Stephen Curry was surprisingly unrepentant describing his five turnovers to Anthony Slater of The Athletic at postgame Memphis:
That was a bad call, the first possession of the game, setting a good screen, that’s one. Threw a bad pass to Klay in transition, the second quarter of the second one. Me and Wiggs got mixed up on the outlet pass. That, I probably could have gotten, but it went off my hands. They gave that to me, that was three, and then the two at the beginning of the fourth quarter. Me dribbling off the foot, that was whatever. And then drove into traffic and Gilyard made a good play when I was driving next to BP and he stole it. So like, it’s the timing of them. You don’t want to play timid out there. You don’t want to play not to have turnovers, but when they lead to points that are easy, especially when a team has it going, that’s the difference. So it’s the type.
Slater also added this scene observed from the locker room: https://theathletic.com/5204439/2024/01/16/draymond-green-return-warriors-grizzlies-game/
…29th in defensive rating (123.8) during Green’s recent 16-game absence and are 25th in rating (117.7) for the season. Stephen Curry and a frustrated Green were discussing the bleak nature of those team stats in the postgame locker room, trying to figure out which teams could be worse. It’s an issue Green appears intent on solving in a demanding manner.
But that wasn’t what doomed the Warriors on Monday. Turnovers derailed their night. They committed 19 of them, and at least 13 could be categorized as careless.
This detail troubles me, but I’m willing to write it off as Draymond Green wanting to take a bull by its horns and lead the team out of its defensive miseries, rather than Curry simply bought in that defense is what lost the game.
As far as Steph seemingly not taking ownership of those five freebies, I’ll supply proof that he’s wrong on the ones he gave the above excuses for, below, because I want to get straight to the point.
THIRD OF THE TRINITY’S TURN?
As I wrote previously, this is the “Season of Humility”. In chronological order, we’ve had Draymond contemplating retirement and Klay Thompson having a heart-to-heart with Steve Kerr on enjoying the “last chapter” of his career, essentially refocusing Klay’s attention away from stats splits and to just playing basketball the right way — and we’ve seen the results, just picture the lead passes to Trayce Jackson-Davis.
Does Steph need that talk with Steve, too?
I had thought maybe not, as in the previous post I noticed he had been reducing his turnovers by around 33%, cutting his averages down to about two per game from about three per game. I’ve also posited way back after the Christmas Game that another form of humility is to actively include Jonathan Kuminga in “pet plays”, as “30” likes to call them (no sign of that happening anytime soon, as I wrote in the last one — linked above — and observed at Memphis, see below).
But Curry just had five giveaways, they each had their dramatic effect in what ended up as a loss, and he seems to be in denial.
DABDA MODEL (FIRST STEP IS DENIAL)
Admittedly, I don’t know anything about psychology except through personal experiences, so this section is really about entertainment than information, but I just looked it up and the “five stages of grief” comes with this graph…
…and this one…
It feels like Dray went through the top graph. I can’t be sure about Klay, though.
In the quote from postgame, Steph seems to suggest that the flip-side of not committing the types of turnovers he’s committing is playing “timid”.
My rebuttal to that is he’s showed up to a Game 7, dropped 50, and committed only one turnover. That Sacramento performance certainly can’t be categorized as “timid”. He’d probably bring up the 43 in Game 4 at Boston, though (five turnovers).
The turnovers Kerr pointed out postgame in Memphis happened to be all Curry’s, when asked about the team total of 19 (again by Slater, hats off):
Yeah, careless. They put a lot of pressure on Steph and he had a couple turnovers in the backcourt, and it just felt like, again, like they were putting pressure on us from the start, instead of being solid, taking care of the ball and executing, we got careless. We had a three-on-two in transition in the second quarter that turned into a three the other way. We have to understand where we are as a team. You know what our record is, where we are in the Western Conference. What that means is we have to be sharp. We have to play a smart, clean game. We can’t turn it over. We can’t reach. We can’t foul. We did all those things…
I believe the last 10 games we were fourth in the league in turnovers, like 12 a game.
WHERE’S THE ELITE NEXT LEVEL?
The other bad thing is that the dribbling off of the foot was against the pressure of Vince Williams, Jr. and the clean pick was by another no-name (let’s just call a spade a spade), Jacob Gilyard.
I mean, yeah, Steph got Williams with the floor shimmy play back in the second quarter…
…but, bro, he got you back. And then some, with Gilyard, both in the pivotal fourth. As I like to say on the ManningCast play-by-play, these are of the embarrassing “AAU turnover” variety.
Draymond, I thought, put it best:
We’re the Golden State Warriors. I’d hit shots against us too. I’d be excited to play against Hall-of-Fame Steph Curry, Klay Thompson. Absolutely, I’d be excited. And I’d make every shot. So we can talk about guys who don’t normally make shots making shots all we want. Credit GG Jackson. I don’t know what his 3-point percentage is, but he answered the bell. He had an opportunity to play against some Hall-of-Famers and he answered the bell. So you gotta give guys credit. Vince Williams just earned himself a contract for a reason. Gillyard hit three threes, three for four. Like, ‘Man, I’m playing against Steph Curry.’ Absolutely, I’m going to shoot and be excited and make more shots than I’m supposed to make. So that’s going to happen no matter what. No matter who you play against. Because the reality is, how many guys in the league have the resumes that Steph Curry and Klay Thompson have? How many? James Harden, LeBron James. You know the guys. We all know the guys. Like, there’s probably 15 of them, 20 maybe. Maybe not that many, but you get my point, which means there’s 430 other guys that isn’t. So when they play against us, they’re going to be excited.
The above was said in the context of the “defensive pride” narrative, but shouldn’t it apply at all times such as on offense, too?
I get that Williams was superb with the top-blocking. We talked about that on the livestream a lot, in fact. The game plan by Taylor Jenkins to win this one game was brilliant, to the point where, flying in from Milwaukee and not having the ability to practice, it’s tough to say that Kerr was “out-coached”.
They already had a lot on their plate with Draymond coming back. Jenkins knew this and took advantage of it with a “janky defense,” as Steph likes to call these ploys to stop him. In a seven-game series, this gets corrected or even prepared for much better than on a road trip with travel days in between stops in the middle of a snowy January on the East Coast.
But one play was particularly notable in thwarting the top-block strategy. The first Warriors possession of Q4, Curry set an up-screen on Dray with the ball, which enabled Green to get downhill on his man:
Unfortunately, GG Jackson disrupted the layup. Without analyzing the film, it didn’t seem like the Dubs tried to exploit the top-blocking any further after that. I would’ve liked to see Steph do that with the ball in Kuminga hands, again echoing my ongoing thought that humility ought to lead the team to decide to include JK in pet plays.
So imo the coaching staff and Steph both need to reach that elite level, and actually the really easy answer is right in front of them: JK! But, like I wrote in the last piece, I’m not surprised by where their heads are with these last nine to ten games before the trade deadline. If there’s something broken with the Steph Klay Dray “Trinity” then it has to literally break in front of our eyes (more on this theory in a future piece, as my co-host Dean Chambers is working on analyzing how the “wheels fall off” of dynasties of the past).
SORRY, STEPH, BUT…
Credit to Slater, he counted 13 of the 19 as “terrible”, then proceeded to break down ten of the “careless” type, including snippets of game film, two for each of the following five “culprits”: Curry, Andrew Wiggins, Dario Saric, Draymond, and Kuminga all had them.
For Steph, he showed clips of the one dribbling off his foot and the clean pick: “He doesn’t sense Jacob Gilyard stalking him for a steal,” Slater writes. “It turns into a strip and runout layup. Don’t blame the defense for these two Grizzlies points.”
Here’s the first one on the opening possession of the game. Steph says it was a bad call and I actually agreed with him in real-time, incorrectly picking on the junior ref Jenna Schroeder (only five years of NBA experience), but upon rewatch at a timeout last night and another rewatch just now, I just have to say no. Curry was moving on the pick. He just is:
And the fourth time I watched this, I slowed it down and still think it’s a foul on Steph:
And then the outlet from Wiggins, I don’t get it (nice box-out, though):
Here’s the slow-mo version:
If you replaced Steph in this replay with George Kittle, you’re gonna say that’s a drop from Kittle. And then Curry is literally up on the podium indicating he was surprised he got tagged with the turnover stat rather than Wiggs.
“Season of Humility,” Steph. You’re on deck, man! 🤷🏻♂️ It is what it is. We’re in 12th place. Every possession, we need.
STEVE/LOON/STEPH POSTGAME
0:00 They hit 37% of their shots, but obviously a win. I mean, how do you just kind of sum up how you guys played defensively?
STEVE KERR POSTGAME GSW-MEM: “Well, we played very poorly defensively, but a lot of that had to do with our offense, 19 turnovers that turned into 30 points, and their game plan was pretty simple, shoot as many threes as possible, and get into transition as often as possible, and then, for us to foul 25 times to their 12, that’s the story. They just played a really clean game. They took care of the ball. They didn’t foul and we were reaching, Steph got several early fouls. We were turning the ball over left and right and they gained belief as they went, all these guys are in the NBA, and we tell them that before every game like this, these guys are in the NBA for a reason. They’re really good players, so they can all shoot and they lit it up from three; they had to do that. We knew they had to do that. So we didn’t play the game that could keep them from doing that, turnovers and the fouls. all those free points they got. That was the difference in the game.”
1:19 You spoke a little bit pregame about having these guys you were looking to as well. You have five or six best players out, kind of look over them. You can look past them. Do you think that that was an issue mentally tonight?
“It doesn’t matter whether it was or not. I mean, we talk about that before the game . That’s the first thing we say in the scouting report. We’ve lost four games like this in the last two years where the other team is missing, three, four starters, whatever it is. So you get their attention by saying that and try to get their guard up. and unfortunately – I thought we played fine in the first quarter for the most part, but to me, the mid-second quarter we had several moments to get a couple stops in a row, get the lead to eight or 10, get control of the game, and we just threw the ball away. And so we did not have the intent or the focus to win that game.”
2:20 What’d you think of how Draymond did?
“Draymond played well. He played hard, it’s good to have him back. Obviously, as a team, we didn’t play well, but Draymond competed and good to get him kind of back in the fold.”
2:40 You guys only had 13 turnovers in the last two games… it seemed like some of them were kind of just careless.
“Yeah, careless. They put a lot of pressure on Steph and he had a couple turnovers in the backcourt, and it just felt like, again, like they were putting pressure on us from the start, instead of being solid, taking care of the ball and executing, we got careless. We had a three-on-two in transition in the second quarter that turned into a three the other way. We have to understand where we are as a team. You know what our record is, where we are in the Western Conference. What that means is we have to be sharp. We have to play a smart, clean game. We can’t turn it over. We can’t reach. We can’t foul. We did all those things.”
3:39 Had you felt like you made real strides with turnovers lately?
“Yeah, I mean, I believe the last 10 games we were fourth in the league in turnovers, like 12 a game. So yeah, absolutely. We made huge strides. And so that was the biggest difference tonight and it started right away. We had three turnovers in the first three minutes and we got scattered and didn’t handle their defense well and I called a quick timeout and unfortunately we couldn’t get it back together.”
4:11 You played Draymond’s center a bunch. I mean, I know you’re going to make some matches. That’s been the story of the season, but as you move forward, I mean, are you liking that look?
“Draymond’s played tons of five the last few years. So he’ll continue to play plenty of five. But Loon, Loon’s a good player and he’s meant so much to us over the years. and he’s our best rebounder. Dario is going to play some five, obviously with his scoring. Trayce has had a nice rookie year and does some good things for us. So the five will continue to be manned by multiple people.”
4:50 Where do you think on an individual basis, kind of throughout the team, though, the pride of the defense is?
KEVON LOONEY: “We talk about it all the time and by executing the game plan and going out there to defend, we know what it takes to win and on nights like this, kind of disappointing that we feel like we could’ve, we should’ve won the game. And we let those guys get real comfortable early, hit a lot of threes. and so that’s the defensive thing we gotta get better at. I think individually we know we all can be better. We know we need to be better at. We’ve been talking about it all year. But we gotta really put our mind to it and not keep the same next game, this game, but actually doing it. That’s what makes our team good is when we defend and when we do not defend, we can’t beat anybody. So yeah.”
5:49 How much does that individual pride underlie the problems on defense?
“It’s a little bit of both. It’s the NBA, it’s gonna be hard to guard it one-on-one. It’s always a team effort. but if we try to be better individually, our team is going to be a lot better, especially. So that’s something we gotta watch film on and figure out. Last week we talked about transition, today is individual defense. So we gotta be better as a whole and everybody, it’s not just one person or two or three people. It’s like everybody gotta put that hard hat on and say, ‘My man not going to score.’ So I think it’s a, it’s a little bit of both. I think tonight was probably more of an individual thing. But each game is different and each game plan is different. So we just gotta be more focused on that.”
6:43 How hard is it to, after a few times, start to get going and get to figure out what exactly is going to happen?
“Tough to turn that water off. Sometimes you can, but like a night like tonight, I feel like we defended the paint well, but they had it going from three, it wasn’t just one person. It was a group of guys. So it’s kind of tough, when the whole team gets in a groove and they get comfortable like that. And that started with us dictating the game from the beginning and putting ball pressure and letting guys see the ball go in early. And no, we didn’t do a good job of that. They feel comfortable. They was playing their style, was reacting to everything. and once they get it going like that, it’s always going to be tough to win.”
7:26 How was having Draymond back?
“It was great having his energy back out there, having his voice. Our communication was better today, just having him there. He brings a special energy to our team and it’s always great to have him back on the court and for the rest of the season, yeah.
7:50 What did you think of the defense with Draymond back?
STEPHEN CURRY: “It’s pretty clear our numbers are not great. I think since he’s been out, bottom five in the league and getting beat a lot of different ways. Tonight it was, they had a lineup that everybody was shooting threes. They got up 54 of them. So we make them miss and then we gave up 40 free throws. I don’t want to be Mike Brown up here, like going through them all to see how legit they are. But in the middle of a game, you have to be able to control that end of the floor to give yourself a chance, especially on the road. I don’t care who you’re playing. And they had guys that came out just swinging, playing aggressive, confident, shooting shots that they thought they could make and obviously did. And then that run at the beginning of the fourth was the difference.”
9:01 What did you think of the 54 threes they took and the 40 free throws?
“I don’t know what the summary is. It was a little bit of everything. The primary defender driving, swiping down. We had a couple tough block charges that didn’t go our way. Offensive rebounds that you’re swiping down, giving free looks at the line. I think most of them are probably just off drives too. If you try to take away a three and the lane’s wide open, nobody’s helping each other, so you pick it, they found a way to get there.”
10:07 You just had a day off, kind of a rest day. How did you feel physically that rest day?
“It was very productive for me. Individually, I felt great. It was needed, and you like to come out and impact the game to win tonight and make it worth it and not drop two in a row. The guys fought hard in Milwaukee and we had a lot of confidence coming in here that we could get a win, but we didn’t, so to answer your question, I feel great.”
10:47 I’ll go back to the turnovers. Obviously, you guys have made progress the last couple games, even the last 10 games … any sense of what was different tonight than recent games?
“Nah, without knowing everybody’s turnovers, I always look at mine. That was a bad call, the first possession of the game, setting a good screen, that’s one. Threw a bad pass to Klay in transition, the second quarter of the second one. Me and Wiggs got mixed up on the outlet pass. That, I probably could have gotten, but it went off my hands. They gave that to me, that was three, and then the two at the beginning of the fourth quarter. Me dribbling off the foot, that was whatever. And then drove into traffic and Gillyard made a good play when I was driving next to BP and he stole it. So like, it’s the timing of them. You don’t want to play timid out there. You don’t want to play not to have turnovers, but when they lead to points that are easy, especially when a team has it going, that’s the difference. So it’s the type.”
DRAYMOND POSTGAME GSW-MEM
0:00 How did you feel coming back today?
DRAYMOND GREEN POSTGAME GSW-MEM: “I felt good, a lot of things considered. I felt really good.
0:17 What did you think were the problems defensively?
“It falls off in having pride. You just gotta have pride in yourself as a man, that I’m not gonna let my guy score. And our closeouts was too soft. Our rotations were too slow. So it’s just no pride. Until every guy take pride in themselves and want to stop the guy in front of them, we’ll suck.”
0:46 What was concerning, the turnovers, the fouls?
“They’re all concerning. But what they all say is we can’t check. The turnovers are what they are. I don’t really worry about the turnovers. So we’ve been good at not turning the ball over, but we can’t guard nobody until we guard. We’ll lose. It’s everything. It starts on the after, it starts with the person on the ball and everybody else behind. It’s everybody. It’s not just one person. Individuals make up a team. And individually our defense sucks, so in turn our team defense sucks.” [inaudible]
2:12 What’s it like for you to see where this team is going?
“If we got guys that’ll take pride in themselves and play defense, one through 17 or however many guys we got, then it is solvable. If guys won’t take pride in defense, it’s very simple. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure it out. You gotta take pride in your one-on-one matchup. I think every guy they had down there beat their season average. And so you gotta take pride and it starts with one-on-one defense. And if you take pride in one-on-one defense, then the team defense will automatically get better, right? Like you worry about the trap, the box and the help shot and all that stuff. But if you don’t take pride in one-on-one defense, every guy, a shell or a trap, the box or none of that stuff matters. So until we take that pride, it’ll be the same old story.”
3:26 Does it start at an individual just deciding the need to snap out of it?
“One through 17. It’s not just one guy. We all suck.”
3:42 How vocal have you been on this feeling, your nature and your intention for defense? I would think you would’ve brought this up.
“I’m always gonna be vocal. I’m never gonna stop talking. I know there’s this concern that, ‘Oh, he won’t talk no more.’ I don’t know how to not talk. If I tell myself I’m not going to talk, I’m still going to talk. So I’m always going to talk.”
4:06 A lot of the concerns we’ve had since your return, it was said that the communication needs to be fixed. That could fix a lot of problems. Do you think the problems might be for them?
“Communication is a part of it, but if you don’t take pride in one-on-one defense, communication don’t matter. Because then guys are just downhill, and you’re reacting to everything. You can communicate when you’re not reacting to everything. But if every time you look up, someone’s driving, and again, that’s 1 through 17, there’s no help for straight-line drives. I don’t care how great of a defender you are, your team, if you give up straight-line drives you can’t catch up. It’s just not gonna happen. You’re always gonna be a man down at that point. So we gotta take pride in ourselves. We keep talking about, ‘Oh man, these teams are hitting shots, guys are hitting shots that they aren’t supposed to hit.’ We’re the Golden State Warriors. I’d hit shots against us too. I’d be excited to play against Hall-of-Fame Steph Curry, Klay Thompson. Absolutely, I’d be excited. And I’d make every shot. So we can talk about guys who don’t normally make shots making shots all we want. Credit GG Jackson. I don’t know what his 3-point percentage is, but he answered the bell. He had an opportunity to play against some Hall-of-Famers and he answered the bell. So you gotta give guys credit. Vince Williams just earned himself a contract for a reason. Gillyard hit three threes, three for four. Like, ‘Man, I’m playing against Steph Curry.’ Absolutely, I’m going to shoot and be excited and make more shots than I’m supposed to make. So that’s going to happen no matter what. No matter who you play against. Because the reality is, how many guys in the league have the resumes that Steph Curry and Klay Thompson have? How many? James Harden, LeBron James. You know the guys. We all know the guys. Like, there’s probably 15 of them, 20 maybe. Maybe not that many, but you get my point, which means there’s 430 other guys that isn’t. So when they play against us, they’re going to be excited. And they’re going to make shots that they’re not supposed to make or don’t usually make. And until you take pride in stopping them and not looking at, ‘Oh man, this guy is not a great shooter.’ Like, when he play us, he gonna be great because of what’s at stake. You wouldn’t be in the NBA if you couldn’t answer that call, right? So until we figure that out, and no, no, you gotta contest shots. Like, you gotta get there. You can’t just give guys free looks because he may miss 30 in a row coming into playing against us. And when he play against us, he gonna hit 30 in a row. Because that’s what it comes with. And so until we learn that lesson, teams gonna shoot the lights out, they’re gonna play their best game of the year, and all of that stuff gonna happen. Because again, if I gotta play against Steph Curry, you bet your bottom dollar I’ll be excited as hell too. And I’m gonna shoot with – I got nothing to lose. I’m supposed to lose to Steph Curry. So what do I have to lose? Nothing. If I go 0-for-10, nobody’s going to leave that game like, ‘GG went 0-for-10.’ No, never. They’re going to leave that game talking about, ‘Well, what did Steph do? What did Klay do? What did Wiggins do?’ That’s what they’re going to leave the game saying. So guess what? You got free reign to go out there and shoot it with no pressure. And we’re playing against NBA players. So it’s then our job to apply pressure. And if we don’t, what happened tonight will keep happening.”
8:32 How did you feel playing 20-something minutes?
“Yeah, I felt great. I always tell you guys how much I trust Rick (Celebrini). So it’s not something that I’m going to walk in there and question. I’ll share how I felt and I think it’ll go up pretty fast, but until it does, I’ll just be the best that I could be in my minutes and try to bring a spark to this team. It was fun. It’s fun being back on the court. I’ll get the chance to play basketball. That’s always fun. So no, it wasn’t weird. It was a little weird. Running out of the tunnel to go shoot kind of my pre-game. But then after that you kind of just settle down and fall into it.”
9:28 And when you had team issues or turnover issues at the halfway point of the season, how concerning is that? Does it feel like you still have time or is time getting urgent?
“I mean, time was always urgent in this league because you don’t have the opportunity to just waste time, let time waste away, because you face too many unforeseen things in this league to just let time dwindle away. You face injuries. We play 82 games. The likelihood that someone is going to get hurt or miss some time is probably well above 50%. And so the reality is, you’re going to lose guys, you’re going to miss guys. And so if you don’t win games and give yourself a cushion, you’re always against the clock. So I don’t view it as, ‘Oh man, we’re at the halfway point, we’re running out of time.’ You don’t win championships in June. It’s a process that you must go through. And teams that you see cheat the process, they never win. It’s a process from September, October, to June. So you don’t just get to waste time. So I never view this as like, ‘Oh man, we’re at the halfway point. I’m getting a little concerned now.’ No, you gotta be concerned all the time because, again, you’re going to face some things that you just can’t account for… it may not always be there. So no, I’m not just, now I’m worried that we’re running out of time. You gotta build great habits, and right now this team, we have bad habits, and it starts with me getting suspended and all the foolishness, all of those things matter. So we gotta build better habits. And like I said to Kendra (Andrews) the other day, don’t start with one guy, one guy isn’t gonna fix anything, it is a team effort. And if you can’t compete well as a team, it never works. Cool. Thanks for having me.”
GSW-MEM GAME NOTES
0:00 refs: Mark Lindsay, Pat Fraher, Jenna Schroeder (uh oh, but we’re gonna see a new Draymond so I’m not as worried about techs)
2:00 go check out my latest article!
2:30 my thoughts on every guy having humility
8:15 Draymond will not start at the 5
8:45 Steph Klay Wiggs Saric Loon to start
9:15 lost tipoff
11m50 Q1 Wiggs good hustle on close out
11m33 Q1 Steph sets pick for Klay, Zaire crashes (Steph was moving)
11m03 Q1 Klay to Loon
10m50 Q1 Dario good help, Klay fade Wiggs grabbed net?
9m48 Q1 Dario good wrap up to Loon good
9m18 Q1 Loon bad pass
9m03 Q1 Vince doesn’t let Steph
8m50 Q1 Dario weak pass to Steph (top blocked)
8m40 Q1 Loon completely leaves JJJ open
17:30 analyzing the last play:
8m22 Q1 Wiggs saves the day oreb on Steph hero 3
7m58 Q1 Jenna again: no foul in backcourt
7m45 Q1 Steph to Dario thru action finally
6m51 Q1 Steph 2nd foul
6m40 Q1 Dario another good help
6m10 Q1 Dray in, Steph BP Wiggs JK Dray
6m08 Q1 JK great D on JJJ attack
5m45 Q1 Wiggs great D on Tillman
5m25 Q1 Dray 3 via motion
5m03 Q1 Steph good close out
4m58 Q1 JK with the All-Star move in and out dribble and Euro bye bye Zaire
4m48 Q1 JK wastes one point by not putting effort into getting out of the paint on def3
3m55 Q1 Steph hero 3 miss
3m36 Q1 JK couldn’t slow post because Steph cut, just goes to show we’ll never look for that
2m55 Q1 Steph wanted to keep the long reb inbound to keep the pace
2m38 Q1 Klay bad shot on the cut reception
2m13 Q1 JK spider-man attack of Aldama
1m00 Q1 Klay quick catch miss via Dray I’m ok with it
0m55 Q1 JK POA foul on Santi
0m20 Q1 BP push shot via Dray action
0m03 Q1 Dray FT miss tap to BP miss running 3
38:15 on Steph Klay Dray being the most beautiful basketball ever, better than halfcourt Kobe Shaq, better than Triangle MJ
12m00 Q2 Klay to BP Kerr System bucket
11m20 Q2 Klay nice pick ends up with open JK 3 missed (Kerr System!)
10m38 Q2 Klay forgets to box out GG Jackson
10m20 Q2 BP open 3 corner via Klay CoJo P&R, Memphis left CoJo, JK slam home
9m48 Q2 BP draws a charge — he now has 18, Brunson at 23, TJH 20, Mo Wagner 19
9m07 Q2 CoJo nice grab in trans finds Klay 3
8m11 Q2 GG hits another 3, he’s only 32% in college on 3s https://gamecocksonline.com/sports/mbball/roster/player/gregory-gg-jackson/
51:45 looking up charges drawn
53:15 see if Steph can do some damage vs Vince Williams top blocking
7m00 Q2 Wiggs another good closeout, Luke airball 3
6m21 Q2 Wiggs good close on Zaire
56:45 on who we’re playing (depleted team) who cares?
5m43 Q2 Wiggs gets a grabbing foul on JJJ
5m27 Q2 BP sticks with it as Steph lets
5m00 Q2 Steph shimmies while he’s on the ground after dribbling past VW
4m05 Q2 Dario bad sailed pass
3m55 Q2 quick 3 by Santi they don’t wait
3m07 Q2 Wiggs good hustle again
1m54 Q2 good D Wiggs Dray Steph but Steph throws ball away
1m30 Q2 Steph slip on the top block assist Dray
0m17 Q2 Dray great help on Roddy vs Wiggs turn airball
0m07 Q2 JK not looking at the pass back from Dray
1:11:15 analyzing the last play, Dray too cute, JK looking to screen Steph, Steph not going all out to free himself from topblock of VW
1:17:00 Draymond only 10m41 of play so far, do we double that for the total or do we think he’ll play even more than 21mins total?
1:20:00 I wrote that by Feb 5th we better be 25-24 which means going 7-3 in the next 10, and then we’ll need probably 2 bonafide winning streaks to end up 6th or better (8 games over .500 maybe)
11m40 Q3 Dario nice drive as VW smothers Steph
11m00 Q3 great cut Wiggs dunk
10m30 Q3 Wiggs throws ball away (nvm “old Wiggs back”)
9m40 Q3 Wiggs scores via lob by Steph
8m23 Q3 Steph takes JJJ when VW wasn’t looking
8m00 Q3 Wiggs Euro as Steph rested on break
1:31:45 I have to run the J.Cole example again, I don’t want whiners in the comments asking me to analyze the open 3 and makes for Memphis:
7m17 Q3 Steph can’t catch the ball
6m23 Q3 Steph misses a layup
here
6m00 Q3 JJJ smothers wrestling style Steph no call
5m50 Q3 BP bad pass, Dray great foul from behind, Dray x Marcus Smart
5m28 Q3 BP makes something out of nothing after non-shooting foul for TJD wow
5m17 Q3 Klay forgot his man, mad at himself, Les subs for him (idk if that’s part of the rotation)
4m41 Q3 Dario checks in for Dray
2m59 Q3 TJD missed dunk, nice pass Dario
2m40 Q3 Les good D on Roddy attack
2m17 Q3 BP great cut assist by TJD
1m59 Q3 TJD block, Les to JK (missed TJD) dunk! Great to see this young unit flourish again (Q2 at MIL)
1m03 Q3 Dario bad wrap around this time
0m11 Q3 JK pass to close to TJD
0m04 Q3 Dray and Wiggs block
0m02 Q3 good D Dray on JJJ at buzz (how many mins will he play, now at 16mins, can he play 8 more mins) — I forgot that when you come back, it’s actually better to come off the bench
1:58:45 43 of 68 shots by Grizz are threes (GSW has 24) — 43 threes is insane after three quarters, usually you want to shoot like 30+, but maybe that’s what they’re doing with no Ja
11m31 Q4 Steph sets top-block for Dray who misses layup
10m19 Q4 BP bad foul of Luke 3
10m16 Q4 Steph dribble lost ball
9m50 Q4 Klay miss base over short guy
9m34 Q4 Dray risky pass kick ball, subs out for Loon
9m25 Q4 JK and1 as Steph top blocked again
8m51 Q4 Steph picked by Gilyard, GG another 3
7m33 Q4 JK didn’t see Gilyard
7m23 Q4 Luke 3 feeling it 20-for-48 (41.7%)
7m10 Q4 BP saves ball on oreb, after Steph gets benched
6m40 Q4 BP foul on loose ball, not challenged
6m03 Q4 JK fade Kawhi style at buzz
5m48 Q4 Dario entry pass bad to Wiggs (17 tov)
4m37 Q4 Dray and Steph back in
4m15 Q4 Dray TD pass iNT
4m00 Q4 Steph misses layup
3m02 Q4 Wiggs blocked by JJJ
2m28 Q4 Klay corner 3 in and out, needed that one after Steph got by Vince
2m00 Q4 Steph good lateral D vs Roddy tov
1m12 Q4 JK nice move as Steph falls down
2:34:30 from now on (until the trade deadlne), any given team has the blueprint of top-blocking if they have a Vince Williams type, any given team might still want to take out the dynasty, take out the reintegration, you have to be ready, and that also don’t turn the ball over
2:37:00 Ok, 8 or 9 more games of this and we call it a dynasty, end of story — IS IT REALLY THAT BAD?
2:40:45 1) it ain’t over til it’s over, 2) you’re in control of how you experience it, you can decide whether or not to be drowned by fear
2:47:45 STEVE POSTGAME AUDIO: top of the scouting report says they’ve lost 4 games in the last 2 years against depleted teams, last ten games we’re 4th in the league in tov
2:53:45 A positive, Draymond had reasonable reactions and no complaining or drama with the officials so that’s very good
2:54:00 I’ll say this Memphis is the fourth team in NBA history to take 50 threes and 40 free throws in a game, per Stathead
2:54:15 maybe the answer is simply that you can get away with turnovers, fouls which lead to free throws — and just dialing it back isn’t working for guys named Steph (no fouls after tipoff and no turnovers), Klay (no rushed shots after tipoff and no bad passes and falling asleep) and Dray (turnovers, yelling at ref) in general — those “antics” need to change, coaching staff can’t get away with things, gotta have counters — we had one play to counter the top blocking and we went away from it when Dray missed the layup
3:06:00 DRAYMOND POSTGAME AUDIO
3:11:45 Orlando 28: I think the young NBA guys are just maturing and getting better , they’re catching up to where we were. we’re no longer light years ahead but that’s normal. that’s life.
3:13:15 credit Taylor Jenkins for the game plan and my own experience playing against the Alpine Striders and their 1-3-1 zone every time — would you say every time that I got out-coached?
3:18:15 we could still see some changes to the team just by the return of GP2 and CP3 and avoid trades
3:19:15 @Nicole Diaz what do you think of CoJo? — 1) we’re talking about the third string pg (after Steph and BP) and 2) I didn’t really see him do anything wrong today — as GM you want to find something that can move the needle, it wiil be interesting to see what Dunleavy ends up thinking, whatever that result is
3:23:15 @Bruce Maro: trade for JP! — I actually forgot to mention in the article that we forget that JP did make up for Klay and we’re feeling it more this year when Klay has on off-night (theory). Correct?
3:27:15 I’m not sure that we can ever say Kerr gets the chance to outcoach Jenkins. Can’t happen.
3:31:15 Answering what I think about DeMar: We got so much on our plate rn on a game to game basis, I don’t want to spend any brain real estate to think about that. I would hire somebody to think about those. And MDJ has people for that.
3:34:00 I still don’t think we’re ever losing a game going into each game
3:38:15 Young Unit (Les, BP, JK, Dario, TJD) played great again
3:41:00 EXTENDED DRAYMOND AUDIO
3:50:30 STEVE PREGAME AUDIO
3:57:00 Steve says pregame that a lot of NBA guys let their guard down, 3 or 4 or 5 games for Draymond to be back to 100% conditioning
👍👍💛💙