Speaker 1: The volume. Get in on the action with Draft Kings Sportsbook,
Speaker 1: an official sports betting partner of the NBA. New customers
Speaker 1: who deposit five dollars or more can get a no
Speaker 1: sweat bet up to one thousand dollars back in a
Speaker 1: bonus bet. I was looking at NBA futures this morning.
Speaker 1: The Golden State Warriors are plus fifty five hundred right
Speaker 1: now on DraftKings to win the title, so if you
Speaker 1: believe in them, that's a big number. And Denver I
Speaker 1: have Denver is my championship favorite. And there's still the
Speaker 1: second best odds on DraftKings right now at plus four
Speaker 1: to fifty. So lots of good NBA bets to look
Speaker 1: at over the course of the end of the season.
Speaker 1: Download the Draft Kings Sportsbook app now and use code hoops.
Speaker 1: New customers can get a no sweat bet up to
Speaker 1: one thousand dollars if your first bet loses only on
Speaker 1: DraftKings Sportsbook with code Hoops. That's hops. The Crown is
Speaker 1: yours gambling problem called one eight hundred gambler or in
Speaker 1: West Virginia visit www dot one eight hundred gambler dot net.
Speaker 1: In New York call eight seven seven eight hope and why,
Speaker 1: or text hope and why to four six seven three
Speaker 1: six y nine. In Connecticut, help is available for problem
Speaker 1: gambling called eight eight eight seven eight nine seven seven
Speaker 1: seven seven or visit CCPG dot org. Please play responsibly
Speaker 1: on behalf of Boothill Casino and Resort in Kansas twenty
Speaker 1: one plus age varies by jurisdiction. Void in Ontario one.
Speaker 1: No sweat bet per new customer issued as one bonus
Speaker 1: bet based on amount of initial losing bet. Bonus bets
Speaker 1: expire one hundred and sixty eight hours after issuance. See
Speaker 1: dkang dot com slash promos for deposit wagering and eligibility restrictions,
Speaker 1: terms and responsible gambling resources. All right, welcome to hoops tonight.
Speaker 1: You're at the volume. Happy Thursday, everybody. Hope all of
Speaker 1: you guys are having a great week. Got a fun
Speaker 1: show for you guys tonight. We're reacting to the Warriors
Speaker 1: going into Madison Square Garden and getting a much needed
Speaker 1: win against these shorthanded New York Knicks. For those of
Speaker 1: you guys waiting for a reaction on heat Nuggets, I
Speaker 1: am staying up to record that later tonight. It will
Speaker 1: be on the feeds first thing in the morning tomorrow,
Speaker 1: just hitting Warriors Nicks in tonight's show. We're also gonna
Speaker 1: have a mailbago in the show that I'm recording for
Speaker 1: the Heat Nuggets games. So make sure you drop some
Speaker 1: more YouTube drop some more mailbag questions in the YouTube
Speaker 1: comments for this video. You guys know the Joe before
Speaker 1: we get started. Subscribe to our brand new YouTube channels
Speaker 1: you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me
Speaker 1: on Twitter at underscore json lt so you guys don't
Speaker 1: miss show announcements as well as the film threads that
Speaker 1: I do in the morning. Also, don't forget about a
Speaker 1: podcast feed wherever you get your podcasts under Hoops Tonight.
Speaker 1: It's also super helpful if you leave a rating in
Speaker 1: a review on the podcast feed. In the last but
Speaker 1: not least, like I mentioned earlier, keep dropping mail back
Speaker 1: quietquestions in the YouTube comments. All right, let's talk some basketball.
Speaker 1: So this is kind of a funky game, right because
Speaker 1: both teams obviously are more perimeter oriented, tons of athleticism,
Speaker 1: guys dealing with front court injuries right, particularly with the Knicks.
Speaker 1: It's kind of a weird game because there's just a
Speaker 1: ton of speed on the floor, a lot of play
Speaker 1: in transition, both teams really aggressive, crashing the offensive glass
Speaker 1: from the perimeter. Is kind of like a funky example
Speaker 1: of what a modern basketball game looks like. Lots of movement, shooters,
Speaker 1: guys flying off the screens, dontete e. Vincenzo is shooting
Speaker 1: the ball so well this year. He's kind of playing
Speaker 1: for the Knicks a lot like Stephan Clay do for
Speaker 1: the Warriors, just flying off of wide pinned downs and
Speaker 1: coming up firing if he gets an inch of space.
Speaker 1: And the story of the game was the lineup changed
Speaker 1: from the Golden State Warriors as a result of Andrew
Speaker 1: Wiggets being gone on a a leave of absence for
Speaker 1: personal reasons having to do with the family matter. You know.
Speaker 1: Is interesting because I saw when I saw the report,
Speaker 1: I was at first, I was like, I saw it
Speaker 1: on Twitter, and I immediately thought like, oh, is someone
Speaker 1: talking about what happened last year, Like, what is the deal?
Speaker 1: What's going on? Because it's kind of similar timing too,
Speaker 1: And when I saw that it was happening again, I'm like,
Speaker 1: oh no, Like this could not be worst timing for
Speaker 1: the Warriors, right, Like they're in a predicament. Both the
Speaker 1: Warriors and the Lakers would desperately like to get out
Speaker 1: of that nine in ten spot because if you're in
Speaker 1: the nine in ten spot, you got to beat whoever
Speaker 1: the other seed is, and then if you happen to
Speaker 1: win that game, you have to go on the road
Speaker 1: for a single elimination game against a really good team,
Speaker 1: a team that could be anybody, right, it could be
Speaker 1: the Pelicans, it could be the Kings, it could be
Speaker 1: the Mavericks, could be the Suns, it could be some
Speaker 1: really good teams that you have to go on the
Speaker 1: road for. So every single one of these games is
Speaker 1: vitally important. In addition to that, Andrew Wiggins has been hooping.
Speaker 1: He's been playing the best basketball that he's played since
Speaker 1: he left the team last year on a personal leave
Speaker 1: of absence. Excellent on the ball defense, He's been shooting
Speaker 1: like forty eight percent from three over this stretch where
Speaker 1: the Warriors are eleven and three in their last fourteen games,
Speaker 1: although twelve and three now after beating the Knicks, right,
Speaker 1: he had been averaging like one point three steals per game,
Speaker 1: shooting like fifty two percent from the field. Wiggins was
Speaker 1: really starting to get it going, and so immediately I'm like, Okay,
Speaker 1: this is kind of discouraging, right, you know, But one
Speaker 1: of the advantages is the Warriors have a guy that
Speaker 1: is a talented young player that kind of is a
Speaker 1: reasonable facsimile of what Andrew Wiggins brings to the table.
Speaker 1: Not the level of offensive player that Andrew Wiggins is
Speaker 1: capable of being. And I know Andrew Wiggins has had
Speaker 1: his lolls offensively, but he has the ability to attack
Speaker 1: matchups and has been shooting the ball well, shot the
Speaker 1: ball really well the year they won the title, right,
Speaker 1: And maybe Moses Moody doesn't bring all of that, But
Speaker 1: what Moses Moody does bring is really physical on the
Speaker 1: ball defense, really good ball pressure with length, plays super hard,
Speaker 1: just can be a wrecking ball on the ball. And
Speaker 1: I thought that was the story of this game, because
Speaker 1: you know Step Step and we're gonna talk about him
Speaker 1: in a minute. You kind of expect that, right, But
Speaker 1: one of the big swing factors in this game is
Speaker 1: Moses Moody did an unbelievable job on the ball against
Speaker 1: Jalen Brunson. From the opening tip, first possession, He's sitting
Speaker 1: back about ten feet off of Brunson as he's coming
Speaker 1: across half court just watching the ball. Brunson goes to
Speaker 1: make a little kind of like a swing pass to
Speaker 1: the to a guy kind of flashing up high. Moses
Speaker 1: Moody just jumps the passing leg, gets in there, gets
Speaker 1: down the floor. You also saw a lot of the
Speaker 1: switchability of the Warriors early on in this game, because
Speaker 1: Kaminga and Draymond can also play really well on the
Speaker 1: ball even against guards. Like think about how insane that
Speaker 1: is as a versatility for a defense that you're three
Speaker 1: or four and you're five are all like credible on
Speaker 1: the ball. Defenders against guards, guards, wings, whatever you need.
Speaker 1: That's a real asset to have. There were multiple possessions
Speaker 1: at the beginning of that game where you have a
Speaker 1: transition cross match and Kaminga ends up on Jalen Brunson
Speaker 1: and does a really good job. Or maybe Moses Moody
Speaker 1: does get caught on a screen, and so Draymond Green
Speaker 1: goes with the switches out onto Moses Moody, peels off
Speaker 1: and switches on to the big man. Now Draymond Green
Speaker 1: is forcing Jalen Brunson into a really difficult fadeaway jump
Speaker 1: shot that he ends up missing from the opening tip.
Speaker 1: They were all over Jalen Brunson, giving him hell. I
Speaker 1: talk about this all the time, but like so many
Speaker 1: people have turned basketball into a game of luck and
Speaker 1: like just the shots go in or they don't. And
Speaker 1: there is certainly an element of that when it comes
Speaker 1: to the game of basketball. But you do control your
Speaker 1: destiny so much more on that front than I think
Speaker 1: people realize. And they just made Jalen Brunson's life hell
Speaker 1: from the opening tip of this game. And I do
Speaker 1: think that that is directly responsible for the type of
Speaker 1: offshooting night that he had. Now, Jalen Brunson's also capable
Speaker 1: of overcoming that, we've seen him do so. But you know,
Speaker 1: it's kind of like what happened to the Warriors when
Speaker 1: Steph at his cold night against the Nuggets. When you
Speaker 1: play excellent defense and you swarm a star, there's a
Speaker 1: chance that he might have an off night. And if
Speaker 1: you get and he's far more likely to have that
Speaker 1: type of off night. If you bring that defensive intensity
Speaker 1: from the opening tip, you prevent a player from achieving rhythm,
Speaker 1: You prevent a player from feeling comfortable. When a player
Speaker 1: is comfortable and in rhythm, he's far more likely to
Speaker 1: get to his spots and take and make his his
Speaker 1: superstar shots right, the shots that any defense is going
Speaker 1: to be willing to concede at the expense of taking
Speaker 1: away the more the easier shots right. And then from
Speaker 1: that defensive intensity from the tip, they were getting out
Speaker 1: in transition like crazy. Now it was a little sloppy.
Speaker 1: It was actually crazy because they went up twenty to four.
Speaker 1: I think they started fourteen to zero, right, But even
Speaker 1: in that span, like guys were smoking layups. Brandon Pitziemski
Speaker 1: missed an early layup, Jonathan Omega missed an early layup,
Speaker 1: Moses Moody missed an early layup right at the rim.
Speaker 1: Like there was that easily could have been, you know,
Speaker 1: twenty eight to four or something significantly worse. But they
Speaker 1: bought themselves a huge margin for error from there by
Speaker 1: coming out the opening tip with an intense ball pressure,
Speaker 1: intense help and recover situation. There was a possession early
Speaker 1: in the game where Moses Moody's on the ball, Draymond
Speaker 1: Green comes up to the level of the screen. There's
Speaker 1: an over the top past to Isaiah Hartenstein Draymond Green
Speaker 1: sprints back into the paint and forces Isaiah Hartenstein to
Speaker 1: come way out to the left hand side on his layft.
Speaker 1: Jonathan Kaminga comes off of precious Achua in the left corner,
Speaker 1: just comes flying in and smacks the ball out of there,
Speaker 1: and the Warriors are running back in transition like that
Speaker 1: is swarming. That's two on the ball and Draymond's still
Speaker 1: getting back into the play forcing a guy to change
Speaker 1: his shot where another athlete could come in and clean
Speaker 1: up the mess. It was a dominant defensive effort from
Speaker 1: the opening tip and then in the half court. One
Speaker 1: of the things that was interesting is the Knicks Tom
Speaker 1: Thibodeau is not hedging or showing on any of the
Speaker 1: Warriors off ball actions. What that means is you can
Speaker 1: imagine a guy setting a screen, STEP's coming flying off right.
Speaker 1: The big man for you New York was sagging back
Speaker 1: to watch for back cuts and slips things along those lines,
Speaker 1: which means Steph, if he can get free on that screen,
Speaker 1: is going to have an opportunity to take a movement three.
Speaker 1: And I thought say An Gunni did a really nice
Speaker 1: job of calling this out in the broadcast, but Dante
Speaker 1: DiVincenzo in particular, who drew the Steph Curry assignment. He
Speaker 1: kept trying to jump the passing lane. So, like, imagine
Speaker 1: the screen's here and Steph's come and flying off this side. Well,
Speaker 1: if you chase behind, you force Steph to take a
Speaker 1: tougher shot. And the tougher shot is he's got to
Speaker 1: stop his body when he's moving full speed laterally to
Speaker 1: rise and fire. Right. But if you jump the gap,
Speaker 1: Steph can actually kind of step behind the screen, and
Speaker 1: it's more of a straight up and down shot. Now,
Speaker 1: if you gamble that and you get a deflection or
Speaker 1: you get a steal, there's obviously an advantage there, but
Speaker 1: it's a risk, and if you happen to miss the basketball,
Speaker 1: you actually leave an easier shot for Steph. Steph was
Speaker 1: the one carrying the half court offense in the early
Speaker 1: stretch of the game, just by taking advantage of the
Speaker 1: knicks not showing or hedging and just beating Devincenzo in
Speaker 1: these off ball screening actions. And we talked about this
Speaker 1: after the Nuggets game. But like, Steph has a really
Speaker 1: tough job. He's been in a little bit of a slump, right,
Speaker 1: and a lot of this just has to do with
Speaker 1: the reality of the of the way this rosters put together.
Speaker 1: They started three twenty one year olds tonight, right, and
Speaker 1: so when you got three twenty one year olds that
Speaker 1: all have strengths and weaknesses, right, and at this phase
Speaker 1: in their careers, teams are good at kind of identifying
Speaker 1: their weaknesses and kind of putting them into tough spots.
Speaker 1: And so, even though the Warriors have been good offensively
Speaker 1: in the aggregate because of the success they've had in
Speaker 1: transition off of their defense, during this fifteen game stretch,
Speaker 1: in the half court, there's a lot of emphasis on
Speaker 1: Steph Curry having to create everything, right, and so a
Speaker 1: lot of the slump is like a little bits just
Speaker 1: he has a really tough job. A little bit of
Speaker 1: it is just the way the defenses are loaded up
Speaker 1: on him. And you know, those superstar shots, those tough shots,
Speaker 1: they can come and go from time to time. But
Speaker 1: it was only a matter of time before Steph would
Speaker 1: break out of that, and he broke out of it tonight. Now,
Speaker 1: the Warrior the Knicks did make run, right, you know,
Speaker 1: they had some success against the Warriors bench group, particularly
Speaker 1: in the second half, but the Warriors responded to every
Speaker 1: single run the Knicks made. I thought Moses Moody once
Speaker 1: again made several key plays on the defensive end of
Speaker 1: the four down the stretch. So the Knicks get it
Speaker 1: to five. Late in the game, there's a timeout, Moses
Speaker 1: Moody makes three gigantic defensive plays. He blocks Alec Burks
Speaker 1: on a pull up jump shot in the mid range.
Speaker 1: Then he stonewalls Jalen Brunson on first of all, on
Speaker 1: the block of Alec Burks, debucks Alet Burks. It leads
Speaker 1: to a fast break opportunity where Jonathan Kaminga gets an
Speaker 1: and one. So we're literally talking about called Alec Burks's shot.
Speaker 1: You know, on average about one point per shot in
Speaker 1: terms of shot value, and you run out and you
Speaker 1: get I think Kaminga ended up missing the free throw,
Speaker 1: so it was only two, but a three point swing
Speaker 1: in a big moment of the game, down to five,
Speaker 1: Like if he doesn't make that defensive effort and Alec
Speaker 1: Burks makes the shot, all the sudden, we have a
Speaker 1: one possession game and instead we're setting up the defense
Speaker 1: again up by seven. It was a gigantic defensive play
Speaker 1: on the next possession he stonewalls Jalen Brunson forces it
Speaker 1: into forces him to get rid of the basketball, which
Speaker 1: leads to a late clock situation. They get another stop,
Speaker 1: they go down to the other end, and I think
Speaker 1: that was the play where Brandon bit Ziemski ends up
Speaker 1: getting the and one and all of a sudden, the
Speaker 1: Warriors are up by nine. So again, like literally a
Speaker 1: five point game could have swung in a really ugly
Speaker 1: direction for the Warriors, but Moses Moody's on ball defense
Speaker 1: two massive plays got the Warriors going in transition, and
Speaker 1: then an opportunity to make a basically a dagger type
Speaker 1: of play in the half court to put them up
Speaker 1: by nine. Then there's like one or two possessions later.
Speaker 1: Brunson tries to take Moses Moody again, and this is
Speaker 1: when he smoked that little step through kind of floater
Speaker 1: left it like way short off the right side of
Speaker 1: the rim, and then he starts complaining to the refs,
Speaker 1: and like that is the textbook dead giveaway for a
Speaker 1: defensive player having frustrated an offensive player is when he
Speaker 1: starts to complain to the refs and Moses Moody just
Speaker 1: his length, his physicality, his relentless ball pressure on this
Speaker 1: particular play where he stonewall Brunts and he went underneath
Speaker 1: the pick and met him on the other side, which
Speaker 1: takes a great deal of effort. I just it was.
Speaker 1: It'd be very difficult to overstate how important Moses Moody's
Speaker 1: on ball defense was in this game, from the opening
Speaker 1: tip to helping them build that initial lead, to breaking
Speaker 1: the game open after the Knicks got it down to five.
Speaker 1: Just an unbelievable night from Moses Moody. This is a
Speaker 1: big part of why I've been harping so much on
Speaker 1: the Warriors overhelping, which has been, in my opinion, the
Speaker 1: primary culprit of their fourth quarter defensive struggles and some
Speaker 1: of their situation struggles. The Warriors have good defensive personnel
Speaker 1: on the perimeter, Like the Warriors have weaknesses, right, but
Speaker 1: that's not one of them. Like when you get down,
Speaker 1: as soon as you get down from the top of
Speaker 1: the league, every team has strengths and weaknesses, right. Look
Speaker 1: at the Pelicans. They've got all this length and athleticism
Speaker 1: at the perimeter, but they're kind of weak at the
Speaker 1: point of attack with CJ. McCollum, and they're kind of
Speaker 1: weak on the back line with Zion and jonnisvalencunis right,
Speaker 1: you'll get the Lakers. It's like offensive skills not an
Speaker 1: issue for them. The Warriors have some offensive skill issues
Speaker 1: from some specific position groups. Lakers don't have that issue.
Speaker 1: But what they don't have is any guys who can
Speaker 1: guard on the perimeter consistently well. Right, So like now
Speaker 1: the Warriors, it's like they can struggle, you know, with
Speaker 1: some interior size stuff, right, Yeah, they can struggle with
Speaker 1: offensive skill in some position groups, but they do have
Speaker 1: a plethora of guys that can defend on the perimeter
Speaker 1: against a bunch of different archetypes of players. And so
Speaker 1: for them, it actually makes more sense to leave guys
Speaker 1: on an island, trust their ability to contain the basketball,
Speaker 1: stay home on the perimeter, not always you know, bringing
Speaker 1: the screen defender way out high and letting the role
Speaker 1: man get behind and constantly having to defend pick and
Speaker 1: roll three on two, leaving the skip pass open. Like,
Speaker 1: it makes more sense for them to play a little
Speaker 1: bit more of a modern defense where you stay home
Speaker 1: on shooters and trust your perimeter defenders to kind of
Speaker 1: force guys into tough shots. Because again, like a driving
Speaker 1: layup is a high value shot unless the perimeter defender
Speaker 1: is riding his hip and is following him too the basket.
Speaker 1: All of a sudden, now we're talking about a layup
Speaker 1: that might be worth maybe a point per possession, maybe
Speaker 1: a little bit less. Against really long athletes like Golden
Speaker 1: State has, it's actually more important to stay home and
Speaker 1: compete on the defensive glass. I want to look at
Speaker 1: their numbers, because it's been two or three games since
Speaker 1: I checked it, but that lineup when Wiggins was in there,
Speaker 1: Wiggins coming a Draymond, they had struggled a little bit
Speaker 1: on the defensive glass. Last I checked a few games ago,
Speaker 1: they were below seventy percent in defensive rebound percentage. That's
Speaker 1: also an overhelping thing. When you bring two guys to
Speaker 1: the basketball, you don't have matchups on the weak side
Speaker 1: to finish plays off on the defensive glass. And so
Speaker 1: I think I just want to see the Warriors kind
Speaker 1: of lean more on the strength of their defense, which
Speaker 1: is their perimeter players, and use that to structure a
Speaker 1: defense that allows them to contend better in help situations
Speaker 1: and on the glass by trusting those guys to do
Speaker 1: their jobs. The last guy I wanted to talk about
Speaker 1: in the Warriors front was Jonathan comingia A twenty five points,
Speaker 1: eight rebounds, two steals, and two blocks just was unbelievable
Speaker 1: in this game. I went on. I went on the
Speaker 1: game in San Francisco earlier today and I was talking
Speaker 1: with the guys about Jonathan Kminga, and we had talked
Speaker 1: about the deadline and how the Warriors didn't do anything,
Speaker 1: and how I said, you know, it just made sense
Speaker 1: at this point to keep Jonathan Minga because of his leap.
Speaker 1: And it's been kind of an interesting journey watching his
Speaker 1: this recent phase of his leap, because as I mentioned,
Speaker 1: he had never had back to back twenty point games before, right,
Speaker 1: and then he has like seven of them in a row.
Speaker 1: There's a stretch where the league basically like was like,
Speaker 1: let's see what you can do on an island, and
Speaker 1: it turned out pretty quickly that no one could guard
Speaker 1: him on an island. And then over the course of
Speaker 1: the previous seven games, Kaminga's scoring took a little bit
Speaker 1: of a dip. He went down to about fourteen points
Speaker 1: per game. His three point shot started to struggle. But
Speaker 1: if you guys have and we've talked about this on
Speaker 1: the show, teams were starting to realize, we can't leave
Speaker 1: this guy in an island. We have to send late help,
Speaker 1: especially after he puts the ball on the floor, and
Speaker 1: particularly towards his left hand side, because that can be
Speaker 1: where he has some struggles. And to Jonathan Kiming his credit,
Speaker 1: excuse me, to Jonathan Kiming's credit, he handled that really
Speaker 1: well during that stretch before that, from the start of
Speaker 1: the twenty game streak to the start of this last
Speaker 1: seven game stretch before the Knicks game, he was averaging
Speaker 1: about two and a half assists per game. In the
Speaker 1: seven game stretch, he's he was averaging four assists per game,
Speaker 1: and I want to say like one point seven turnovers
Speaker 1: or something, He's like two point five assists a turnover ratio.
Speaker 1: That's that's big time for twenty one year old who's
Speaker 1: like seeing aggressive coverages for the first time in his
Speaker 1: NBA career to like to legitimately pick teams apart. We
Speaker 1: pointed out examples like from the Pipper's game when he
Speaker 1: was getting a double team in his face and like
Speaker 1: making like looking a defender off to the top of
Speaker 1: the key and then making a skip pass to Brandon
Speaker 1: Pazemski on the right wing, like he's he's making a
Speaker 1: lot of a really high level reads with some of
Speaker 1: the double teams that he's getting, and then you end
Speaker 1: up in a night like tonight against the Knicks where
Speaker 1: he gets a lot more on an island opportunities and
Speaker 1: he just goes back to barbecuing everybody. Twenty five points
Speaker 1: and eight rebounds. Had some big on the ball possessions
Speaker 1: on Jaylen Brunson had some big help side defense possessions.
Speaker 1: I said this in the radio hit today. But like
Speaker 1: Jonathan Kaminga, is On is on a star trajectory. If
Speaker 1: you're ranking guys that are like below the age of
Speaker 1: twenty two in the league as prospects, he's pretty high
Speaker 1: on that list. Like is he in that wemb tier
Speaker 1: Probably not, like definitely not, but but he's in that
Speaker 1: deer right below that right like the guys that do
Speaker 1: legitimately have star potential. The guy reads the floor well.
Speaker 1: He's an excellent on the ball defender. He has to
Speaker 1: be a good off ball defender as he just gets
Speaker 1: better at like kind of remaining focused and doing his
Speaker 1: job within the defensive scheme. He can get defenders out
Speaker 1: of position and get to the foul line. He doesn't
Speaker 1: really seem to have. There's there's not really an archetype
Speaker 1: of player that's given him trouble in terms of a
Speaker 1: one on one defensive assignment. He's just this guy's the
Speaker 1: limit for this kid, and I thought he was a huge,
Speaker 1: a huge element of their victory tonight. Like it was
Speaker 1: ironic to watch after all the talk about the two
Speaker 1: phases of the of the Warriors over the last few years,
Speaker 1: that we had a lineup tonight, the starting lineup of
Speaker 1: Stephen Draymond, the two pillars of the franchise, with three
Speaker 1: twenty one year old kids that are playing off the
Speaker 1: ball or three I'm not sure if they're all twenty one,
Speaker 1: but they're all young, three really young players that are
Speaker 1: in that starting lineup, and all three of them made
Speaker 1: huge plays today. I thought Brandon Pizemski made a bunch
Speaker 1: of key passes in this particular game and was good defensively.
Speaker 1: We mentioned Moses Moody and his defensive effort, and then
Speaker 1: I just talked about Johnathan Kamingo, like the kids. They're
Speaker 1: grown men, but kids relative to the rest of the y.
Speaker 1: They did the job tonight and they got the job done.
Speaker 1: Big win for the Warriors, and I believe, if I'm
Speaker 1: not mistaken, there are now tied in the for that
Speaker 1: nine seed with the Lakers, I think not by win percentage,
Speaker 1: but where they are in terms of games. Back on
Speaker 1: the next front, again, really difficult to have any sort
Speaker 1: of meaningful conversations about the Knicks when you're down three
Speaker 1: starters that are all in the front court. Whenever injuries
Speaker 1: hit one core position group, you can have massive issues.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like what the Lakers have been dealing with,
Speaker 1: Like when you lose Camraddish and Jared Vanderbilt to injury
Speaker 1: and then there was a stretch there where Max Christy
Speaker 1: sprained his ankle, It's like it's like that's already their
Speaker 1: weakest position group and now they're down three guys. It
Speaker 1: just it can cause a lot of problems. Same thing
Speaker 1: goes for the Knicks, like you get Like I thought,
Speaker 1: Jerico Sims had some real nice stretches on the offensive
Speaker 1: end of the floor tonight. I'm really impressed by his
Speaker 1: feel in the short role, in his ability to quickly
Speaker 1: make decisions and make that next pass in those four
Speaker 1: on three situations. But he's really struggling on the defensive
Speaker 1: end of the floor right now, and liked it. Got
Speaker 1: out of position a lot and drop coverage in some
Speaker 1: situations that was causing problems. And that's the thing, like
Speaker 1: you're just gonna have some limitations there when you have
Speaker 1: your three starting bigs out at three starting forwards, three,
Speaker 1: four and five out of the lineup. The last guy
Speaker 1: wanted shout out on the Knicks with Duce McBride. I
Speaker 1: thought he was His activity playing passing lanes, getting out
Speaker 1: in transition was really important in the little mini runs
Speaker 1: that the Knicks made to try to get this thing close.
Speaker 1: But right now they're just trying to patch together wins
Speaker 1: and it's just really difficult to do when you have
Speaker 1: guys in and out of the lineup, and when you're
Speaker 1: missing core position groups like that. Also a boy and mcdonovitch,
Speaker 1: just like you can just tell he's this close to
Speaker 1: kind of getting his rhythm there. All those threes he
Speaker 1: missed in that fourth quarter, they were all dead on
Speaker 1: straight and just long. That to me is like a
Speaker 1: good sign that he's getting it dialed in, and like
Speaker 1: it's different game if he makes a couple of those shots, right.
Speaker 1: So I'm not worried about the Nixon the big picture.
Speaker 1: It's just a really really difficult situation that they're right now,
Speaker 1: and it's going to be really difficult to learn anything
Speaker 1: about them over this stretch. All right, guys, that is
Speaker 1: all I have for tonight. As I mentioned, I'm saying
Speaker 1: up tonight to cover nuggets heat. I will have that
Speaker 1: up on the feeds first thing in the morning. As always,
Speaker 1: I appreciate you, guys. I will see you guys. The
Speaker 1: volume