It’s been largely missed by mainstream Golden State Warriors media, but according to Klay Thompson, the morning of the game at the Houston Rockets back on Sunday, November 20, 2022, Steve Kerr showed the team clips of the “Tiki-taka” method of one of soccer’s powerhouses, Barcelona FC (you can find videos aplenty by searching on YouTube).
Five days later, Kevon Looney said the same thing. So I’ve also been using that terminology a lot when the Warriors play “hot potato” with the ball and find the cutter for an easy basket.
This wasn’t the case as much in the loss to the Dallas Mavericks on Tuesday, as the Mavs are well-coached and play small and nimble. Let’s hope to see a return to it, and tomorrow’s rematch against the Rockets should reveal to us how opponents can game plan against it. The Chicago Bulls tonight might have trouble, as they only face the Dubs twice per year and, so far, I can only think of the San Antonio Spurs and the Utah Jazz (helmed by Gregg Popovich disciple Will Hardy), as teams that embrace Tiki-taka and go away from the traditional superstar pick-and-roll strategy.
Anyways, the above is also a long-winded explanation as to why the posts on here have been few and far between lately. I’ve been more focused on the game film breakdown videos [playlist] and I copy and paste all the quotes into the Descriptions and Comments of our video interview uploads anyways. But I’ll try to do a better job of incorporating the quotes into the website workflow. We’ll see. More words below these videos 👇
The above are a bunch of Xs and Os videos, in reverse chronological order. If you’ve been tracking closely, I can pinpoint Jonathan Kuminga’s breakthrough game back to the home win against the Spurs. And my first breakdown featured Anthony Lamb’s amazing 5-stops-in-14-seconds stretch.
I’d also like to see Kerr ditch the “triangle/Illuminati” baseline inbounds play that I’ve seen in three straight games be unsuccessful (Luka Doncic knew what was coming and changed the momentum of the Mavs game), as well as see Klay and Andrew Wiggins play with more force than they did in Dallas.
LOONEY POSTGAME 11/25
• Kevon Looney on ball movement: “We’ve been preaching ball movement…Kerr…tiki-taka…get a few easy dunks.”
• On more trust, Looney’s screening: “That’s just Warriors basketball…Steve always talks about when the ball touch he’s everybody’s hands…feels like they’re part of the play…free-flowing, get stops…very hard to beat.”
• On the small-ball lineup: “Our ability to be able to guard multiple positions…when we screen, we get in the pocket.”
• On Wiseman’s defensive anticipation, how long that will take: “It takes awhile to learn that…as a big you can’t hide…took me a couple years to figure that out, figure out the talking part…the whole team was struggling with defense earlier in the year so it wasn’t all his fault.”
• On all the firepower and their limit: “We’re a really dangerous team when things are going well…clicking…when those guys are putting on a show, it’s a lot of fun.”
• On what Looney does off the court: “I had to really learn my body…figure out your own routine…Joga…catch me here 8:30 in the morning…it took me about five years to figure that out.”
• On what it meant when Kerr said he was the moral compass
KLAY POSTGAME 11/20
• Klay on how it feels to hit 10 threes: “Man, it feels amazing…I’m hard on myself…to get one and open the floodgates, it’s only up from here.”
• On the ball movement: “Every shot to me is a great shot, but sometimes I need my teammates to reel me in. We had a great talk before that Knicks game and this morning, Steve played a highlight tape of Barcelona, the ‘tiki-taka’ method they’ve been using for years, that’s kind of what we do, hit the open man, cut. I finally feel like myself, my legs feel great, I’m cutting to the rim, taking great shots and I’m just excited for what’s to come. I’m gonna lie to you guys, that felt amazing. Wow. I don’t care if it’s a mid-November game, that felt great.”
• On how easy it is to play with Steph: “when we both got that going on.”
• On the balance of cutting and shooting: “when I keep the game simple…that’s when I go for 60 or 10 threes…I’m not the most flashy but I’m efficient.”
• On if he’ll play tomorrow night:
“I would absolutely love to but those decisions are left to the training staff who led us to a championship.”
👍👍💙💛