Warriors show fight and heart, lose to Lakers entropy and randomness ending

Thermodynamics wins. Great game, though.

GSW plays MEM for the last play-in spot on Friday.

Apricot's In-Game Notes

• Okay, free shot at the Lakers. Let’s do this!

• First play, fake handoff to Steph, Wiggs on curl. Tough finish.

• Aggressive Wiggs in the house today.

• I like how Wiggs waved the guy out of the strong corner so he could iso Schroder.

• Looney has been a beast on the boards

• Interesting cat and mouse game around Steph PNR. Lakers doubling but energetically rotating after, and pre-rotating in ways that are hard to track live

• GSW not letting Baze guard LBJ 1 v 1, LAL punishes the double by swinging it around to weak corner 3.

• Well, can’t realistically ask for a better Q1. GSW still doesn’t have a good counter to the LAL traps… it’s mostly ending up as open 3s from hot and cold shooters

• Good thing the league doesn’t watch my constant E1P love letters to Juanito

• Fantastic defense on the passes in the paint.

• Poole’s layup there was so aggressive and confident. Impossible before March.

• Steph with an absurd looping reload 3. Then beautiful switching Steph defense against LBJ. Instead of a high tag, he goes to sitting flat against the screen to force a switch to AD, and then scram switch back to KCP on the drive. Then Dray with a stunning swipe down block. And talking about new confidence… that Poole 3 man

• Gotta train the tyke to sleep through the din

• Dray’s quote on AD was very diplomatic and respectful

• OUR GUY JUANITO

• That Steph 3 was RIDICULOUS. LAL tries to double team him and he refuses to be trapped

• But think of the assets

• And the rights to so many draft and stash Euros

• I’d honestly like a game someday where Steph is required to shoot every time. Efficiency would be low, but the highlights would be outstanding

• I acknowledge that LeBron is limited, but it bugs the crap out of me that Jeff van Gundy keep apologizing for LeBron’s injury after he dismissed Steph’s injuries in 2016 and Klay in 2019.

• Bazemore is truly the God of Chaos

• ESPN needs to offer a way to pay to have just the game sounds, no announcers

• Wow, Drummond posts up again, then can’t handle the double team

• Q5.30. Warriors twice in a row run the zig zag PNR I broke down recently

• Dray (on Caruso) and AD (on Dray) blocking the crap out of average finishers

• Quite a pass by LeBron to the cut. Juanito saw it coming, but the pass was in the perfect place.

• You should get your challenge back if you win

• Young Warriors getting a taste of playoff intensity. Hope they learn.

• Mulder trying the High Tag D. But AD got the 3. Steph with the unusual complaining to the refs the entire play. Poole gets hammered out of the sky, no call

• Just get it to Random Ending territory, Dubs. I’ll take the roll of the dice.

• Refs serving up a nice stream of home cooking

• Steph calls Wiggs to set the screen, Wiggs runs the roll nicely.

• Draymond looks like he’s got a good monologue going after that crap call

• I love how the announcers say how the corner curl from AD is so hard to guard, and 1 ms later Dray strips the ball

• Steph really focused on that sweet floater bank shot. Sometimes he shoots that with a Let Go and Let God vibe. That was carefully sculpted

• We are officially in RANDOM ENDING TERRITORY. At the start of the game I would have gladly taken this.

• LeBron’s flops are better acted than Harden’s. I like the twitching of the foot, like method acting

• Great box out by Poole on the rebound

• The flopping is getting out of hand. Wes Matthews getting into the acting biz

• Yeah that long lucky LeBron 3 might be the the random ending part

• It was a great game. STILL MATHEMATICALLY POSSIBLE

• Ahhhh, Steph got grabbed on that last play before the inbound. Probably should be a FT and the ball

---