Kerr was talking about hard it is to make the puzzle pieces fit? Maybe the W’s have a film guy subscribed to LGW who can give Kerr some advice?
The answers seem like they’ve been somewhat shown, but the Warriors aren’t using the answer key for some reason.
Oubre has been consistently good with small ball Green at the 5 lineups, even without Curry.
The team is much more stable using Wiseman as an energy jolt coming in off the bench and starting Looney. Wiseman visibly went from +9 to -7 when he got tired against the Bucks, so going the last 5 of the first makes sense.
What if:
Curry, Oubre, Wiggins, Bazemore, Green start to get Oubre going early? Or start Looney to set the D depending on what’s most important.
Looney/Baze is first off the bench.
5 minutes to go in the 1st Bring Wiseman & Poole in for Dray and Oubre:
Curry, Poole, Wiggins, Loon, Wiseman
To Start the 2nd:
Poole, Oubre, Lee/Baze/JTA, Green
Sub in Wiggins when he’s ready.
Bring in Looney and Curry to give Green a rest.
Finishing lineup:
Curry, Poole, Oubre, Wiggins, Green.
If Poole doesn’t work use Bazemore.
Bottom line: we have seen who guys play well with. We have seen quality play. We’ve also seen disasters of lineups. Get Oubre more Green at the 5 time.
Pretty sure there’s a Lee&Loon combo that works too.
I mean if there was ever a stretch to build up confidence, it's starting. 13 of our next 17 games are against sub .500 teams. Win 11 or 12 and you're likely guaranteeing a spot in the play-in.
I just rewatched the game focusing on Wiseman. The dude legit had three scoring opportunities that he should have converted. If he did convert them, he would have had 19 points which would have been amazing. Some positives though, his major weaknesses regarding catching the ball/rebounding have seemingly been mitigated as he was crashing the boards with a ferocity this game.
Defensively, he is vastly improved when it comes to positioning in the pick and roll but he is still good for 2/3 possessions where his lack of rotation causes an easy score. He needs to improve there.
I don't know if he would have scored but he needed to take this ball to the rim instead of settling for a jumper. He's not going to pan out if he's this soft, he needs to play like his size. You can see how upset Draymond was with him for taking that jumper instead of going up strong. The hope is that it's purely a strength thing and as he adds more muscle he'll embrace more contact, but if not, they need to sign him up for a boxing gym or some shit lol.
Also I saw more than 2 or 3 possessions where he was in the wrong place defensively. That's the type of stuff I chalk up to being a rookie though, we'll see how he looks next season.
There was one scoring opportunity where he went to the rim and shielded the ball with the body when a big came to contest. He had a clear layup that he just completely missed.
As much as he helps the offense through being a floor general and passing, his inability to have any offensive game really makes it hard for everyone else on the court to score. Oubre is basically forced into that bad mid range cause Drays defender is playing him from the paint
2021 Dray greatly limits offensive options for a team. He basically has to play with 4 adequate (if not better) floor spacers. Furthermore, he has to be involved in each offensive action so that the defense does not cheat off of him.
It’s fine with Oubre, Curry, Wiggins, and Bazemore or Poole. Oubre has been consistently good with Green at the 5.
Looney has that Bogut style floor spacing where he sets such good screens that if his man sags to the paint a shooter can always just run by and have an open shot.
Random theoretical question - let's say clippers suck in the playoffs again this year and kawhi opts out of his contract. Would you sign and trade for him, giving up Wiggins, Wiseman, Minnesota's pick. I'm guessing that would be enough? The only downside would be this hard caps us.
While the answer is still probably yes, I don't think you can fit Steph, Klay, Kawhi, Dray under the hard cap. So one of Klay/Dray probably goes. Once you lose one of them, the cost to acquire Kawhi, and the lack of flexibility to fill around the edges, it's not clear cut.
The hard cap will typically be ~$6M above the luxury tax. In this season, the hard cap is $138M. Salaries for Steph/Klay/Dray/Kawhi this year are $134.8M. Kawhi will get a raise next year but the salary cap will go up. You might be able to squeeze all 4 with all minimum guys, but I'm not positive you could make the math work. You couldn't use the MLE or keep guys like Looney. It would be really tough.
If Kawhi wants to come and is willing to sign a long term deal, you give up every asset that you have. If that means Wiggins, Wiseman, all picks + pick swaps, then so be it.
Kawhi + Steph + Klay + Dray gives you a 3-4 year window where you're the favorite every single year.
What percentage of homegrown cores ever become even pseudo-contenders let alone actual contenders? The only ones I can think of right now are Milwaukee (with Giannis and Middleton not even being high draft picks so a pretty low percentage outcome) and Philly (with The Process and years and years of tanking when it was easier to accumulate higher picks with that method) and maybe the Jazz (who also got Mitchell and Gobert pretty late on and added trade and FA pieces around them) and Nuggets (hitting on Jokic was a masterstroke and Murray). The rest of the contenders have been built pretty inorganically.
Having Steph + Klay + Dray was a once in a generation thing. Better take the championship equity when you can get it than pray for high draft picks which have a 0.0001% of being as good as Steph or 1% chance of being as good as Dray/Klay.
It makes you wonder about the alternate universe where we kept Barnes and Looney developed without all the injuries. A starting/finishing 5 of homegrown players would’ve been extra special.
This. I think it's easy to overestimate how difficult it is to get 3 homegrown picks to all turn into stars. It just almost never happens. We remember the one team per decade where everything works out, but forget the other hundreds of instances that also start out promising initially but then never comes together.
Just on raw math, if you allow each pick a 1 in 4 (25%) chance of turning into an all-star of the Steph/Klay/Dray level, you're left with a 1 in 64 chance (1.5%) that this happens to *all three*, which is... not high. And obviously 25% per player is way optimistic, so really the overall likelihood is basically zero (which is what makes Steph/Klay/Dray so generationally special in the first place). But for all of us to expect this type of thing again just cuz #Lightyears is I think a difficult proposition.
Feels great to get a close win against an actual contender. Scratch another one off the list. We've now taken games off most of the best teams in the league (not Brooklyn, so obviously they'll be the champs) so that's something to be proud of.
On the other hand, this one was a super close game and the Bucks didn't even have their best player, a legit MVP candidate level guy. And after getting killed by free throws for like a month, this game was one of those ones where the refs let anything short of assault and battery off as incidental contact / no foul. (And we still ended up down on the FTA!) If we heard from an alternate universe where this game was reffed by the crew from Atlanta or Toronto(Tampa??) I would not be surprised to find out we lost this one instead.
On the positive side, I was really wowed by the off-ball movement in that 4th Q lineup that had Steph alongside Poole. It felt almost like having the Splash Bros reunited on the court in terms of how much pressure it put on the defense to cover two versatile threats both running around like madmen. It might take until mid-season before Klay can really do that again (assuming he can even recover to his full form after two devastating injuries) but the thought of a rotation or even single lineup with all three guys exhausting the defense like that? Now that sounds like something to watch!
I don't know what it was about the last few games; probably the b2b didn't help, but this game was a reminder that guys like Poole, Bazemore, and Oubre are not normally as bad as they were in those losses. They can also be a lot better than they were this game, though
Wiseman had another good game, too. There were a couple bad moments—like a defensive possession where Steph seemed like he was trying to funnel his guy toward where Wiseman should be lurking, but James was too far up so it became a layup instead—but he definitely felt like a positive contributor on more plays and less of a disruption to good own team most of the time. And, there were still bad passes from guys trying to force feed him. Steph and Dray each had one where they had a clear shot but tried to dump it off to Wiseman, who (probably correctly) figured they should take the open shot, and wasn't ready for it. But he had probably the cleanest set of actually competitive rebounds I've seen him collect and got some good rolls to the basket to boot. Looney still sets much better screens though, what a huge difference there. Steph also sets better screens, which has always been kind of a strength of his but has turned into almost a comical super-power this year with the combination of his overall body strength and the gravity his reputation creates.
Kind of amazing how the mood changes from, "this team is awful! everything is awful!" to "we can beat anyone in the playoffs and maybe make the finals if we try hard enough" based on whether the ball bounces in or out a few key times. Whatever, it's just basketball, but at least this one was fun.
Agreed on the refs. While I do think we FINALLY stopped fouling (except for that one stretch in the 2nd half) shooters, the refs let a lot of contact go. I'm surprised there was no foul at the end of the game especially on Bazemore
Curry is something you'd have to watch most of the games the last 11 years to understand, it is truly a transcendent experience, I'm sure michael jordan fans felt the same way
Curry's greatness is more infuriating for the opponents and their fans though. Imagine guarding a guy from 35ft and it still doesn't matter. Jordan is the GOAT and made a career from being better than everyone else during his era and hitting tough shots, but they were still makeable for some mortals. Can't say the same for Steph.
The main difference was that, post bad boy pistons, Jordan had the refs intimidated into giving him every call and letting him get away with way more than most. Curry gets the opposite treatment from the refs.
Jordan played that so well. He went on talk shows and basically said the league was letting other teams try to injure him. Used his popularity and had public opinion wrapped around his finger.
That wasn't the point with MJ. Mortals could make tough shots but they could also be stopped and they could be beaten. MJ was going to destroy you with his willpower as well as his skills, and there was nothing anybody could do about it. He refused to be beaten and rarely was. Ferocity doesn't begin to describe it.
Absolutely agreed. Jordan just had this aura, like, everyone just knew he was going to win. Every single game, it just felt like he would not be stopped. Sometimes he was, but it was *always* a surprise when it happened.
Curry is crazy good, has changed the game, has a ton of wins in his own right, but it's not quite the same.
I lived in Chicago for a few years as a kid and got to watch the tail end of MJ. You’re right it’s different. His offense is a lot more like KD where the scoring feels inevitable, except MJ also had the impenetrable aura thing going. Both guys are impossible to guard but with MJ you just knew he wouldn’t lose. That aura has never been replicated since.
That said, neither player is able to throw entire opposing defenses into knots the way Curry does. Those figure 8s he runs all over the court as three dudes chase behind and crash into each other.... that is Steph’s signature alone.
Also in terms of sheer points per minute firepower and efficiency, Steph in peak full-on launch mode still outpaces every other human in history, MJ included.
There has to be at most 5 games where Wiggins and Oubre have both done well. If we get February Oubre with March Wiggins, we can beat anyone in the playoffs.
Wait are you sure there's been one such game? That would do a lot of damage to my theory that all season they've just been passing back and forth the Amulet of Splash that Klay said they could use for a while after he went down.
The only one I can remember was that one game where they took over the 3rd quarter. I think it was hornets when steph didn't play but we still lost. I'm guessing they only did well together in the 3rd rather than the whole game though
Wait a second, that actually pretty much proves my theory -- after leaving the game feeling sick Steph gave one of them his own Splash Amulet at halftime.
That closing lineup is why I think it's foolish to write the Warriors off if they get into a playoff series. For all their faults, Curry/Bazemore/Wiggins/Oubre/Draymond is a very tough smallball lineup to match. And they'd have Poole as the backup PG, Lee as a backup wing, Looney as a backup big, and JTA as a backup wing/big who could potentially start at the instead of Bazemore too. There are some opponents who would definitely struggle trying to match that attack. Gotta get to the playoffs first though, anything can happen in a play-in game (or two).
And those closing minutes were also a good reminder that when properly utilized, Kelly Oubre is a very good player.
Also Paschall can be a smallball center too, although they'd need him at his freshest. But maybe the injury/benching can allow him to get his knee right?
Should probably keep it to a 7-8 man rotation if they get into the playoffs though, because they aren't trying to make a deep playoff run, just win a round and make people (specifically free agents and disgruntled stars) think that they will be a factor next season with Klay back.
But I'm saying they should go all out to win a round even if it tires them out for the next round. Heavy Curry minutes and heavy center Draymond minutes. Not a strategy to use if you are trying to win the Finals, but I don't think they need to win a Finals series for this to be a successful season.
Regardless, they have a lot of work to do to even get into the playoffs lol.
Teams like the Jazz and Nuggets don't have to go small to win. Going small is a tiring style of basketball, there's a reason Kerr tries to use it sparingly in the regular season (he clearly wanted the W tonight though).
I was referring to the "they should go all out to win". All the playoff teams need to go all out to win every round of the playoffs, except maybe the KD era Warriors.
We've honestly always had to go small, even with kd. Those 2 don't go small because their 5s are dominant. Lakers go "small" too with ad at the 5. Nets prefer going small as well. Only teams who don't go small are those with a dominant 5.
Probably DOA if they draw the Clippers or the healthy Lakers. Luckily, it seems like the Jazz and Suns are headed toward the 1 and 2 seeds, so you never know. I think Ayton could have a lot of trouble matched up against Draymond.
The most important thing is you HOPE they can put together a stretch of basketball where they're not committing dumb fouls. The effort and talent is there.
Alchemy made a great point about how yes we do commit stupid fouls but our switching defense where we constantly have smalls on bigs does not help us in the foul department
You can live with those but you can't live with the snakebites and the silly reach in fouls after getting beat. Unfortunately we have some guys in the rotation that are more prone to those mental errors than the average player. Can't have that happen in crunch time but luckily I think they're capable of being more disciplined as they get their confidence back on that end
They really tried to defend him. The TS% speaks to Steph's discipline in not forcing up shots when he was well covered (which was a lot of the time!) as much as anything else. But every time he got an opening, he was 🔥🔥🔥!
Apr 7, 2021Liked by punk basketball, Daniel Hardee
Wiggins smile makes me happy.
Gotta give props to Wiseman for a much better looking game tonight. Still did knucklehead things, but looked decidedly better. Even laughed after his missed dunk. I hated the pick, his struggles save been frustrating because of it, but I have resolved to get over it and root like hell for the man.
Wiseman has been looking more and more like an actual basketball player rather than a physical freak. I'm liking it, but the man has so much farther to go its insane. Raw is an understatement.
OK but think about that. He has so much farther to go, raw is an understatement, and he got a double double and is averaging double figure points for a rough rookie year. His D is especially raw but he is having some nights when he changes shots and even gets some blocks. And he hasn't figured it out yet. That ought to tell us that in time he's going to be damned good.
#FreeJTA #weJuantTheJuan
#WeJuanaJuan
We won one with no Juan
Kerr was talking about hard it is to make the puzzle pieces fit? Maybe the W’s have a film guy subscribed to LGW who can give Kerr some advice?
The answers seem like they’ve been somewhat shown, but the Warriors aren’t using the answer key for some reason.
Oubre has been consistently good with small ball Green at the 5 lineups, even without Curry.
The team is much more stable using Wiseman as an energy jolt coming in off the bench and starting Looney. Wiseman visibly went from +9 to -7 when he got tired against the Bucks, so going the last 5 of the first makes sense.
What if:
Curry, Oubre, Wiggins, Bazemore, Green start to get Oubre going early? Or start Looney to set the D depending on what’s most important.
Looney/Baze is first off the bench.
5 minutes to go in the 1st Bring Wiseman & Poole in for Dray and Oubre:
Curry, Poole, Wiggins, Loon, Wiseman
To Start the 2nd:
Poole, Oubre, Lee/Baze/JTA, Green
Sub in Wiggins when he’s ready.
Bring in Looney and Curry to give Green a rest.
Finishing lineup:
Curry, Poole, Oubre, Wiggins, Green.
If Poole doesn’t work use Bazemore.
Bottom line: we have seen who guys play well with. We have seen quality play. We’ve also seen disasters of lineups. Get Oubre more Green at the 5 time.
Pretty sure there’s a Lee&Loon combo that works too.
Hopefully paschall gets healthy and he can play small ball five against certain matchups
Oops stats say better pull Wiggins off when Wise comes in too:
Curry, Wise, Looney/Bazemore, Poole, Lee/JTA to end the 1st.
I mean if there was ever a stretch to build up confidence, it's starting. 13 of our next 17 games are against sub .500 teams. Win 11 or 12 and you're likely guaranteeing a spot in the play-in.
I just rewatched the game focusing on Wiseman. The dude legit had three scoring opportunities that he should have converted. If he did convert them, he would have had 19 points which would have been amazing. Some positives though, his major weaknesses regarding catching the ball/rebounding have seemingly been mitigated as he was crashing the boards with a ferocity this game.
Defensively, he is vastly improved when it comes to positioning in the pick and roll but he is still good for 2/3 possessions where his lack of rotation causes an easy score. He needs to improve there.
https://youtu.be/8uZcqCMWRTs?t=260
I don't know if he would have scored but he needed to take this ball to the rim instead of settling for a jumper. He's not going to pan out if he's this soft, he needs to play like his size. You can see how upset Draymond was with him for taking that jumper instead of going up strong. The hope is that it's purely a strength thing and as he adds more muscle he'll embrace more contact, but if not, they need to sign him up for a boxing gym or some shit lol.
Also I saw more than 2 or 3 possessions where he was in the wrong place defensively. That's the type of stuff I chalk up to being a rookie though, we'll see how he looks next season.
The three easy scores were the missed dunk that shot back to mid court, the putback dunk and ?
There was one scoring opportunity where he went to the rim and shielded the ball with the body when a big came to contest. He had a clear layup that he just completely missed.
He got blocked by the rim as well or is that the one your referring to?
His first 5 minutes were really good, then he defaulted to his old habits when he got tired.
Once again Dray left way wide open and refuses to take the 3 - https://youtu.be/Agweoc1cYHQ
As much as he helps the offense through being a floor general and passing, his inability to have any offensive game really makes it hard for everyone else on the court to score. Oubre is basically forced into that bad mid range cause Drays defender is playing him from the paint
I don't understand why Dray doesn't take more mid range shots. It drives me crazy.
this is a joke right?
2021 Dray greatly limits offensive options for a team. He basically has to play with 4 adequate (if not better) floor spacers. Furthermore, he has to be involved in each offensive action so that the defense does not cheat off of him.
It’s fine with Oubre, Curry, Wiggins, and Bazemore or Poole. Oubre has been consistently good with Green at the 5.
Looney has that Bogut style floor spacing where he sets such good screens that if his man sags to the paint a shooter can always just run by and have an open shot.
Random theoretical question - let's say clippers suck in the playoffs again this year and kawhi opts out of his contract. Would you sign and trade for him, giving up Wiggins, Wiseman, Minnesota's pick. I'm guessing that would be enough? The only downside would be this hard caps us.
While the answer is still probably yes, I don't think you can fit Steph, Klay, Kawhi, Dray under the hard cap. So one of Klay/Dray probably goes. Once you lose one of them, the cost to acquire Kawhi, and the lack of flexibility to fill around the edges, it's not clear cut.
Isn't the hard cap triggered after the trade goes through though? Wiggins and Wiseman would match Kawhis salary
The hard cap will typically be ~$6M above the luxury tax. In this season, the hard cap is $138M. Salaries for Steph/Klay/Dray/Kawhi this year are $134.8M. Kawhi will get a raise next year but the salary cap will go up. You might be able to squeeze all 4 with all minimum guys, but I'm not positive you could make the math work. You couldn't use the MLE or keep guys like Looney. It would be really tough.
I would trade everything it takes for freaking Kawhi Leonard. Wiggins, JW, all the picks, Mannion, Smailgic, you can have it all.
I’m still of the opinion that the Ws with Kawhi would have been even more absurd than what they were with KD just due to complementary skill sets.
Curry, Klay, Kawhi, Draymond is still a ridiculous lineup today.
I think KDs ability to offer rim protection fit us better on defense than Kawhi would
If Kawhi wants to come and is willing to sign a long term deal, you give up every asset that you have. If that means Wiggins, Wiseman, all picks + pick swaps, then so be it.
Kawhi + Steph + Klay + Dray gives you a 3-4 year window where you're the favorite every single year.
Won't have the benefit of having 2-3 lotto picks playing on the team for the future but yeah, we'd be heavy favorites with that group
What percentage of homegrown cores ever become even pseudo-contenders let alone actual contenders? The only ones I can think of right now are Milwaukee (with Giannis and Middleton not even being high draft picks so a pretty low percentage outcome) and Philly (with The Process and years and years of tanking when it was easier to accumulate higher picks with that method) and maybe the Jazz (who also got Mitchell and Gobert pretty late on and added trade and FA pieces around them) and Nuggets (hitting on Jokic was a masterstroke and Murray). The rest of the contenders have been built pretty inorganically.
Having Steph + Klay + Dray was a once in a generation thing. Better take the championship equity when you can get it than pray for high draft picks which have a 0.0001% of being as good as Steph or 1% chance of being as good as Dray/Klay.
It makes you wonder about the alternate universe where we kept Barnes and Looney developed without all the injuries. A starting/finishing 5 of homegrown players would’ve been extra special.
Yeah but would you really want to have missed out on those three years with KD?
Or even Ezeli
This. I think it's easy to overestimate how difficult it is to get 3 homegrown picks to all turn into stars. It just almost never happens. We remember the one team per decade where everything works out, but forget the other hundreds of instances that also start out promising initially but then never comes together.
Just on raw math, if you allow each pick a 1 in 4 (25%) chance of turning into an all-star of the Steph/Klay/Dray level, you're left with a 1 in 64 chance (1.5%) that this happens to *all three*, which is... not high. And obviously 25% per player is way optimistic, so really the overall likelihood is basically zero (which is what makes Steph/Klay/Dray so generationally special in the first place). But for all of us to expect this type of thing again just cuz #Lightyears is I think a difficult proposition.
I’m not sure why I agree, but I do. Also, I hate how his drama with the Spurs played out.
I miss klay so much :(
Feels great to get a close win against an actual contender. Scratch another one off the list. We've now taken games off most of the best teams in the league (not Brooklyn, so obviously they'll be the champs) so that's something to be proud of.
On the other hand, this one was a super close game and the Bucks didn't even have their best player, a legit MVP candidate level guy. And after getting killed by free throws for like a month, this game was one of those ones where the refs let anything short of assault and battery off as incidental contact / no foul. (And we still ended up down on the FTA!) If we heard from an alternate universe where this game was reffed by the crew from Atlanta or Toronto(Tampa??) I would not be surprised to find out we lost this one instead.
On the positive side, I was really wowed by the off-ball movement in that 4th Q lineup that had Steph alongside Poole. It felt almost like having the Splash Bros reunited on the court in terms of how much pressure it put on the defense to cover two versatile threats both running around like madmen. It might take until mid-season before Klay can really do that again (assuming he can even recover to his full form after two devastating injuries) but the thought of a rotation or even single lineup with all three guys exhausting the defense like that? Now that sounds like something to watch!
I don't know what it was about the last few games; probably the b2b didn't help, but this game was a reminder that guys like Poole, Bazemore, and Oubre are not normally as bad as they were in those losses. They can also be a lot better than they were this game, though
Wiseman had another good game, too. There were a couple bad moments—like a defensive possession where Steph seemed like he was trying to funnel his guy toward where Wiseman should be lurking, but James was too far up so it became a layup instead—but he definitely felt like a positive contributor on more plays and less of a disruption to good own team most of the time. And, there were still bad passes from guys trying to force feed him. Steph and Dray each had one where they had a clear shot but tried to dump it off to Wiseman, who (probably correctly) figured they should take the open shot, and wasn't ready for it. But he had probably the cleanest set of actually competitive rebounds I've seen him collect and got some good rolls to the basket to boot. Looney still sets much better screens though, what a huge difference there. Steph also sets better screens, which has always been kind of a strength of his but has turned into almost a comical super-power this year with the combination of his overall body strength and the gravity his reputation creates.
Kind of amazing how the mood changes from, "this team is awful! everything is awful!" to "we can beat anyone in the playoffs and maybe make the finals if we try hard enough" based on whether the ball bounces in or out a few key times. Whatever, it's just basketball, but at least this one was fun.
Agreed on the refs. While I do think we FINALLY stopped fouling (except for that one stretch in the 2nd half) shooters, the refs let a lot of contact go. I'm surprised there was no foul at the end of the game especially on Bazemore
That was the best reffed game I’ve seen outside the NCAA tournament this year.
Curry is something you'd have to watch most of the games the last 11 years to understand, it is truly a transcendent experience, I'm sure michael jordan fans felt the same way
Curry's greatness is more infuriating for the opponents and their fans though. Imagine guarding a guy from 35ft and it still doesn't matter. Jordan is the GOAT and made a career from being better than everyone else during his era and hitting tough shots, but they were still makeable for some mortals. Can't say the same for Steph.
The main difference was that, post bad boy pistons, Jordan had the refs intimidated into giving him every call and letting him get away with way more than most. Curry gets the opposite treatment from the refs.
Jordan played that so well. He went on talk shows and basically said the league was letting other teams try to injure him. Used his popularity and had public opinion wrapped around his finger.
That wasn't the point with MJ. Mortals could make tough shots but they could also be stopped and they could be beaten. MJ was going to destroy you with his willpower as well as his skills, and there was nothing anybody could do about it. He refused to be beaten and rarely was. Ferocity doesn't begin to describe it.
Absolutely agreed. Jordan just had this aura, like, everyone just knew he was going to win. Every single game, it just felt like he would not be stopped. Sometimes he was, but it was *always* a surprise when it happened.
Curry is crazy good, has changed the game, has a ton of wins in his own right, but it's not quite the same.
I lived in Chicago for a few years as a kid and got to watch the tail end of MJ. You’re right it’s different. His offense is a lot more like KD where the scoring feels inevitable, except MJ also had the impenetrable aura thing going. Both guys are impossible to guard but with MJ you just knew he wouldn’t lose. That aura has never been replicated since.
That said, neither player is able to throw entire opposing defenses into knots the way Curry does. Those figure 8s he runs all over the court as three dudes chase behind and crash into each other.... that is Steph’s signature alone.
Also in terms of sheer points per minute firepower and efficiency, Steph in peak full-on launch mode still outpaces every other human in history, MJ included.
Oh, well, except Klay. 37 points in a quarter still takes the cake.
Man, 37 in one quarter. That's more than a made three every minute! What a machine. Still feels unreal that that happened.
Also, Steph tries hard on defense but MJ was a truly great defender.
There has to be at most 5 games where Wiggins and Oubre have both done well. If we get February Oubre with March Wiggins, we can beat anyone in the playoffs.
Wait are you sure there's been one such game? That would do a lot of damage to my theory that all season they've just been passing back and forth the Amulet of Splash that Klay said they could use for a while after he went down.
The only one I can remember was that one game where they took over the 3rd quarter. I think it was hornets when steph didn't play but we still lost. I'm guessing they only did well together in the 3rd rather than the whole game though
Wait a second, that actually pretty much proves my theory -- after leaving the game feeling sick Steph gave one of them his own Splash Amulet at halftime.
That one is going to come back to bite us to some extent. I bet it ends up meaning we end up with the 9 seed instead of 8 seed.
That closing lineup is why I think it's foolish to write the Warriors off if they get into a playoff series. For all their faults, Curry/Bazemore/Wiggins/Oubre/Draymond is a very tough smallball lineup to match. And they'd have Poole as the backup PG, Lee as a backup wing, Looney as a backup big, and JTA as a backup wing/big who could potentially start at the instead of Bazemore too. There are some opponents who would definitely struggle trying to match that attack. Gotta get to the playoffs first though, anything can happen in a play-in game (or two).
And those closing minutes were also a good reminder that when properly utilized, Kelly Oubre is a very good player.
Curry = Curry
Green = Green
Wiggs/Oubre/Baze/Lee/JTA = HB/Klay/Andre/Shaun/BRush
Looney = Bogut
Poole = Barbosa
Wiseman = Ezeli
In role if not talent, anyway. We gonna be championship!
Kerr did say Barbosa is still in great condition, and as you said we have two roster spots for the playoffs, so...
Barbosa = Barbosa ?
Smailagic=Mo Speights?
Mmmm... I don't recall Mo Buckets forgetting he was part of a team and going one on five every time he touched the ball. Smiley tends to do that.
Well, we do still have two empty roster spots...
Sleights was useful lol
Also Paschall can be a smallball center too, although they'd need him at his freshest. But maybe the injury/benching can allow him to get his knee right?
Should probably keep it to a 7-8 man rotation if they get into the playoffs though, because they aren't trying to make a deep playoff run, just win a round and make people (specifically free agents and disgruntled stars) think that they will be a factor next season with Klay back.
If we win a round considering the seed we'll be, then we should be able to get to the finals
But I'm saying they should go all out to win a round even if it tires them out for the next round. Heavy Curry minutes and heavy center Draymond minutes. Not a strategy to use if you are trying to win the Finals, but I don't think they need to win a Finals series for this to be a successful season.
Regardless, they have a lot of work to do to even get into the playoffs lol.
This is what normal playoff teams have to do to win...
Teams like the Jazz and Nuggets don't have to go small to win. Going small is a tiring style of basketball, there's a reason Kerr tries to use it sparingly in the regular season (he clearly wanted the W tonight though).
I was referring to the "they should go all out to win". All the playoff teams need to go all out to win every round of the playoffs, except maybe the KD era Warriors.
We've honestly always had to go small, even with kd. Those 2 don't go small because their 5s are dominant. Lakers go "small" too with ad at the 5. Nets prefer going small as well. Only teams who don't go small are those with a dominant 5.
Most teams that don't have the luxury of having multiple all stars will probably have to do that
Shit doesn't curry oubre wiggins dray and looney have solid advanced stats? We can definitely do damage in the playoffs
Probably DOA if they draw the Clippers or the healthy Lakers. Luckily, it seems like the Jazz and Suns are headed toward the 1 and 2 seeds, so you never know. I think Ayton could have a lot of trouble matched up against Draymond.
I agree, even AD could have a lot of trouble matched up against draymond, we 20 games to build winning habits, we can do it I have faith
The most important thing is you HOPE they can put together a stretch of basketball where they're not committing dumb fouls. The effort and talent is there.
And dumb turnovers.
Alchemy made a great point about how yes we do commit stupid fouls but our switching defense where we constantly have smalls on bigs does not help us in the foul department
You can live with those but you can't live with the snakebites and the silly reach in fouls after getting beat. Unfortunately we have some guys in the rotation that are more prone to those mental errors than the average player. Can't have that happen in crunch time but luckily I think they're capable of being more disciplined as they get their confidence back on that end
are
Stephen Curry TS%, full game: 85.3%
Stephen Curry TS%, 2nd-half: 87.8%
Stephen Curry TS%, 4th quarter: 93.5%
While on a banged up tailbone and getting double and triple teamed all night, including by arguably the best perimeter defender in the league.
They really tried to defend him. The TS% speaks to Steph's discipline in not forcing up shots when he was well covered (which was a lot of the time!) as much as anything else. But every time he got an opening, he was 🔥🔥🔥!
P.S Shoutout to those 2 life line three pointers from Oubre. Game is over if he misses even one of those.
And making BOTH of his free throws in the last 2 minutes.
Best place to miss on a free throw is at the front of the rim
Friendly SF rims on both of em, tho.
Last 8 seconds, but 100% yeah
Wiggins smile makes me happy.
Gotta give props to Wiseman for a much better looking game tonight. Still did knucklehead things, but looked decidedly better. Even laughed after his missed dunk. I hated the pick, his struggles save been frustrating because of it, but I have resolved to get over it and root like hell for the man.
Wiseman has been looking more and more like an actual basketball player rather than a physical freak. I'm liking it, but the man has so much farther to go its insane. Raw is an understatement.
OK but think about that. He has so much farther to go, raw is an understatement, and he got a double double and is averaging double figure points for a rough rookie year. His D is especially raw but he is having some nights when he changes shots and even gets some blocks. And he hasn't figured it out yet. That ought to tell us that in time he's going to be damned good.
This. This is why I’m welded to the Wiseman wagon.
He even looked like he was figuring out some things on defense. We know he'll still be up and down but for tonight, it's an improvement.
LIke, his whole face smiles. :-)
That was awesome. Gotta find my shirt
Andrew Wiggins GSW career (62 games): 64 blocks
Harry Barnes GSW career (307 games): 63 blocks
Hard not to love Wiggins, however he plays.
But HB bodied up true 4s. And even played 5.
Wish we could have both
Harrison Barnes Game 7 performance of the 2016 Finals negated everything he accomplished with the Warriors
Everything
Seeing those bricks coming live was painful