple story, imo.
No we don’t take the same view for people in far less lucrative careers like coal miners or meat packers. These, like many workers, have far fewer options for work, are making choices about how to make enough money to meet the basics of monthly bills for themselves and their families, and have little to no information about the risks they are taking. Usually quite the opposite: their employers withhold such info, or lie about it. So this is not a relevant comparison.
There are a lot of differences, sure. But remember that for a lot of these players, there’s not a lot of other options, and they’re incentivized to take PEDs and otherwise risk their health for the job. They’re no more or less human… but they are afforded a lot of benefits that those coal miners and meat packers receive… and the risks are lower on the whole.
This is a super-important point (in my opinion) -relevant to life in America but not the NBA. The absence of a social welfare net -and blind belief in (American) capitalism -which is stacked in favor of the rich- creates horrible incentives and heart wrenching choices for many Americans. The fact that so many buy into and vote against their interests is really unfortunate (and though complex in origin speaks to the power of a narrative as opposed to facts and analysis). I believe it is important to have compassion for those whose choices and options are limited, and to work through politics and in other ways to change this -even when it seems hopeless.
I can't wait until someone who's clearly had an inferior season wins over another player because he played 65 games and the other player played 64. It's stupid. Draymond had a very thoughtful monologue on it on his latest podcast.
For the record, I'm not on the side of fans whining about players being entitled.
I'm curious why you are not on the side of fans "whining" about players being entitled. I understand that all whining is annoying. I also understand that it's an open market and players earn what they can earn, that's our system. I even understand that the real robber barons here are the owners. But as a fan, I'm saying that asking me to leap to your defense because you don't make a mega bonus seems pretty tone deaf. Why does it not to you?
-Closer analysis of the clip shows that when Kuminga landed on Embiid's tibia, it did not hyperextend his left knee. Instead, his leg was in a straight line. Doctor believes that Embiid might not be able to tolerate a full extension of his leg(s) since he grabs the back of knee when it was in a straight line.
-Doctor says there is no possibility of a bone bruise/fracture. However, he says there was a damage to the soft tissue on the back of Embiid's knee. He believes the injury occurred somewhere around the hamstring, biceps femoris, or somewhere around the knee capsule.
-A second clip is shown where Embiid is trying to run towards the basket, but his knee gives out in the end. He believes it might be due to tendonitis. He also rules out patellar rupture since the front of his knee didn't get hurt in the first or second clips.
-Doctor says that he is feeling concerned about Embiid's knee when he gets an MRI and that they'll find signs of cartilage irritation, meniscus irritation, and patellar tendonitis.
Yeah, I saw the same thing. Having ruptured a knee ligament myself I watched his knee when Kuminga landed on it. I breathed a sigh of relief for him and assumed whatever pain he was feeling was mostly because of his existing knee issue.
> The Lakers saw Good Dejounte Murray last night. The Hawks saw Bad D'Angelo Russell last night. This paper says that teams do tend to trade for players who have played well against them in the past, often making a mistake by doing so.
Paper linked in the tweet. Never forget D'Angelo Russell putting up 51 against the Wolves on November 8, 2019 and probably influencing them to trade for him per this paper.
"Brandon Jennings. Now there's a name I've not heard for a long, long time."
If I remember right that was the year of the point guard. Researching it, including combo guards, in order in the first round, James Harden, Tyreke Evans (Rookie of the Year), Ricky Rubio, Jonny Flynn, Steph Curry, Brandon Jennings, Jrue Holiday, Ty Lawson, Jeff Teague, Darren Collison, Pat Beverly (2nd Round). That was 2009 and it is amazing that 3 of those guys are still playing at high levels. It is still pretty staggering in retrospect that the Warriors got Curry.
That needs a qualifier. I would say the biggest surprise in Warrior history was getting the last pick in the lottery when they had the worst record. If memory serves. Can't remember what year, but maybe that was before your time Eric,
This Steph-Sabrina thing is going to be fun. Props to Steph for being game. I think there's a pretty good chance he'll lose, which doesn't matter and shouldn't bother him, but almost certainly would bother most other superstars. Can you imagine, say, LeBron signing up for an exhibition like that?
Speaking of women's bball, Caitlin Clark is currently shooting a higher volume from 3 than Steph ever has, and making about 41%. It sucks that she's going to Indiana, imo, but I'm excited for her to accelerate the shift back to pace and space in that league.
Also, W free agency officially starts tomorrow. There could be some pretty significant players on the move. EDD, Nneka, Natasha Cloud...
Yea, I love this. Just one more ultra generous, low ego, fun oriented moment in Steph’s career. How great that what is fun for him is awesome fun for us fans.
> Speaking of women's bball, Caitlin Clark is currently shooting a higher volume from 3 than Steph ever has
True right now, but Steph was close in 2020-2021 at 12.7/game (Clark at 13.1 RN) in basically the same number of minutes per game (34 and 33 respectively). Nobody else in the NBA or college comes close to that volume in the men's or women's game.
Yeah, for sure, and he did it against NBA defenses with a decade's worth of film study and scheming to deny him. I don't mean to suggest that Caitlin is on Steph's level overall right now, just illustrating what a crazy outlier she is.
Nah, don't think so. She's definitely seeing a ton of doubles, box-and-ones, etc., but I don't think there's anything quite like Steph from that perspective.
So, this article (https://bleacherreport.com/articles/10102252-2023-nba-re-draft-who-follows-victor-wembanyama) reminded me that my draft crush was Jarace Walker. It just looked to me like his skill set really fits in with the Dubs. I noticed he is not having an auspicious start to his career and was wondering if we could syeal him. I don't think the pacers would take Loon which is the best fit salary wise. One that works is Moody and CoJo (for salary purposes, and we'd be gambling simultaneously that Podz can handle PG duties and that CP0 comes back ready reasonably soon) but I'm not sure that gets it done either. Still that is the level of trade we might expect. Something that is not immediately impactful ...
As much as I like Moody, I doubt that package is very enticing to the Pacers. Aside from that, the Warriors are actually pretty well set for big men with Loon, Saric, TJD, Green, and Garuba and are a little thin at shooting guard at the moment. There is pretty big drop between Moses and Lester.
Yeah, and the pacers don't seem to need guards so I realize it's not likely. I just really liked Walker pre-draft but I posted as an example of the magnitude of trade (if any) we might see (i.e. no game changer, and probably not even top 9-10 rotation players).
The Warriors seeming to get as many or more whistles in this game as the sixers felt strange. Also rewarding defenders for suddenly stopping in front of an offensive player to try to get a charge and punishing them for continuing to move their feet when an offensive player creates contact is not very wise for a league whose stated goal is for players to be albe to play more games.
Like … that corner three as he was flying sideways out of bounds at a million miles an hour? Or the 1-on-3 pull-up 28-footer with no other Warriors on his side of the court? Or the backwards flip-in over Embiid, off the top of the backboard, and straight through the cords?
Good win but if they don’t win against Philly with Embid having probably his worst shooting performance of the year, no Maxey and coming off a 24 point loss to Portland the night before, the season would definitely had been over.
With that being said, there is some hope with the new lineup, Wiggins improving, JK becoming a legit really good player and DG playing well.
If DG can continue to shoot the 3 well that lineup could be something. They need CP and Moody back so their bench becomes a positive again.
Think you’re underestimating how much of an impact missing Klay and CP3 is, not to mention Moody/GP2. We were plenty handicapped too, it was no guaranteed win.
They were missing Maxey who is their second best player and one of the best guards in the league averaging 25 a game.They were also missing Melton, a starter, and Batum who has been playing 25 minutes a night.
They were also playing on a back to back.
Add that up with the fact Embiid had a terrible game and you see why I said they had to win or it would have been devastating after the last 2 losses.
If Embiid had a typical Embiid game, best case it would have been another last possession game.
Hopefully they can get some positive vibes going now and see what happens.
You are right about the Warriors missing CP and all but they were missing quite a bit and Embiid played like he has been hurt and out of it.
No "but ifs", unless you're going to ignore all the "but ifs" where the Warriors lost games they could easily have won. A win is a win and we won pretty handily.
We tend to do pretty well against Embiid when Draymond is able to guard him a good amount of the game.
My point was simply they should have won that game and if they hadn’t it would have been pretty devastating.
Draymond does defend Embid well but he definitely had an off night and missed a lot of shots he normally makes. For once they got a break instead of seeing someone light it up.
Draymond was not guarding Embid a good portion of the time.
https://dubnationhq.com/p/dnhq-reports-live-from-warriors-win WAIT DID DANIEL HARDEE JUST ASK STEPH CURRY WHO HE WANTS TO WIN THE SUPER BOWL?!
Ben Simmons is out for Nets-Suns tonight due to left knee contusion. He returned on Monday after two-month absence, posting 10 points, 11 assists and 8 rebounds vs. Utah. Simmons developed swelling in knee from a hit during game, sources say, but tests showed no further issue.
https://twitter.com/ShamsCharania/status/1752818058408698108
Sixers star Joel Embiid is out for Thursday's game vs. Utah and will receive further evaluation on his left knee in the next 24 hours, team official tells ESPN.
https://twitter.com/wojespn/status/1752829016334381400
Ah too bad: a faction of DNHQ already traded CP3 and Moody for him. 😢
I thought that was a joke
TK on JK. Really good stuff about how the Dubs are adapting to a different style. I'll try to post some quotes later.
https://theathletic.com/5240239/2024/01/31/jonathan-kuminga-warriors-evolution-kawakami?source=user-shared-article
From the piece:
“When teams are chasing you for 10 years, at some point they’re going to figure it out, make it tough,” Draymond Green said after the game. “You know, it started to get tough. Steve has always been one of the greatest coaches I’ve ever seen at making adjustments, whether that’s in series, whether that’s in games, whether that’s in seasons."
- hmmm, sounds like the dubs FO has surely been reading the great DNHQ commenters!
I will help by starting with the title "Kawakami: Jonathan Kuminga is the change agent in the Warriors’ urgent evolution"
Why Joel Embiid deserved better, and what his injury says about NBA’s 65-game rule
https://theathletic.com/5240548/2024/01/31/joel-embiid-knee-injury-nba-65-game-rule/
"You could see it long before he was hurt against the Warriors. Embiid, who missed Philadelphia’s game at Portland on Monday night, looked like a player who pushed himself to play against Golden State because the whole basketball world was screaming in his ear. There are people within the Sixers who are convinced that he played only because of all the scrutiny."
Embid is an adult. I don’t think anybody was twisting his arm to go out and play last night. He is responsible for his actions, whether they were sound or not. We shouldn’t be changing the 65 game rule to accommodate him.
I'm wondering why Nick Nurse chose to sub him in when Embiid was not looking good last night.
1000%. Or I think you mean, "Embiid seems to be an adult, but sometimes behaves like not one." And this is one of those instances.
That applies to ~110% of adults I know too, fwiw
Including me
[Spiderman meme.gif]
The whole world is always screaming in your ear when you're a celebrity. He chose what to listen to. It's hard to have a lot of people screaming at you, I sympathize with that, but I think he could have also listened to the opposite side. No particularly strong feelings about it but I'm not about to suddenly feel sorry for the guy for playing injured through the storm of user338449897 on TikTok calling him out.
Warriors take down 76ers, LeBron puts pressure on Lakers, Chet vs. Wembanyama | Hoops Tonight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-R-8JApd_bE
love his praise for Wiggs, Dray and JK
Wow am I not on the side of players whining about the number of games they have to play to qualify for awards and bonuses. First of all, if you object to a contract that offers a bonus for being MVP or all-star or whatnot, don't sign it. You're not a victim here, you're an adult who can negotiate a contract, or ask your agent to. Second of all, if you're injured or impaired, get right in order to help your team. Don't play hurt and blame me because you were *forced* into fighting through injury because you NEEDED to make first team all-NBA. Third of all, the rule is a good change. Draymond lost out on DPOY one year when Kawhi played I think 55 games. That's just not enough. To do something well includes doing it often. Fourth of all, if you do have all these objections, don't expect fan sympathy, at least not this fan. Whether or not you win the award, you will be a multimillionaire and your family will be set up for generations to come. Don't ask us to cry for your lost income, some of your fans are actually struggling paycheck to paycheck. Fifth of all, the awards have always been subject to the whims of things you can't control like injury or the voting quirks of media and fans. Just play well and rest when injured, the rest will sort itself out.
I completely agree. If there’s anyone to blame, it would be the Sixers’ medical staff and coach who let him play and continue to play till the end when he obviously was not 100% okay. And if Embid insisted on playing knowing that he wasn’t 100% good, then he’ll have to share the blame for the injury.
Hey, how about if your job demands you risk your health - physical and/or mental - to earn your bonus this year. Is it your fault if you push through and do it?
If you make the decision to risk your health to get a bonus, then you have to live with the consequences.
Well... do we take the same mentality about people compromising their health for less lucrative careers (e.g. meat packing line workers). There's OSHA for a reason... and professional sports is clearly in a different space. Maybe Haliburton & Embiid can sue the NBA for lost wages due to some of these business practices/incentives... and there's the whole NBAPA, and the "rising tides" effect of perceived increased fan interest/revenue from more stars playing... it's an interesting moral/legal/ethics question, and not a simple story, imo.
No we don’t take the same view for people in far less lucrative careers like coal miners or meat packers. These, like many workers, have far fewer options for work, are making choices about how to make enough money to meet the basics of monthly bills for themselves and their families, and have little to no information about the risks they are taking. Usually quite the opposite: their employers withhold such info, or lie about it. So this is not a relevant comparison.
There are a lot of differences, sure. But remember that for a lot of these players, there’s not a lot of other options, and they’re incentivized to take PEDs and otherwise risk their health for the job. They’re no more or less human… but they are afforded a lot of benefits that those coal miners and meat packers receive… and the risks are lower on the whole.
This is a super-important point (in my opinion) -relevant to life in America but not the NBA. The absence of a social welfare net -and blind belief in (American) capitalism -which is stacked in favor of the rich- creates horrible incentives and heart wrenching choices for many Americans. The fact that so many buy into and vote against their interests is really unfortunate (and though complex in origin speaks to the power of a narrative as opposed to facts and analysis). I believe it is important to have compassion for those whose choices and options are limited, and to work through politics and in other ways to change this -even when it seems hopeless.
I can't wait until someone who's clearly had an inferior season wins over another player because he played 65 games and the other player played 64. It's stupid. Draymond had a very thoughtful monologue on it on his latest podcast.
For the record, I'm not on the side of fans whining about players being entitled.
I'm curious why you are not on the side of fans "whining" about players being entitled. I understand that all whining is annoying. I also understand that it's an open market and players earn what they can earn, that's our system. I even understand that the real robber barons here are the owners. But as a fan, I'm saying that asking me to leap to your defense because you don't make a mega bonus seems pretty tone deaf. Why does it not to you?
Nobody is asking fans to leap to their defense. They just don't like the new system. So it doesn't feel tone deaf to me because it doesn't exist.
Dr. Brian Sutterer with the Embiid injury analysis:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xI6yz7rFdrE
-Closer analysis of the clip shows that when Kuminga landed on Embiid's tibia, it did not hyperextend his left knee. Instead, his leg was in a straight line. Doctor believes that Embiid might not be able to tolerate a full extension of his leg(s) since he grabs the back of knee when it was in a straight line.
-Doctor says there is no possibility of a bone bruise/fracture. However, he says there was a damage to the soft tissue on the back of Embiid's knee. He believes the injury occurred somewhere around the hamstring, biceps femoris, or somewhere around the knee capsule.
-A second clip is shown where Embiid is trying to run towards the basket, but his knee gives out in the end. He believes it might be due to tendonitis. He also rules out patellar rupture since the front of his knee didn't get hurt in the first or second clips.
-Doctor says that he is feeling concerned about Embiid's knee when he gets an MRI and that they'll find signs of cartilage irritation, meniscus irritation, and patellar tendonitis.
Yeah, I saw the same thing. Having ruptured a knee ligament myself I watched his knee when Kuminga landed on it. I breathed a sigh of relief for him and assumed whatever pain he was feeling was mostly because of his existing knee issue.
> The Lakers saw Good Dejounte Murray last night. The Hawks saw Bad D'Angelo Russell last night. This paper says that teams do tend to trade for players who have played well against them in the past, often making a mistake by doing so.
https://twitter.com/DeanO_Lytics/status/1752755985079497017
Paper linked in the tweet. Never forget D'Angelo Russell putting up 51 against the Wolves on November 8, 2019 and probably influencing them to trade for him per this paper.
I think Lakers are one of the few teams interested in Murray.
We should've traded Steph for Brandon Jennings after he dropped 55 on us his rookie year!
"Brandon Jennings. Now there's a name I've not heard for a long, long time."
If I remember right that was the year of the point guard. Researching it, including combo guards, in order in the first round, James Harden, Tyreke Evans (Rookie of the Year), Ricky Rubio, Jonny Flynn, Steph Curry, Brandon Jennings, Jrue Holiday, Ty Lawson, Jeff Teague, Darren Collison, Pat Beverly (2nd Round). That was 2009 and it is amazing that 3 of those guys are still playing at high levels. It is still pretty staggering in retrospect that the Warriors got Curry.
GSW getting Steph was the biggest surprise in team history
That needs a qualifier. I would say the biggest surprise in Warrior history was getting the last pick in the lottery when they had the worst record. If memory serves. Can't remember what year, but maybe that was before your time Eric,
IIRC, GSOM was a wretched hive of “seriously, we fucked up the draft AGAIN???” after that game. 😊
This Steph-Sabrina thing is going to be fun. Props to Steph for being game. I think there's a pretty good chance he'll lose, which doesn't matter and shouldn't bother him, but almost certainly would bother most other superstars. Can you imagine, say, LeBron signing up for an exhibition like that?
Speaking of women's bball, Caitlin Clark is currently shooting a higher volume from 3 than Steph ever has, and making about 41%. It sucks that she's going to Indiana, imo, but I'm excited for her to accelerate the shift back to pace and space in that league.
Also, W free agency officially starts tomorrow. There could be some pretty significant players on the move. EDD, Nneka, Natasha Cloud...
Yea, I love this. Just one more ultra generous, low ego, fun oriented moment in Steph’s career. How great that what is fun for him is awesome fun for us fans.
> Speaking of women's bball, Caitlin Clark is currently shooting a higher volume from 3 than Steph ever has
True right now, but Steph was close in 2020-2021 at 12.7/game (Clark at 13.1 RN) in basically the same number of minutes per game (34 and 33 respectively). Nobody else in the NBA or college comes close to that volume in the men's or women's game.
Yeah, for sure, and he did it against NBA defenses with a decade's worth of film study and scheming to deny him. I don't mean to suggest that Caitlin is on Steph's level overall right now, just illustrating what a crazy outlier she is.
Is Clark consistently double/triple teamed the entire game, every single game, like Steph? I haven’t seen her play.
Nah, don't think so. She's definitely seeing a ton of doubles, box-and-ones, etc., but I don't think there's anything quite like Steph from that perspective.
I'm glad she insisted on doing it at NBA stripe. The whole thing would have been a very different vibe without that.
and very understandable that she would use the ball she is used to
So, this article (https://bleacherreport.com/articles/10102252-2023-nba-re-draft-who-follows-victor-wembanyama) reminded me that my draft crush was Jarace Walker. It just looked to me like his skill set really fits in with the Dubs. I noticed he is not having an auspicious start to his career and was wondering if we could syeal him. I don't think the pacers would take Loon which is the best fit salary wise. One that works is Moody and CoJo (for salary purposes, and we'd be gambling simultaneously that Podz can handle PG duties and that CP0 comes back ready reasonably soon) but I'm not sure that gets it done either. Still that is the level of trade we might expect. Something that is not immediately impactful ...
As much as I like Moody, I doubt that package is very enticing to the Pacers. Aside from that, the Warriors are actually pretty well set for big men with Loon, Saric, TJD, Green, and Garuba and are a little thin at shooting guard at the moment. There is pretty big drop between Moses and Lester.
Yeah, and the pacers don't seem to need guards so I realize it's not likely. I just really liked Walker pre-draft but I posted as an example of the magnitude of trade (if any) we might see (i.e. no game changer, and probably not even top 9-10 rotation players).
They rate Trayce J-D at #15 and Brandin P at #7. Nice, Mr. Dunleavy.
Almost as if we had the 7th and 14th picks in the last draft!
The Warriors seeming to get as many or more whistles in this game as the sixers felt strange. Also rewarding defenders for suddenly stopping in front of an offensive player to try to get a charge and punishing them for continuing to move their feet when an offensive player creates contact is not very wise for a league whose stated goal is for players to be albe to play more games.
Yeah I really hate that they don't seem to differentiate between moving towards the player or moving away.
https://twitter.com/ClutchPoints/status/1752572330134425703
Steph Curry signed autographs for a handful of the Niners players 🙌
Serious question: can Podz & TJD work with Wiggins & Looney on their FTs? Can we also never have Podz taking a technical FT again...
Steph was utterly sublime last night. Still one of a kind. We are so lucky, my god.
Like … that corner three as he was flying sideways out of bounds at a million miles an hour? Or the 1-on-3 pull-up 28-footer with no other Warriors on his side of the court? Or the backwards flip-in over Embiid, off the top of the backboard, and straight through the cords?
Still absolutely takes your breath away.
That 3 on 1. Have to admit I was shouting at my TV ‘get ‘em Steph, there’s only three!” lol. He is amazing.
So regarding GP2, is there no update because it's all bad news or that he has not hit the "to be evaluated in" targeted date.
Thought I saw he was due to be reevaluated this coming Tuesday (2/6)
The latter I think
Good win but if they don’t win against Philly with Embid having probably his worst shooting performance of the year, no Maxey and coming off a 24 point loss to Portland the night before, the season would definitely had been over.
With that being said, there is some hope with the new lineup, Wiggins improving, JK becoming a legit really good player and DG playing well.
If DG can continue to shoot the 3 well that lineup could be something. They need CP and Moody back so their bench becomes a positive again.
Think you’re underestimating how much of an impact missing Klay and CP3 is, not to mention Moody/GP2. We were plenty handicapped too, it was no guaranteed win.
I never said it was a guaranteed win.
They were missing Maxey who is their second best player and one of the best guards in the league averaging 25 a game.They were also missing Melton, a starter, and Batum who has been playing 25 minutes a night.
They were also playing on a back to back.
Add that up with the fact Embiid had a terrible game and you see why I said they had to win or it would have been devastating after the last 2 losses.
If Embiid had a typical Embiid game, best case it would have been another last possession game.
Hopefully they can get some positive vibes going now and see what happens.
You are right about the Warriors missing CP and all but they were missing quite a bit and Embiid played like he has been hurt and out of it.
> Good win but if
No "but ifs", unless you're going to ignore all the "but ifs" where the Warriors lost games they could easily have won. A win is a win and we won pretty handily.
We tend to do pretty well against Embiid when Draymond is able to guard him a good amount of the game.
My point was simply they should have won that game and if they hadn’t it would have been pretty devastating.
Draymond does defend Embid well but he definitely had an off night and missed a lot of shots he normally makes. For once they got a break instead of seeing someone light it up.
Draymond was not guarding Embid a good portion of the time.
*Embiid
(Only cos I’ve noticed it several times now, and he is the reigning MVP…)