Fair warning, this is gonna be another one of those posts where I give you the information, textbook-style. There’s a method to my madness, which I can’t really explain right now.
But the following information about Jerry Stackhouse was first gleaned at the end of preseason, and then lo and behold it happened again last night after Golden State swept New Orleans and earned a 4-1 start to the regular season. I just never got around to posting the first iteration of this “dissertation”.
In any case, outside of any one-off exclusives that Stackhouse has done with the local radio and television stations, this is a good chunk of what we know so far. I won’t post the transcripts because those are available in the Comments of every interview I post on the YouTube channel…
After the Warriors routed the Lakers to their last preseason game, Brandin Podziemski was asked — by a reporter who I’m not familiar with who has a strong foreign accent — about how weird it’s been not to have Klay Thompson in the locker room. Podziemski’s reply segued into being 6-0 in the preseason, then to defense, then to Jerry Stackhouse:
…we’re going to miss (Klay) this year, but we can’t dwell on it. We got a new squad, 6-and-0 now, so it’s time to reset everything. And going into Wednesday at Portland, how can we just keep it flowing and getting stops. I think Jerry has brought a different dynamic on the defensive end, which has been really great for us. It’s something that the vets haven’t even seen that we’re doing coverage-wise and rotation-wise.
Danny Emerman of Bay Area News Group, whom we’ve had on one of our livestreams, took the opportunity to expand on that when De’Anthony Melton next took the podium, asking Melton, “Podz mentioned some of the new defensive tactics, rotations, coverages that Jerry has brought. Could you explain some of that? What should people be looking for in terms of what he has brought to the team?”
Melt’s response:
I mean, I don’t really want to give out our scheme like that, but I mean, just making it crowded for us, making it crowded for other teams, just being disruptive. And I think if you be physical early and you use your hands and use your feet, a lot of stuff is gonna go your way and forcing people into tough decisions. That’s what we want to do. And I feel like that’s we’ve been doing this last six preseason games.
With me being rather myopic with deep-cut Warriors coverage and often times not having the privilege of studying the broader NBA, the first preseason game where De’Anthony was tasked with guarding James Harden was my first real look at Melton. And, boy, was I impressed. Even in the first few possessions, Melt pressed up Harden and made it very difficult for The Beard to execute his pick-and-roll with Ivaca Zubac, right out of the gate. But who knows, maybe Harden was playing the relatively meaningless Hawaii preseason debut on cruise control.
For me, having checked off the box that Melton was a solid pickup — for both defense and offense — at the NTMLE level of $12.8 million, lately I’ve been noticing the warts of other guys on defense. It’s what I’ve always done as a former coach, when I gathered the All-Stars in the Asian-American league I was the commissioner of, on one team to go to traveling Asian-Am tournaments across the country, representing the Bay. The players I recruited all were great at a ton of things. They didn’t need anymore encouragement from me on those aspects. But having spent time with them in practices and scrimmages and warm-up tournaments in the Bay, I’d notice little flaws in their game and try to coach them up a little on those “warts” before it was time for the big out-of-town tourney.
Often times on our Watch Party livestreams of each Warriors game, I’ll have time to clip a mistake that I spot after Steve Kerr calls timeout and the TV broadcast goes to break. There was one play where I noticed Podz over-help Melton, resulting in confusion and, ultimately, an open three for the Kings.
I noticed Stackhouse angrily yell (but not too angrily) at BP, even though at the time, it looked like he’d done the right thing. Melt, believe it or not, got burned backdoor from the corner and the Sacramento backup power forward he was covering had a clear cut, down the right baseline. From the wing, Podz switched to instinctively help, completely abandoning his shooting guard who was curling out to the wing. Melton actually kind of had his ankles broken on that baseline cut, so he couldn’t really switch onto the King that Podz had left, and all the Kings split-action big with the ball had to do was flip it to that guy for an easy catch-and-shoot three.
So Stackhouse’s disgust is in alignment with the overall philosophy. Also, I haven’t seen BP make a doubling mistake since, so it looks like that problem has been solved. First off, I think in this day and age of the NBA, giving up an open three is probably more of a sin than giving up an open layup — this takes a little getting used to, if you’re more of an old-school coach like me.
Secondly, BP was tracking his man just fine, then switched off. We also know that Kerr last year said on more than one occasion on the podium that Podziemski had a good-and-bad habit of over-helping, although that was more along the lines of trust — and the worse defense the squad had, to boot.
But this year, Melton giving away some of Stackhouse’s overarching schemes explains why he would be upset at Podz for not giving up a layup. Crowding up your guy, by definition, doesn’t leave a lot of room for switching way off as BP did.
I think this also explains BP chasing around De’Aaron Fox from behind or “in tow” in the game at Sacramento, a strategy which Mike Brown exploited for a few buckets. It’s because the Warriors are now crowding guys, forcing them to make decisions earlier than they’re probably used to. When you’re not crowding a guy like Fox without the ball, you have to be in tow with him, rather than give space to anticipate where he will go and do the short cut to where he’ll end up being.
NBA stars are just too good when they have space these days, especially with the threat of the three-ball. So if BP doesn’t trail Fox and tries to get around curl action by giving space to see where he can cut off where Fox appears to be going, De’Aaron can abort that action and pop back out for a wide-open look on the catch. But anyways, good on Brown for throwing in some Xs and Os that counter that. Those are probably already baked into his schemes.
Melton pressuring the Lakers’ third-string point guard, Quincy Olivari (yes, that kid!), near halfcourt in a blowout also explains the Stackhouse philosophy. I said at the time on the livestream that I didn’t get why Melton would do that when Olivari hadn’t presented himself as a Kyrie Irving-like driving force, but now I get it.
The Stack crowd principle might also explain some of Jonathan Kuminga’s on-ball defense. I’m set to do a video report on how un-tradeable Kuminga is, to me, largely based on Draymond Green’s constant “future All-Star” praise and JK’s super-impressive summer workout footage, which includes eye-popping Kobe Bryant-like mid-post fadeaway moves…
…but there is a glaring flaw in JK’s game: sometimes he oversteps on his point-of-attack defense, shuffling his feet north and south rather than east and west.
Sometimes it’s made even worse on his closeouts. Even Kerr recently remarked about that on the podium after an early season practice, answering questions from Ron Kroichick of the SF Chronicle on Jonathan’s transition from the 4 last season to the 3 this season when Andrew Wiggins starts at the 2:
…if we are tough defensively, then a lot of that stuff is mitigated. So he’s got to be better defensively for sure, making sure he’s in the shell and and not leaking out of our shell, making sure he’s on a string with the other guys. He’s gotta be better on his closeouts the last couple games. He’s been blown by a few times. We’ve talked to him about it. But what I loved about that last game is the force and it came from his speed running in both directions. That makes up for a lot of stuff.
And so I’m a little bit relieved that Kuminga isn’t just getting blown by for getting blown by’s sake. He’s probably trying to execute the “crowd the guy” Stackhouse philosophy, maybe combined with a penchant for biting on pump fakes — I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt. He doesn’t have the fundamentals down like Melton to execute it, but it seems like he’s got the desire.
As De’Anthony put it in the same postgame when he revealed the Stackhouse crowding strategy:
…honestly watching him slide his feet today out there, it was good to see because he has the capability of doing it. He’s strong, he’s quick and he’s athletic, where all those type things is what you need to go on defense. Now, it’s just about effort and wanting to do it. And I think he’s taking more of a role into wanting to play defense, wanting to get stops.
I wrote all of the above from the middle of preseason, but just never got around to posting it. Now, after the back-to-back wins against the Pelicans, Stackhouse came up again on the podium. More “secrets” were revealed. Here’s Trayce Jackson-Davis:
He likes the way that we get on the ball. He wants everything to almost be a double and stuff of that nature. He likes guys flying around and putting pressure on the defense. And I think that’s something that with our big wings and, Draymond, me, Loon in the back, can really hurt defenses.
And here’s Podz:
I think we’re just really good at covering for each other. I think, as crazy as it sounds, Jerry’s dumbed it down to the point where everybody understands kind of the principle of what we’re trying to do. And everything is super-regulated where he tries to eliminate as much gray area as possible. Everything’s kind of black and white and we’ll make adjustments accordingly, but I think that really helped us, especially through training camp, just kind of understanding what we’re trying to get to. And, like I said, he’s kind of dumbed out the gray area part of things and made it super black-and-white. So everybody’s on the same page.
…defensively, everything’s just congested for the other team and you can kind of feel that when I’m out there just feel like they have nowhere to go in the paint, whereas last year we were just kind of giving up the rim. Yeah, and I think the only way they really scored tonight was in transition off our turnovers that we had.
Just prior to Trayce and BP going on the podium, Draymond revealed something really interesting about Stack and his methods:
He’s adding a fire and a level of accountability to us on the defensive end. He came in and he came in, kind of implemented some different defensive rules. If you know anything about the NBA, we all run the same stuff.
And he’s coming back from college, obviously Stack’s a vet, legend. 17-18,000 points in this league, but he spent years in college and he came in with a couple different rules where everybody’s like, ‘Ah,’ but he was so confident and he was so vocal about it. And every time you got it wrong, he’s teaching you, “That’s not it. I know you’ve done it that way. That’s not it.”
And when someone comes in with that type of force, with that type of confidence and presence. As a player, you have no choice but to believe it. And he’s giving guys a level of confidence on the defensive end that we hadn’t had.
But, like I said, more importantly, a level of accountability that we haven’t had over the last couple years. And he’s, like, that’s all he talk about. He don’t say a word about the offensive end. Only defense and he’s on guys every single play.
He has these defensive grades that he sends out every game and you see guys going up to him like it’s competitive now, right? Like, you get dinged for everything, man. One small thing and your points, your grade is dropping and it’s like a list of everything you do.
Well, you don’t want to see that list. And you got a lot of dings on it. And so, there’s just a level of accountability that he’s brought to that side of the ball for us. And he’s created this challenge to where everybody’s trying to be at the top of this list. In turn, it’s creating a good defense for us.
…I had a meeting with Stack before the season even started. He told — showed me all his principles. Yeah. And he said to me personally, he said, I’m not going to stop you from being great. I’m not going to stop you from playing off your instinct and doing what you do. Do that. Play off that instinct.
But there are some things that I think as a defense we can do better. And believe it or not, Tim (Kawakami), like you said, I am a guy who’s always looking to help, who’s always in opposition. If I’m a slight bit off, like, if I’m here and help, and he think I should be here, you get dinged for it.
And I’m like, “Stack, come on, man. I’m covering that.” But like I said, there’s that level of accountability. So I’ve appreciated that as well. I absolutely enjoy being coached and I want to get better. And so to have someone that’s holding me accountable like that, I love it.
Because I like to think I’m a great defender, but you can always get better. To have someone that’s on me every second like, “Yo, man, you ain’t doing this. You ain’t doing that.” And although I think like, “Yo, I’m there and I think I’m in a position that’s good enough to cover that if I need to, he’s like, “It ain’t good enough. You need to get over a step.”
And so it’s been good. We gotta make sure we keep building on it and keep flying around and bringing that intensity to that side of the ball like we have been.
Podziemski, when asked how he’s been doing with Stack’s grading so far:
Pretty good. Actually, I was surprised. It’s actually kind of cool. When I was in high school, he recruited me to Vanderbilt. So we’ve had a little bit of a relationship prior to this. And so we talk almost daily about things he sees for me and what I can get better at.
But I think out of the five games, three out of the — well, three out of the four coming into this one, I’ve been in the plus. The only game I was minus was the Clipper game.
So just having constant communication, like I said to Tim, he eliminates the gray area of things and is super-principle-based. And even when we watch film, it always comes back to our principles that we talk about. And so I think it’s helped the guys just kind of understand what their responsibility is out there.
🫶💙💛