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Speaker 1: responsible gaming resources. All right, welcome to him tonight here

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Speaker 1: at the volume. Happy Tuesday, everybody. Hope all of you

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Speaker 1: guys are having an incredible week on a super fun

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Speaker 1: show for you. Tonight, the Dallas Mavericks, who had won

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Speaker 1: like a million games in a row or something, went

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Speaker 1: on the road into Golden State, and the Warriors put

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Speaker 1: together a really impressive and specifically interesting defensive effort to

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Speaker 1: beat the Dallas Mavericks and end the winning strict We're

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Speaker 1: gonna break that game down from the perspective of both teams,

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Speaker 1: and then we'll get out of here for the night.

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Speaker 1: You guys are the joke before we get started. To

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Speaker 1: subscribe to our brand new YouTube channels. You don't miss

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Speaker 1: any more of our videos. Don't forget about our podcast

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Speaker 1: feed wherever you get your podcasts under Hoops tonight. It's

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Speaker 1: also super helpful if you leave a rating and a

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Speaker 1: review on that front. Don't forget about my Twitter feed

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Speaker 1: at underscore json lt That's where I leave game breakdown threads,

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Speaker 1: as well as show announcements in the last not at

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Speaker 1: least keepdropping mailbag questions in the YouTube comments. We're gonna

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Speaker 1: be hitting a few more mailbags over the course of

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Speaker 1: this week. All right, let's talk some basketball. I thought

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Speaker 1: this game in particular was a super interesting demonstration of

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Speaker 1: these strengths and the weaknesses of this Warrior's roster. And

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Speaker 1: the main weakness as of late is the Warriors just

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Speaker 1: haven't been a very good offense since the All Star Break.

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Speaker 1: Steph is really struggling. That's pretty much the primary driving

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Speaker 1: force of it all. We've known for years now that

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Speaker 1: Steph doesn't really have a reliable secondary creator pretty much

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Speaker 1: this year and last year, and so when this team

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Speaker 1: doesn't get superstar level production out of step they just

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Speaker 1: haven't been as good offensively. And since the All Star Break,

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Speaker 1: not counting tonight, he's averaging twenty two points six points

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Speaker 1: per game shooting just forty one percent from the field

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Speaker 1: and thirty six percent from three obviously not bad numbers,

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Speaker 1: but certainly not good by Steph Curry standards. And then

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Speaker 1: tonight goes five for eighteen with just thirteen points. And

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Speaker 1: so the Warriors offense has a tendency to stall out

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Speaker 1: from time to time, and they've been pretty mediocre since

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Speaker 1: the All Star Break, And I think part of the

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Speaker 1: issue there too is teams have figured out that there's

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Speaker 1: not a particular, you know, threat, a consistent threat off

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Speaker 1: of Steph, and so you can get away with throwing

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Speaker 1: the kitchen sink at him and kind of rotating out

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Speaker 1: of There's also some guys with the Warriors that are

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Speaker 1: either inconsistent shooters or hesitant shooters, meaning guys that are

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Speaker 1: like easy to chase off the line just by offering

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Speaker 1: a token closeout at right, and so I think that's

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Speaker 1: been part of the issue with some of their offensive stuff.

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Speaker 1: That said, they've been a really good defense post All

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Speaker 1: Start Break, and the reality is they just have awesome

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Speaker 1: defensive personnel. Now Draymond Green's back consistently, they have tons

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Speaker 1: of team speed. I think it's the biggest strength of

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Speaker 1: the roster. If you look at the front court guys

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Speaker 1: like Draymond Green and Trace Jackson Davis, those guys compared

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Speaker 1: to other guys who play the five, are super super fast, right,

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Speaker 1: they're top tier speed athletes at their specific position group. Right,

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Speaker 1: go to the wing, Andrew Wiggins, Moses Moody, Jonathan Kaminga.

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Speaker 1: These are all top tier athletes in terms of speed

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Speaker 1: and mobility on the perimeter for their specific position group. Obviously,

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Speaker 1: Jonathan Minga right right now is dealing with some knee tendonitis,

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Speaker 1: so he didn't play tonight. Then at the guard position,

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Speaker 1: Gary Payton brings a great deal to speed, and even

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Speaker 1: the guys that are not necessarily top tier athletes for

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Speaker 1: their position are super scrappy and are good defensive players

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Speaker 1: who know how to defend it within his scheme, so

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Speaker 1: they're very good defensive team. But that speed is definitely

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Speaker 1: the strength of the ross for That's six guys in

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Speaker 1: their rotation who are legitimately excellent speed athletes for their

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Speaker 1: specific position group, which sets the stage for this particular matchup.

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Speaker 1: So Luca's been torching absolutely everybody so far. To start

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Speaker 1: this I say to start throughout this season, but especially

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Speaker 1: as of late in this particular run, he just had

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Speaker 1: an absolute wrecking ball game against the Houston Rockets where

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Speaker 1: he embarrassed just about every single perimeter defender and frontcourt

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Speaker 1: defender on that team. He's just been killing everybody, and

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Speaker 1: you know every I wanna start with Andrew Wiggins because

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Speaker 1: I think he is the key to everything you saw

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Speaker 1: tonight from Golden State in the sense that obviously, uh,

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Speaker 1: Golden State was having success doubling and rotating out a doubling,

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Speaker 1: trapping hard helping on Luca's offensive attacks. Right that that's

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Speaker 1: the team wide scale. We're gonna get to that. But

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Speaker 1: one of the things you'll see a lot is when

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Speaker 1: Luca doesn't want to deal with the trap, he'll just

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Speaker 1: go one on one the ball at the floor. And

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Speaker 1: the vast majority of primary defensive options to guard Luca

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Speaker 1: to start games are not guys who can guard Luca,

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Speaker 1: and so he'll just go to work and he doesn't

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Speaker 1: have to call for a ball screen. But Andrew Wiggins,

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Speaker 1: dating all the way back to the Western Conference Finals

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Speaker 1: in twenty twenty two, has been on the short list

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Speaker 1: of players who can actually do a pretty solid job

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Speaker 1: on Luka Danci. He's quicker than him. He's bigger, and

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Speaker 1: he's big, not bigger than Luca, but he's big and

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Speaker 1: strong enough to hold his ground well enough to make

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Speaker 1: Luca's bully ball attacks more difficult, and specifically he makes

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Speaker 1: some more card He's really good at applying full court

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Speaker 1: ball pressure on Luca, just making things difficult on him

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Speaker 1: all night long. Now, Andrew Wiggins also had an amazing

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Speaker 1: offensive game. He had twenty three points, hit a couple

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Speaker 1: of huge above the break threes. He is starting to

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Speaker 1: get that kind of like second side clear, the you know,

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Speaker 1: just let me go to work kind of thing going on.

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Speaker 1: He's making aggressive moves at the rim and creating offenses

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Speaker 1: and secondary option and honest, Wiggins to me, really he's

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Speaker 1: at some ugly moments. But really, for the last couple

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Speaker 1: of months, I've been really impressed by by Andrew Wiggins

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Speaker 1: in general. I think he's more or less starting to

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Speaker 1: gain ground on the player that he used to be.

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Speaker 1: And but that's just on the offensive side of the ball.

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Speaker 1: On the defensive side of the ball, the job he

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Speaker 1: does on Luca essentially removing go one on one as

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Speaker 1: an option because Luca doesn't want to just go one

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Speaker 1: on one against Wiggins, so he has to kind of

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Speaker 1: call that screen up to try to get freed up

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Speaker 1: from him so he can go to work elsewhere. That

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Speaker 1: is what allowed Golden State to do the blitzing trapping

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Speaker 1: in the hard helping that they were doing. They were

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Speaker 1: in a position where Andrew Wiggins made it so that

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Speaker 1: Luca was most frequently calling for a screening action from there,

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Speaker 1: what's Luca gonna do. He's gonna bring a lesser defender

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Speaker 1: up into the action. Like in the game he was

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Speaker 1: trying to target Brandon pit Ziemski because he's got a

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Speaker 1: size advantage on him, right, So like he's not calling

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Speaker 1: Draymond up into the action. He's going after one of

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Speaker 1: the lesser defenders. So in that case, you've got Draymond

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Speaker 1: on the back line as well as all of that

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Speaker 1: speed that we were talking about. And so Golden State

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Speaker 1: uniquely kind of presents the personnel both at the point

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Speaker 1: of attack with Wiggins to make ice straight ioball not

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Speaker 1: really much of an option for Luca, and in the

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Speaker 1: speed in the defensive IQ that Draymond brings to the table,

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Speaker 1: as well as the speed on the rest of the

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Speaker 1: roster on the back line, to be able to effectively

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Speaker 1: double trap, blitz and rotate out of it right, and

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Speaker 1: that to me was kind of like where this game

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Speaker 1: kind of turned. Because there were some ugly stretches for

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Speaker 1: Golden State, specifically when they were struggling offensively. We talked

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Speaker 1: earlier they can go cold offensively from time to time,

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Speaker 1: and when they hit those rough stretches offensively, Dallas was

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Speaker 1: able to get out in transition and just throw ahead

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Speaker 1: kick ahead passes to Daniel Gafford or Luca would be

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Speaker 1: able to get a decent matchup in transition or get

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Speaker 1: a like a defender on his heels and he'd be

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Speaker 1: able to get to a quick step back jump shot.

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Speaker 1: I'll be able to quickly attack the basket and make

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Speaker 1: a good play. He was able to take advantage of

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Speaker 1: the helter skelter kind of like early offense situations they

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Speaker 1: could get as a result of Golden State's bad offense,

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Speaker 1: and that's how they blew the lead to end the

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Speaker 1: first half, and that's how they nearly blew the lead

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Speaker 1: in the fourth quarter. As a matter of fact, one

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Speaker 1: of the biggest shots in the game in my opinion,

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Speaker 1: after Dallas tied the game. I think it was at

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Speaker 1: ninety two if I remember correctly. But that little like

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Speaker 1: in and out and men baseline jump shot that Klay

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Speaker 1: Thompson hit that went in and out on the rim

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Speaker 1: that went back in. That was a huge shot, not

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Speaker 1: only because it broke the tie, but it allowed Golden

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Speaker 1: State to set their defense. I cannot wait to see

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Speaker 1: the data from this particular game because my guess is

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Speaker 1: there's going to be a gigantic chasm between Dallas's offensive

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Speaker 1: efficiency in the half court versus their offensive efficiency when

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Speaker 1: they got out into transition. If for those of you

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Speaker 1: guys who follow me on Twitter, tomorrow morning, I'll pull

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Speaker 1: that date. I checked it right before we went live,

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Speaker 1: but it hadn't updated yet, So we'll get into that

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Speaker 1: tomorrow morning on my Twitter feed. But like I mean,

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Speaker 1: I'm I'm excited to see what that difference was, because

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Speaker 1: the reality was, when they got into the half court,

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Speaker 1: Golden State didn't just guard Dallas well, they guarded them

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Speaker 1: super well. They were able to make the lesser offensive

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Speaker 1: players for Dallas try to make plays. And there are

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Speaker 1: a couple of guys on Dallas, whether it's PJ. Washington

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Speaker 1: or it's Maxi Kliba or it's Derek Jones Junior. There

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Speaker 1: are some guys that they have in the rotation where

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Speaker 1: if you get the ball to end up in their hands,

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Speaker 1: they can be you know, it's like that late corner

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Speaker 1: three that PJ. Washington took. It's like, yeah, on paper,

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Speaker 1: looks like a good look. PJ. Washington has been an

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Speaker 1: iffy catch and shoot player for Dallas. So like of

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Speaker 1: all the options that Dallas presents there, you know, Golden

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Speaker 1: State did a good job of forcing the lower level options,

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Speaker 1: the lower value plays to be what Dallas had to

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Speaker 1: resort to at the end of the game. Now there's

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Speaker 1: some luck in there. I thought Luca and Kyrie both

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Speaker 1: got wide open threes at the end of the game

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Speaker 1: that ended up missing, and so obviously there's a certain

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Speaker 1: element there. But for the most part, during that stretch

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Speaker 1: when Golden State had as in the half court, they

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Speaker 1: were able to get the ball out of Luca's hands

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Speaker 1: and they were able to rotate effectively out of it.

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Speaker 1: There's two big offensive defensive plays that I wanted to

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Speaker 1: hit from that late stretch of the game after Golden

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Speaker 1: State took the lead. Obviously, I just mentioned one where

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Speaker 1: they trapped Luca and the ball got worked around to PJ.

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Speaker 1: Washington in the right corner. Just a great example of

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Speaker 1: that scheme forcing the lowest value shot for Dallas. Second

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Speaker 1: one I wanted to talk about was the Draymond Green play,

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Speaker 1: the insane Draymond Green play, the block on Gafford and

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Speaker 1: the saving bounds that ran out the other way and

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Speaker 1: resulted in Draymond getting to the foul line and kind

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Speaker 1: of sort of ice the game. Dallas ended up making

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Speaker 1: some big threes late that sort of threatened, but they

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Speaker 1: they never had the ball with an opportunity to tie

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Speaker 1: or take the lead, so they didn't quite get to

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Speaker 1: that point. The biggest play of the game in my opinion,

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Speaker 1: So Luca brings about the floor and he ends up

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Speaker 1: calling for a screen from Brandon Pitzemski's man. So Zemski

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Speaker 1: ends up switching on to Luca, and it's not a

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Speaker 1: hard blitz, but Andrew Wiggins, who's guarding Kyrie irving on

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Speaker 1: the left wing, he or on the right wing, excuse me,

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Speaker 1: he ends up digging down way down to the nail. Okay,

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Speaker 1: So when Luca goes to drive on Brandon Pazemski, he's

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Speaker 1: driving right in Andrew Wiggins's effectively a double. Again, it

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Speaker 1: wasn't all blitzing. Sometimes it was blitzing. Sometimes it was

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Speaker 1: double teaming on an iso. Sometimes it was just really

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Speaker 1: hard help. In this case, Brandon Pizemski on an island

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Speaker 1: against Luca funnels him towards the Wiggans side. Wiggins is

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Speaker 1: down in the lane hard nail help and contains Luca.

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Speaker 1: Luca makes the kick out past to Kyrie. And there's

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Speaker 1: two defensive plays at this point that demonstrate the strength

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Speaker 1: of Golden State's defensive personnel. So first, Andrew Wiggins sprints

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Speaker 1: out to the three point line and chases Kyrie Irving

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Speaker 1: off the line. Just not many athletes that can effectively

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Speaker 1: double essentially at the nail but also chase an excellent

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Speaker 1: catch and shoot player in Kyrie Irving off the line.

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Speaker 1: So Kyrie rips through ends up beating Wiggins off the dribble.

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Speaker 1: To be expected, he was hard doubling and he had

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Speaker 1: to hard close out. He did his job, though, chased

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Speaker 1: Kyrie off the line. From there, Draymond Green steps up

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Speaker 1: from underneath the basket and offers a contest on Kyrie,

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Speaker 1: which forces Kyrie to dump it off to Daniel Gaffer.

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Speaker 1: But it turns out Draymond Green, who's also a top

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Speaker 1: tier speed athlete at his specific position group, is fast

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Speaker 1: enough to guard Kyrie at the kind of like right

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Speaker 1: at the semi circle charge circle area and recover back

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Speaker 1: down to Daniel Gafford and make that ridiculous block against

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Speaker 1: a much bigger player. How many times did you see

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Speaker 1: tonight Daniel Gaffer just kind of catch an offensive rebound

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Speaker 1: er a kick ahead pass over everybody and just go

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Speaker 1: up and dunk it. That is not an easy player

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Speaker 1: to meet with verticality, and Draymond did and managed to

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Speaker 1: save the possession and managed to get to the foul

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Speaker 1: line of the other end of the floor. But again,

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Speaker 1: that is the unique trait that Golden State has defensively.

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Speaker 1: We talked a lot about Golden State's ability to contend

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Speaker 1: entirely has to do with the offensive end of the floor.

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Speaker 1: This is a team that can defend well enough to

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Speaker 1: make a deep playoff run, potentially defend well enough to

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Speaker 1: win a championship. The question marks are on the offensive end.

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Speaker 1: They have that type of personnel. Luca got a switch

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Speaker 1: onto a guard in Brandon Pitzemski, who's a good defender

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Speaker 1: but is the best option that Golden State presents in

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Speaker 1: that situation. But then they had the personnel to be

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Speaker 1: able to effectively double Luca out of that matchup while

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Speaker 1: not conceding an easy shot, in fact, not even conceding

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Speaker 1: a shot. They blocked the shot. That is a unique

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Speaker 1: trait that this team brings to the table. And so, like,

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Speaker 1: when I actually think about what it takes for Golden

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Speaker 1: State to become a threat at this point, it centers

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Speaker 1: around rounding out the rest of that group, this defense,

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Speaker 1: plus Wiggins being the consistent offensive threat that he's been,

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Speaker 1: plus Steph Curry getting back to form. Now we're talking

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Speaker 1: about a legitimate playoff threat. But there's some question marks there.

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Speaker 1: We're going on, you know, over a month now, where

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Speaker 1: Steph has not been consistently good. So that's the first

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Speaker 1: thing that has to get rounded out. And then Andrew

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Speaker 1: Wiggins has had a tendency to kind of ebb and

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Speaker 1: flow and fade depending on where he's at mentally in

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Speaker 1: any particular game. And so like that's gonna be the

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Speaker 1: question mark because whether or not they can round that

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Speaker 1: stuff out. But I genuinely believe that that defensive potential

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Speaker 1: that they have is unique, and if they can just

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Speaker 1: get to the point where they are a consistent half

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Speaker 1: court offense like they were earlier in the season, that's

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Speaker 1: where I could see them becoming a legitimate playoff threat.

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Speaker 1: I also wanted to shout out the bench group. I

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Speaker 1: thought Chris Paul and Brandon Pitzemski did just an unbelievably

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Speaker 1: amazing job carrying the offense during those middle portions of

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Speaker 1: the game. That was actually when Golden State built up

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Speaker 1: the leads to be able to withstand those runs that

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Speaker 1: Dallas made against the Against the Golden State starting group,

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Speaker 1: Chris Paul just being aggressive as a scorer and looking

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Speaker 1: to take the pull up jumpers that were available to him,

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Speaker 1: hit several big ones, especially in that third quarter run

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Speaker 1: that they went on. Brandon Pitzemski, I thought he just

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Speaker 1: played a really smart floor game, was super active on

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Speaker 1: the glass, had a couple of really nice passes, had

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Speaker 1: a huge kind of like side step three on the

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Speaker 1: right wing in the second half as well. Big time

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Speaker 1: performance from that bench group. Big win for the Golden

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Speaker 1: State Warriors on the Dallas Mavericks front. I do think

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Speaker 1: that this presents an interesting example of the best way

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Speaker 1: to guard Dallas. So, for instance, Phoenix, Phoenix is going

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Speaker 1: to go out there with Usef Nurkic and Grayson Allen

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Speaker 1: in all likelihood, and they'll have small ball groups that

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Speaker 1: may have Grayson Allen and Eric Gordon on the floor.

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Speaker 1: But regardless who it is, their off ball talent is

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Speaker 1: just insanely good. And so when they can get Bradley Beal,

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Speaker 1: Devin Booker and Kevin duran out there, any two of

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Speaker 1: those guys out there at any given moment, they can

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Speaker 1: get you in rotation kind of like Dallas was existing

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Speaker 1: in tonight offensively, but it's rotation with guys that you

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Speaker 1: simply cannot leave open. Crayson Allen's gonna make that shit

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Speaker 1: every single time. Eric Gordon's gonna make it right. They're

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Speaker 1: gonna if you chase him off the line, they're gonna

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Speaker 1: pump bake and they're gonna be able to make a play.

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Speaker 1: And by the way, a lot of times it's Kevin

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Speaker 1: Durant off the ball, a lot of times it's Bradley

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Speaker 1: Beal off the ball, a lot of times it's Devin

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Speaker 1: Booker off the ball. But you're in a situation where

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Speaker 1: their off ball talent is so incredibly good that Like

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Speaker 1: when Phoenix really gets going in their driving kick offense,

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Speaker 1: they can be devastating. Dallas has some guys where it's like,

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Speaker 1: if you get the ball in their hands, it can

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Speaker 1: be a little sketchy sometimes. Baxal Kleiba, his jumper comes

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Speaker 1: and goes. PJ. Washington, it comes and goes, and more

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Speaker 1: often than not, it's not been there this year. Right there,

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Speaker 1: Jones Jr. He has this thing that he can do.

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Speaker 1: He can slash off the wing, he can cut. He's

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Speaker 1: actually a better spot up player than the shooting numbers

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Speaker 1: would would lead you to believe. But he's a guy

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Speaker 1: that like when teams, especially in like a playoffs style

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Speaker 1: defensive effort that Golden State brought tonight, those guys are

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Speaker 1: gonna have to make shots. Here's the counter to that.

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Speaker 1: Though matchups are everything, how many teams truly represent the

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Speaker 1: speed that Golden State does. Because as good as Golden

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Speaker 1: State's defense is, like we talked about, I'm not sure

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Speaker 1: their offense is good enough to get them to the

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Speaker 1: Promised Lamp. Some of the teams that are above Golden State, though,

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Speaker 1: are they good enough? Are they good enough defensively to

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Speaker 1: actually justify that type of scheme, that's the question because

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Speaker 1: like again, it's like you run into this situation where

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Speaker 1: it's like, Phoenix is the team that's best equipped to

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Speaker 1: beat Denver because of Nurkic and his ability to kind

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Speaker 1: of bang bodies with Nicole Jokic, and because of their

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Speaker 1: ability to spread you out and drive and kick you

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Speaker 1: to death. But is Phoenix good enough to beat the Clippers?

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Speaker 1: Is Phoenix good enough to beat doubts? Right? Like, that's

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Speaker 1: the thing with these matchups. When you get past that

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Speaker 1: Denver tier, it's like, yeah, there are certain teams that

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Speaker 1: are better than others against certain types of opponents, But

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Speaker 1: what if you never have to face something like that? Like,

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Speaker 1: that's the thing. I would argue that Golden State probably

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Speaker 1: brings the best combination of positional speed up and down

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Speaker 1: the roster to be able to double and rotate out

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Speaker 1: of the LUCA double teams. But what if Golden State

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Speaker 1: loses in the playing tournament and that just is not

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Speaker 1: a problem, right because like a team like Denver, they

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Speaker 1: have outstanding defensive personnel at two positions Contavious Cabo Pope

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Speaker 1: and Aaron Gordon, But the other guys they kind of

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Speaker 1: need to be in a situation where they can load

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Speaker 1: up and play roles on defense, but when they get

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Speaker 1: spread out, they can struggle, kind of like Phoenix has

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Speaker 1: done to them, right, And so that's the thing that's

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Speaker 1: super interesting as you start to look down the West

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Speaker 1: at matchups, is like, yeah, Golden State showed tonight that

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Speaker 1: with the right type of personnel and the right scheme,

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Speaker 1: you can really bog down Dallas's half court offense. But

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Speaker 1: are the teams Dallas gonna play along this run? Are

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Speaker 1: they actually fast enough to do that? And that remains

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Speaker 1: to be seen, And so I think that's gonna be

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Speaker 1: super interesting, really entertaining game. I loved just the way

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Speaker 1: that Dallas kept fighting in that game, especially after they

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Speaker 1: ran into that buzz saw in the mid late third quarter,

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Speaker 1: kept the game interesting. Really do think Dallas is good.

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Speaker 1: I'm not as high on them as everybody else is

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Speaker 1: around the league, but I thought that was a really

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Speaker 1: interesting game that showed the strength, the strengths and weaknesses

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Speaker 1: of both rosters. All right, guys, that is all I

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Speaker 1: have for tonight. We're gonna be back tomorrow morning. We're

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Speaker 1: gonna talk about Joel Embiid's return to play tonight against

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Speaker 1: the Oklahoma City Thunder might hit one other game from

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Speaker 1: tonight's slate, and then we'll do a mailbag and then

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Speaker 1: we'll get out of there. That's gonna be relatively early

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Speaker 1: in the morning, so drop some mailbag questions here in

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Speaker 1: the YouTube. Comments will hit those tomorrow. Is always as

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Speaker 1: sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting the show, and we

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Speaker 1: will see you next night. The volume