Speaker 1: The volume. What's up, guys, It's Jason from Hoops Tonight,
Speaker 1: presented by FanDuel. Football season is here and there is
Speaker 1: no better place to get in on the action than
Speaker 1: with FanDuel. It's my favorite sports gambling app out there.
Speaker 1: It's safe, secure, and easy to use. They have exclusive offers,
Speaker 1: tons of ways to play like spread and money line
Speaker 1: over under his team totals, same game parlays where you
Speaker 1: can combine multiple bets from the same game. My favorite
Speaker 1: feature is that cash out feature. So if you already
Speaker 1: feel pretty good about your bed and you're in good shape,
Speaker 1: but you don't want to lose whatever it is based
Speaker 1: on some stupid thing with garbage time at the end,
Speaker 1: you can cash out your winnings before the end of
Speaker 1: the game. Use promo code Jason T and download the
Speaker 1: FanDuel app today to make every moment more this football
Speaker 1: season twenty one plus in president Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Indiana, Louisiana,
Speaker 1: Permitted parishes only, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Tennessee, Virginia
Speaker 1: or West Virginia. First online real any wager only refund
Speaker 1: issued as non withdrawalable site credit that expires in fourteen days.
Speaker 1: Restrictions apply. See terms at sports book dot fan duel
Speaker 1: dot com. Gambling problem called one eight hundred next step
Speaker 1: or text next step to five three three four two
Speaker 1: in Arizona one eight eight eight seven eight nine seven
Speaker 1: seven seven seven or visit CCPG dot org slash chat
Speaker 1: in Connecticut one eight hundred gambler or visit FanDuel dot
Speaker 1: com slash RG in Colorado, Indiana, New Jersey. In Virginia
Speaker 1: one eight seven seven seven seven zero stop in Louisiana
Speaker 1: one eight hundred to seven zero seven one one seven
Speaker 1: for confidential help in Michigan one eight seven seven eight
Speaker 1: hope and why or text hope and why to four
Speaker 1: six seven three six nine in New York. In tennessee
Speaker 1: redline dial one eight hundred eight eight nine nine seven
Speaker 1: eight line in Tennessee visit www one dot one eight
Speaker 1: hundred gambler dot net in West Virginia. YEA, all right,
Speaker 1: Welcome to hoops Tonight, presented by FanDuel here at the volume.
Speaker 1: Happy Friday. Everybody, congrats on making it to the weekend.
Speaker 1: I woke up and I watched some NBA basketball this morning,
Speaker 1: some real recent NBA basketball Warriors versus the Wizards in Japan.
Speaker 1: We have two Warriors related videos coming out today. This morning,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do about ten minutes or so give or
Speaker 1: take on that preseason game and just some of the
Speaker 1: takeaways that I had from it. I had to watch
Speaker 1: that game anyway, because it was a you know, for
Speaker 1: our Power Rankings videos, we've been doing deep dives into
Speaker 1: offensive sets and defensive concepts and all these different things.
Speaker 1: And with everybody, I've had to use last year's footage
Speaker 1: and in some cases have had to go back multiple
Speaker 1: years to when guys were healthy. And so obviously, with
Speaker 1: this being the Warriors at number one today, I had
Speaker 1: the fortune of being able to look at today's footage
Speaker 1: and actually look at what sets they plan on working
Speaker 1: on this season. So all of that XS and ohs
Speaker 1: stuff I'm going to save for tonight's video again that
Speaker 1: usually will come out around eight or nine o'clock Eastern time. Tonight,
Speaker 1: we'll be doing a full deep dive into everything I
Speaker 1: expect from the Warriors this season. I wanted to focus
Speaker 1: on three main concepts from this preseason game. One explaining
Speaker 1: the poor shooting, because I don't think it's overly complicated
Speaker 1: to looking at how good they already are on the
Speaker 1: defensive end of the floor, and specifically a look at
Speaker 1: Moses Moody and Jonathan Cominga. And then, last but not least,
Speaker 1: James Wiseman twenty points and nine rebounds. A great start
Speaker 1: to the preseason for him. We're going to dive into
Speaker 1: all of that. I am going to reference a bunch
Speaker 1: of plays today, as you guys know. When I do
Speaker 1: my little intro at the start of the show, I
Speaker 1: talked about how you guys should follow me on Twitter
Speaker 1: because that's where I can use NBA footage, not allowed
Speaker 1: to use it on YouTube. Well, I cut together a
Speaker 1: few minutes of specific clips from this morning's game and
Speaker 1: I did a voice over over them, explaining different things
Speaker 1: that stood out to me. There's some stuff with Wiseman,
Speaker 1: some stuff with Moody and Cominga, some stuff with some
Speaker 1: specific sets that they're running, than a handful of Wizards
Speaker 1: items in there as well. You're gonna find that on
Speaker 1: my Twitter feed at Underscore Jason LT. You guys know
Speaker 1: the joke before we get started. Subscribed to the volume's
Speaker 1: YouTube channels. You don't miss any more of our videos.
Speaker 1: Follow me on Twitter, as I said, and last but
Speaker 1: not least for whatever reason, you guys miss one of
Speaker 1: these videos and you can't get over to YouTube to
Speaker 1: finish them. You can find them wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: Under Hoops tonight. So to start the poor shooting so
Speaker 1: and it was more than like beyond atrocious. Uh, Andrew Wiggins,
Speaker 1: Moses Moody, Jonathan Cominga, Steph Curry, and Jordan Pool combined
Speaker 1: to go six for thirty five from the field. That's
Speaker 1: just sevent So. I had a couple of Warriors fans say, like, oh,
Speaker 1: don't cover this game. It was ugly. Don't worry about it.
Speaker 1: I I'm not stressed about shooting percentages this early on. Um,
Speaker 1: the number one thing in my experience playing basketball, the
Speaker 1: number one thing that matters with shot making is getting
Speaker 1: your legs underneath Like it's it's really that simple finishing
Speaker 1: around the rim. It's how strong are your legs as
Speaker 1: you're going through contact, elevating when you're in catching shoot
Speaker 1: situations after you just played really hard defense, or after
Speaker 1: you just ran off of a couple of screens, or
Speaker 1: you have the basketball in your hands and you're making
Speaker 1: a move and you're getting to a spot. It's all
Speaker 1: about elevating and getting good lift. If you get good lift,
Speaker 1: you have a much better chance of making your shot.
Speaker 1: During the the beginning part of training camp. Every single
Speaker 1: year that I played basketball, that first month, your legs
Speaker 1: are destroyed. Why. Because they're trying to build you up
Speaker 1: and get you ready for a regular season. I've been
Speaker 1: talking with my high school kids, we've been doing our
Speaker 1: preseason workouts for the last month or so. I've been
Speaker 1: telling him, like, now is the time to be pushing
Speaker 1: yourself because they start late. They don't even start tryouts
Speaker 1: until early November. Get through that wall now, so that
Speaker 1: when you're when you're getting ready for tryouts, you've got
Speaker 1: your legs underneath you. But so many of these guys,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's a long season. It's a nine month
Speaker 1: season for teams that intend to contend for the championship.
Speaker 1: So there's just a lot of basketball and they're taking
Speaker 1: on a lot on their bodies right now, and generally speaking,
Speaker 1: it can take a few weeks, sometimes even a little
Speaker 1: bit longer to really get your legs underneath you. So
Speaker 1: I'm not the least bit surprised that they shot poorly,
Speaker 1: and I'm not concerned about it at all. Um, the
Speaker 1: defense already looks sharp. You know, Lebron has a saying
Speaker 1: that he shares with his uh, you know, close circle
Speaker 1: and his teammates all the time when they're talking about,
Speaker 1: you know, partying or things like that, he always says,
Speaker 1: keep the main thing, the main thing, Like, no matter
Speaker 1: what we're doing, we can have fun, we can have
Speaker 1: these side ventures, we can do all these things, but
Speaker 1: no matter what, the main thing is the main thing.
Speaker 1: And for lebron's just referring to basketball, but for the Warriors,
Speaker 1: that's defense. Like we always think of the Warriors as
Speaker 1: a fluid offense, a team that runs things the right
Speaker 1: way and plays a very you know, player movement, um,
Speaker 1: you know, body movement type of offense. But the reality
Speaker 1: is his defense has always been their main thing. Last
Speaker 1: year they were sixteenth in offense and they were second
Speaker 1: in defense. And the defense looks really good already. So
Speaker 1: I wanted to do a deep dive from the film.
Speaker 1: And I've got some clips from this, like I said,
Speaker 1: that's in my Twitter feed that you guys can find
Speaker 1: at Underscore Jason LT. But right now, they've got to
Speaker 1: replace the Gary Payton the second minutes and the out
Speaker 1: of porter junior minutes. My guess is Dante DiVincenzo will
Speaker 1: fill one of those roles. He looked okay today. Uh,
Speaker 1: he's coming back from an injury, so it'll take a
Speaker 1: while for him to really get back to what he was.
Speaker 1: But one of those roles are gonna need to get
Speaker 1: filled by either Moses Moody or Jonathan coming I think
Speaker 1: that's a big part of why they didn't pay Gary Payton.
Speaker 1: I think that's a big part of why they let
Speaker 1: Auto Porter go. It's simply put, these are those guys.
Speaker 1: These are the future. These guys are the guys they've
Speaker 1: invested draft picks in. These are the guys that they've
Speaker 1: invested their future, and they need one of these guys
Speaker 1: to blossom. And right now it's kind of like a
Speaker 1: little bit of a toss up because they both have
Speaker 1: completely different strengths right now. I think I think Golden
Speaker 1: State trusts Moses Moody way more offensively right now to
Speaker 1: play within their system, just taking the right shots, furthering
Speaker 1: the advantage, attacking closeouts, making the right play. I think
Speaker 1: they view Jonathan Cominga as a head defensively, and I
Speaker 1: think that that stands out on tape Moses Moody is
Speaker 1: a little bit top heavy, big wide shoulders, not super
Speaker 1: quick right now, but he does have some strengths, and
Speaker 1: so I think they're there. I think their hope is
Speaker 1: that Moses Moody kind of figures things out defensively, because
Speaker 1: I think he makes the most sense fitting with them.
Speaker 1: Uh my, field, My, what I put in my notes
Speaker 1: as Moody's trial by fire because my feel from what
Speaker 1: I saw in today's preseason game. They put him out
Speaker 1: there and guess who they had him guard right away,
Speaker 1: Bradley Beale. It was like, look, man, we need you
Speaker 1: to be able to defend quick players, big players, every
Speaker 1: archetype of player in a playoff series. Let's see what
Speaker 1: you get. Let's start right now. It's literally in September,
Speaker 1: and let's see if we can have you ready by April.
Speaker 1: And you know, it was funny. On the first couple
Speaker 1: of possessions he was guarding Bradley Beal, he got beat
Speaker 1: off of the dribble. There was one where he was
Speaker 1: kind of chasing over the top and it was a
Speaker 1: dribble handoff and as Bradley Beal just kind of stopped
Speaker 1: and looked at the rim for a second, Moody lunged
Speaker 1: kind of to his left side and Bradley got some
Speaker 1: downhill penetration, and then there was a second dribble drive
Speaker 1: where he got some penetration. After that he held his
Speaker 1: own a little bit better. Again, He's never gonna be
Speaker 1: quick enough to just stay with those guys sliding his
Speaker 1: feet if he's gonna apply ball pressure. Every defender needs
Speaker 1: to find out what their individual strengths are. Moses Moody
Speaker 1: has long arms, and so the big thing that's going
Speaker 1: to take an adjustment for him this season is understanding
Speaker 1: that it's okay for him to give a little bit
Speaker 1: of ground because he's got long arms to make up
Speaker 1: on the contest. And so from that standpoint, it's gonna
Speaker 1: be it's gonna be good for them to continue with
Speaker 1: that trial by fire. Throw him on bad on difficult
Speaker 1: matchups as much as possible during the regular season, especially
Speaker 1: quicker players, because I think will actually do okay against
Speaker 1: stronger players, and lean into that for eighty two games.
Speaker 1: Let him take his lump. He's gonna beat barbecued several times,
Speaker 1: and that's okay. But you've got to lean into that
Speaker 1: because they need to be him to be that guy
Speaker 1: that they can play in the playoffs this year. Um,
Speaker 1: I thought Jonathan Jonathan Comingo looked great defensively he uh,
Speaker 1: um gosh, what's the shooter uh that that plays for Washington.
Speaker 1: I'm blanking on it right now, Uh, Corey Kissberg. So
Speaker 1: he was guarding Corey Kissberg and just giving him a
Speaker 1: nightmare time chasing him over the top of screens, and
Speaker 1: like that was the number one thing that stood out
Speaker 1: to me on tape from Jonathan Cominga this morning is
Speaker 1: just how good he is already at chasing over the
Speaker 1: top of ball screens and off of drible handoffs and
Speaker 1: off ball screens and things along those lines. That's not
Speaker 1: easy as a big guy. I've said this a lot
Speaker 1: on the show. The type of body type that performs
Speaker 1: best in in chasing over ball screens, on off ball
Speaker 1: screen and things along those lines are usually short, stubby
Speaker 1: guys with low centers of gravity that are difficult to
Speaker 1: knock off their spot and they blow up screens just
Speaker 1: by being physical running through and uh Comingo is doing
Speaker 1: a really nice job of taking long lunging steps over
Speaker 1: the top and giving a little bit of separation, which
Speaker 1: is natural. But then recovering. With his athleticism, you could
Speaker 1: tell he was in court Kispert's head. There were two
Speaker 1: plays in particular where he was curling off of dribble handoffs,
Speaker 1: and on both of them he kind of pump faked
Speaker 1: on the jump shot because he was scared Comingo was
Speaker 1: coming worked further down the lane, and on one play
Speaker 1: he forced to turn over, and on the other he
Speaker 1: kind of like smothered him on a pull up jump
Speaker 1: shot that he ended up air balling. He's ahead defensively
Speaker 1: right now, but once again, it's the same stuff with
Speaker 1: Jonathan Comingo. On offense. He overpenetrates too much and then
Speaker 1: he gets into the thick of things and then he
Speaker 1: tries to force passes, but people are hanging on your
Speaker 1: arms and stuff, and he just results and turnovers or
Speaker 1: difficult things along those lines. Right now, he just needs
Speaker 1: to kind of understand. I think. I think right now
Speaker 1: on the offensive end, he's got further to go than
Speaker 1: Moody has to go on the defensive end. So I
Speaker 1: think he'll be the one that ends up being the
Speaker 1: guy that they'd really try to cultivate more. But I mean,
Speaker 1: he's he's still a tantalizing prospect. I just think he
Speaker 1: has further to go. A couple of minutes on James Wiseman.
Speaker 1: Um the good stuff. His length around the rim gives
Speaker 1: Golden State a dynamic that they really haven't had. He's
Speaker 1: already using verticality really well. He's snuffed out several attempts
Speaker 1: around the rim, which is good because most young bigs
Speaker 1: fouled too much. That's kind of like a predictable thing
Speaker 1: for for young bigs and for him to kind of
Speaker 1: figure out that, like, hey, I have frequently long arms.
Speaker 1: I'm seven ft tall. Let me just stay in there
Speaker 1: with my arms up, and these dudes are already gonna
Speaker 1: have enough trouble trying to finish over the top of me. Um.
Speaker 1: He's playing with a lot more physicality defensively. Offensively, He's
Speaker 1: got a long way to go with physicality, and we'll
Speaker 1: talk about that in just a second. But like on
Speaker 1: the defensive end, I noticed him embracing the contact aspects
Speaker 1: of defense a little bit better. There was a play
Speaker 1: where Bradley Deal was dry ving to the left. I
Speaker 1: think it was right before the end of the first quarter,
Speaker 1: and I'll have this play in my in my video
Speaker 1: breakdown as well. That you'll find on my Twitter feed.
Speaker 1: But Daniel Gafford is is ducking in under the rim
Speaker 1: and shoving James Wiseman under the rim, which is a
Speaker 1: typical attempt by offensive players to clear out the paint
Speaker 1: so that their player can elevate up and finish. And
Speaker 1: to James Wiseman's credit, he just kind of shoved Gafford
Speaker 1: in the back and pushed him off of him and
Speaker 1: then went and met Bradley Bull at the rim and
Speaker 1: blocked him and and I was like, wow, Like there
Speaker 1: you go. He's embracing the physicality a little bit more. Again,
Speaker 1: like physicality goes both ways generally speaking with officiating. If
Speaker 1: one dude is inflicting his physicality on you, you are
Speaker 1: allowed to meet that with equal and opposite force. That's
Speaker 1: why I always get on Lebron fans who complain about
Speaker 1: him not getting enough foul calls. I mean, the dude
Speaker 1: plays bullyball. The refs are basically are are explaining their
Speaker 1: whistle with a trade off, like Lebron is gonna be bully,
Speaker 1: We're gonna let these guys hit him back. That's basically
Speaker 1: how it goes. And that's the thing like if you
Speaker 1: see a guy trying to meet you with physicality. UM
Speaker 1: on the offensive end or on the defensive end, Hit
Speaker 1: him right back. Basketball's a contact sport. Go for it, Um.
Speaker 1: His hands around the rim on offense were really impressive.
Speaker 1: There were two plays in particular, Jonathan Cominga drive on
Speaker 1: the left baseline and then a player where Draymond kind
Speaker 1: of got dead ball on the right wing where he
Speaker 1: picked up his dribble and he was kind of caught
Speaker 1: with nowhere to go, where Draymond just kind of threw
Speaker 1: alb pass over the top and Wiseman like pinned the
Speaker 1: guy down, caught it, and then finished with the left
Speaker 1: handed hook. There's another one, like I said, the Comingo
Speaker 1: one where he kind of shoveled a difficult pass in
Speaker 1: traffic in the lane and Cominga caught it and drew
Speaker 1: a foul. His hands are good around the rim, and
Speaker 1: that's gonna be really good with this particular team. The
Speaker 1: one thing I want to see him work specifically on
Speaker 1: is being more physical with his jump pook. We talked
Speaker 1: about this a lot in our summer league breakdowns of
Speaker 1: of Comingo. But if you remember of Wiseman, but if
Speaker 1: you remember I talked about how on jump hooks. You
Speaker 1: want to initiate contact first and go towards the rim,
Speaker 1: and if you fade away. It's one thing if you're
Speaker 1: fading away when you don't have a physical advantage, but
Speaker 1: when you're f away when you have the physical advantage,
Speaker 1: you're just making a shot more difficult than it needs
Speaker 1: to be. There was a play mid second quarter where
Speaker 1: he caught the ball right abount, right around the charge
Speaker 1: circle or a little bit further out, maybe like six
Speaker 1: seven ft and he had a shorter defender on him,
Speaker 1: and instead of turning with physicality for his left handed hook,
Speaker 1: he kind of turned out away from the basket and
Speaker 1: made it like a dramatic fading hook and he missed it.
Speaker 1: I just like him to see be have him initiate
Speaker 1: contact before he does that. Um. One last thing, so
Speaker 1: there was a pick and roll play where Steph and
Speaker 1: James Wiseman ran pick and roll from the top of
Speaker 1: the key out of the five outset, which we're gonna
Speaker 1: talk about more in our Power Rankings video. But he
Speaker 1: gets a dunk, a lob dunk from step classic pick
Speaker 1: and roll ball screen. Steph comes off guard, chases over
Speaker 1: the top, big steps over to Karl Steph. Steph just
Speaker 1: throws a hook lob passed up above the rim. Wiseman
Speaker 1: gets it and dunks it. On the very next possession, Kyle,
Speaker 1: they ran the exact same play and Kyle Kuzman had
Speaker 1: to tag out of the week side corner to stop
Speaker 1: that lobb to Wiseman and they ended up getting a
Speaker 1: wide open three for drama agree and although he missed it.
Speaker 1: Those are the kinds of dynamics with vertical spacing with
Speaker 1: Wiseman that's gonna add an interesting dynamic to their to
Speaker 1: their offense. There were some sloppy turnovers. There was a
Speaker 1: player where Steph cut back door and James Wiseman uh
Speaker 1: through a bad pass when he wasn't open and threw
Speaker 1: it out of bounds. There was a pick and pop
Speaker 1: with Stephen Wiseman out of their five out or Steph
Speaker 1: tried to throw a looping pass back to Wiseman popping
Speaker 1: into the three point line and it got deflected and
Speaker 1: turned over. There, So a little bit of sloppiness there
Speaker 1: with the Steph Wiseman dynamic that was there two years
Speaker 1: ago too. They just need more reps. They just these
Speaker 1: guys need lots and lots of reps to get used
Speaker 1: to each other, and they're different play styles because the
Speaker 1: kind of stuff they're gonna be running with those two
Speaker 1: is very different than what they've been doing in general
Speaker 1: with Golden State over the years. But yeah, so, uh,
Speaker 1: don't freak out about the poor shooting. That's normal at
Speaker 1: this point in training camp. Defense looks good, that's great.
Speaker 1: James Wiseman looked awesome, that's great. Uh, Moses Moody and
Speaker 1: Jonathan Cominga have a difficult season ahead of them, but
Speaker 1: I think that they're targeting Moody is the guy. And
Speaker 1: then all the footage of the things that I'm talking
Speaker 1: about will be on my Twitter feed. You can check
Speaker 1: that out there. Uh. Today we're gonna be covering everything
Speaker 1: about the Warriors. Why I have them number one, what
Speaker 1: they accomplished last year statistically, what changes they made to
Speaker 1: the roster this offseason, what their depth chart looks like
Speaker 1: right now, what they like to do on the offensive
Speaker 1: end of the floor, And to spend a good amount
Speaker 1: of time just kind of breaking down what their sets
Speaker 1: look like so you can have a better understanding and
Speaker 1: how the Golden State offense works. Talk about some of
Speaker 1: their offensive metrics from last year, looking at what they
Speaker 1: do on the defensive end of the floor, how they
Speaker 1: came back to beat the Boston Celtics with a defensive effort.
Speaker 1: Then what their best case scenario is, their worst case scenario,
Speaker 1: and their X factors. So every conceivable angle of Warriors
Speaker 1: basketball we're going to cover in this season preview today.
Speaker 1: You guys know the drill before we get started. Subscribe
Speaker 1: to the Volumes YouTube channels. You don't miss any more
Speaker 1: of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at Underscore Jason
Speaker 1: lt S, you guys don't miss any show announcements. That's
Speaker 1: also where I put NBA footage because I'm not allowed
Speaker 1: to use it on YouTube. I did a three and
Speaker 1: a half minute long video this morning that broke down
Speaker 1: some of my favorite takeaways from that preseason game this morning.
Speaker 1: You can find that on my Twitter feed. A bunch
Speaker 1: of those plays I specifically referenced in the uh full
Speaker 1: YouTube video that we did earlier this morning and then
Speaker 1: last but not least, for whatever reason, you missed one
Speaker 1: of these videos and you can't get back over to
Speaker 1: YouTube to finish them, we do have them in podcast
Speaker 1: form wherever you get your podcasts. Under Hoops Tonight So
Speaker 1: why do I have the Golden State Warriors at number one.
Speaker 1: I don't necessarily think they're the most talented team in
Speaker 1: the league. I think that the Clippers and the Celtics
Speaker 1: both just have just barely a little bit more talent.
Speaker 1: Golden State is one of the most talented teams in
Speaker 1: the league. But I do think in terms of two
Speaker 1: way players, the Clippers and Celtics have just a little
Speaker 1: bit more talent, just barely a little bit of an
Speaker 1: advantage there. But the Golden State Warriors are the best
Speaker 1: collection of talent, coaching, a modern basketball approach that works today,
Speaker 1: attention to detail, experience, and tenuity in this league. And
Speaker 1: that's why I have them at number one. It's all
Speaker 1: of those things combined. As we learned from the Boston
Speaker 1: Celtics last year, having the most talented team in the
Speaker 1: league doesn't translate necessarily to good basketball. If you're sloppy,
Speaker 1: you know, if you're not well coached. And we spent
Speaker 1: a lot of time on that yesterday. You can find
Speaker 1: that in the number two video. A lot of Warriors
Speaker 1: talking there as well, as we were going over the
Speaker 1: NBA Finals quite a bit um. But I wanted to
Speaker 1: take a couple of seconds on a few of those concepts.
Speaker 1: So when we're looking at talent, like I said, the
Speaker 1: Clippers and Celtics might have a tiny bit more, but
Speaker 1: not much. Steph is the only real superstar on the roster,
Speaker 1: but Clay Draymond, Andrew Wiggins, and Jordan Pool are all
Speaker 1: stars in their roles, meaning their impact on winning mimics
Speaker 1: that of a star, just in a different type of
Speaker 1: role than we're used to seeing for most stars. Everyone
Speaker 1: in their rotation is a good basketball player. What does
Speaker 1: that mean means they're well rounded. It means they're not specialists.
Speaker 1: They're not guys that just shoot threes or just play defense.
Speaker 1: They all do everything. They all can defend multiple positions,
Speaker 1: they all can pass, they all can dribble, they all
Speaker 1: can shoot. That well rounded versatility is what you need
Speaker 1: to succeed in this particular system. One of my favorite
Speaker 1: things about Golden State is I think their player development
Speaker 1: understands the right things to work on. You guys know
Speaker 1: the things that I preach on this show all the time.
Speaker 1: And I was actually having a conversation with sam As
Speaker 1: Fondieri from Light Years, and I know a lot of
Speaker 1: you Warriors fans listen to him. Great guy. Got to
Speaker 1: meet him in person when we were in Vegas for
Speaker 1: Summer League. But we were talking about the player development
Speaker 1: in Golden State and he talked about how the two
Speaker 1: things that they preach the most are pull up shooting
Speaker 1: in terms of development, and perimeter contain on the defensive
Speaker 1: end of the floor, like sliding your feet and containing
Speaker 1: the ball. What do we preach about all the time
Speaker 1: on this show, like those are two? Pull Up shooting
Speaker 1: is the is the number one skill to beat most coverages,
Speaker 1: because most coverages are designed to take away the easy
Speaker 1: things and lead at the expense of leaving open the
Speaker 1: more difficult things like pull up jump shooting, for instance.
Speaker 1: And then on the defensive end of the floor, containing
Speaker 1: the basketball is the key to make any defensive scheme work.
Speaker 1: We're gonna talk a lot about that today. The point
Speaker 1: is is their player development in Golden State teaches the
Speaker 1: right things and so as a result, they've got a
Speaker 1: team full of really well rounded basketball players, and that's
Speaker 1: a huge part of why they're as good as they are. Coaching.
Speaker 1: Steve Kurrent Erik Spoelstra are the two best coaches in
Speaker 1: the league in my opinion, they understand what works best
Speaker 1: in the modern NBA on both ends of the floor.
Speaker 1: So many coaches around the league have a very traditional approach.
Speaker 1: We talked about this a lot with Mike Budenholzer and
Speaker 1: what he's what he's what Darvin hamm is bringing to
Speaker 1: the Lakers. We talked about this a lot with the
Speaker 1: Lakers in general, with the way they're constructing their roster
Speaker 1: with small guards and and big athletic players as opposed
Speaker 1: to wings that can defend multiple positions and play a
Speaker 1: more versatile style. The Golden State Warriors from the top
Speaker 1: down are targeting the right types of players that succeed
Speaker 1: in the modern NBA, and then their coach, Steve Kur
Speaker 1: is teaching them to play a modern style. We're gonna
Speaker 1: talk a lot about that today, particularly as it pertains
Speaker 1: to their five out offense, which we'll talk about quite
Speaker 1: a bit um their uh They're malleable with their defensive
Speaker 1: and offensive approach. They're willing to make adjustments. There's not
Speaker 1: a lot of pride there. Like they like a ball
Speaker 1: movement player movement offense right well. In the NBA Finals
Speaker 1: against Boston's drop coverage, Day leaned heavily into high pick
Speaker 1: and roll, trying to get Steff off the dribble, jump shots.
Speaker 1: Jump shots. Why because that's what the Boston defense was giving.
Speaker 1: That's that's Steve Kerr not being stubborn and understanding that
Speaker 1: his job is not to coach the Warrior's offense in
Speaker 1: a vacuum. His job is to coach the Warrior's offense
Speaker 1: against that specific opponent. And like I said, they preached
Speaker 1: the right things perimeter contained player movement versus ball movement.
Speaker 1: A lot of teams around the league will pass the
Speaker 1: ball well, but they don't keep their bodies in motion
Speaker 1: as much as Golden State does. Their attention to detail
Speaker 1: in every aspect of the game is as good as
Speaker 1: you'll find around the league, if not the best. When
Speaker 1: we get to a defense section, wait till you guys,
Speaker 1: wait till I read to you guys the defensive metrics.
Speaker 1: I've had, you know, five or six defensive metrics that
Speaker 1: I've targeted as indicators of coaching, and the Warriors are
Speaker 1: near the top and literally every single category. So hats
Speaker 1: off to Steve Kerr. That's a huge part of why
Speaker 1: I'm so confident in them. Experience. This is the idea
Speaker 1: of understanding how to win basketball games. We could talk
Speaker 1: about talent all day long. We can talk about schemes
Speaker 1: all day long, advantages, you know, mismatches in a playoff
Speaker 1: series or whatever, or skill sets. We can talk about
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff all day long. But basketball games
Speaker 1: are usually one in those details. And that's not just
Speaker 1: Steve Kerr. That's Clay Steph and Draymond and all the
Speaker 1: guys who've been around all these years that have felt
Speaker 1: the pain of loss enough times and understood what it
Speaker 1: took to win enough times that they know that those
Speaker 1: details are what wins games more often than not. And
Speaker 1: this will be a theme throughout this entire season as
Speaker 1: we're covering in the league. Containing the basketball on the
Speaker 1: perimeter like sliding your feet, extra effort and rotation, reboundings
Speaker 1: like boxing out, crashing the glass, getting to loose balls,
Speaker 1: transition defense, burning back and getting matched up, talking to
Speaker 1: each other, Understanding the flow of the game like never
Speaker 1: getting too high, never getting too low, responding well to runs,
Speaker 1: staying on the gas when you get a lead, and
Speaker 1: then closing out games when it's a four point game
Speaker 1: with four minutes left. You can win a lot of
Speaker 1: basketball games just by executing like every possession down down
Speaker 1: the floor, running the right set, getting the right shot
Speaker 1: in defending well, yes, some shots are gonna go in
Speaker 1: and some shots are gonna miss, but if you execute
Speaker 1: well at the end of games, you're going to win
Speaker 1: most of the time. The Warriors have a great deal
Speaker 1: of of experience. They understand how to win basketball games,
Speaker 1: and that's a huge part of why I have them
Speaker 1: at the top. The Warriors have been there and done
Speaker 1: that so many times that I just trust them everything.
Speaker 1: Going into that NBA Finals series against Boston, everything was
Speaker 1: pointing me towards Boston from matchup matchups around the floor
Speaker 1: in terms of the physicality the perimeter players. I thought
Speaker 1: Jalen Brown and Jayson Tatum would able to get to
Speaker 1: their spots pretty easy against that group. And I still
Speaker 1: picked the Warriors. You know why all of those things
Speaker 1: because I knew the Celtics were a little bit better,
Speaker 1: but I knew they weren't as good as a basketball team,
Speaker 1: because being a basketball team is all of those things
Speaker 1: that I just laid out and then last but not least, continuity.
Speaker 1: And I spent a great deal of this a time
Speaker 1: on this on Warriors Media Day, so I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: go too bunch further. Locker room chemistry. Those guys are
Speaker 1: like brothers. They have clear understanding of roles. It's easy
Speaker 1: to plug new players in, and they have basketball chemistry.
Speaker 1: They have a good feel of where they're gonna be
Speaker 1: on the floor at any given time. And last, but
Speaker 1: not least, understanding their schemes. Steve Kerr has a complicated scheme.
Speaker 1: They run more sets than anybody in the league. So
Speaker 1: if you have the same guys there for that long,
Speaker 1: they all know the offense, and so to me, they're
Speaker 1: a clear number one. And I don't think even though
Speaker 1: we have a top tier with Milwaukee and Boston and
Speaker 1: the Clippers and the Warriors, there's one team that separates
Speaker 1: themselves and all of those categories in its golden state.
Speaker 1: That's why I had them at number one. So last
Speaker 1: year they were fifty three and twenty nine. They won
Speaker 1: the championship. They were sixteen an offense and second in defense.
Speaker 1: Steph Clay and Draymond only played in one forty two
Speaker 1: of two hundred and forty six available games, so they
Speaker 1: were not dealt a very good handed cards last year either.
Speaker 1: All three of them were still ramping up in the
Speaker 1: Denver series. Steph was just coming back from a foot strain,
Speaker 1: uh footsprain, Draymond Green had been working his way back
Speaker 1: from a back injury, and then Clay Thompson was just
Speaker 1: back to playing NBA basketball for a couple of months.
Speaker 1: Um So, just a really impressive season all around. The
Speaker 1: this offseason, they lost Auto Porter Jr. And Gary Payton
Speaker 1: the second The interesting thing there is if you look
Speaker 1: at their on off numbers from the playoffs, they were
Speaker 1: dominant with Gary Payton on the floor and they were
Speaker 1: actually negative with him off the floor. So he was
Speaker 1: a plus minus hero in the playoffs because of what
Speaker 1: he did defensively and the little ways he found ways
Speaker 1: to be dangerous on the offensive ended floor, whether that
Speaker 1: was knocking down the occasional corner three or running pick
Speaker 1: and roll with Stephen rolling to the basket, cutting to
Speaker 1: the basket, offensive rebounds, things along those lines. They're gonna
Speaker 1: need to find some buddy that can replace that role
Speaker 1: him in Outo Porter Jr. They did add Dante de Vincenzo,
Speaker 1: who I will who I think will help JA. Michael
Speaker 1: Green I'm less excited about, but you know, I want
Speaker 1: to see how things shake out a little bit more.
Speaker 1: But they're gonna need one of Cominga or Moody to
Speaker 1: blossom into a reliable playoff player this year to replace
Speaker 1: Gary Payton. A second, looking at the depth chart at
Speaker 1: the guard position, Steph Curry and Jordan Poole on the wing,
Speaker 1: Clay Thompson, Andrew Wiggins, Jonathan Cominga, Dante DiVincenzo, Moses Moody,
Speaker 1: ja Michael Green, and Patrick Baldwin Jr. I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: talk much about Patrick Baldwin Jr. Tonight because I just
Speaker 1: need to watch a lot more of him before I
Speaker 1: can have an opinion. You guys know me, I'm not
Speaker 1: going to really talk about something if I if I
Speaker 1: don't know enough. And then Big Draymond Green, James Wiseman,
Speaker 1: and Kevon Looney um so talking about the offensive end
Speaker 1: the floor, they ran a couple of non five out
Speaker 1: sets in that preseason game. And I'm thankful at the
Speaker 1: preseason game because all these other teams, I had to
Speaker 1: go into old footage to try to do the best
Speaker 1: I could to figure out what they run on offense.
Speaker 1: I got actual stuff that they're running from this training camp,
Speaker 1: which was which was helpful. And informative here. So they
Speaker 1: they ran a horn set where James Wiseman and Draymond
Speaker 1: bracketed around Steph and that ended up kind of breaking
Speaker 1: down and then uh, Wiseman ended up getting a seal
Speaker 1: because it ended up in a switch and Monty Morris
Speaker 1: was on him. They also ran a random four outset
Speaker 1: where Steph was at the block and it was a
Speaker 1: classic screen the screen or set like Steph backscreen for
Speaker 1: Andrew Wiggins. Monty Morris like just barely hesitated as he
Speaker 1: went to help on the Andrew Wiggins screen, and then
Speaker 1: Steph immediately came off of a second pin down and
Speaker 1: got a wide uh not a wide open, but a
Speaker 1: pretty decent look at three. But other than those two sets,
Speaker 1: almost everything they ran the entire game was five out.
Speaker 1: That means guys in the two corners, guys on the
Speaker 1: two wings, guy at the top of the key. Now
Speaker 1: the difference, you guys know, I love five out basketball,
Speaker 1: talk about that all the time on the show. But
Speaker 1: there's a big difference between the way the Warriors run
Speaker 1: five out and the way the rest of the league
Speaker 1: runs five out. First of all, the Warriors run sets
Speaker 1: out of five out like the a lot a lot
Speaker 1: of teams. Five out is a spacing concepts. It's more
Speaker 1: just this is how we situate the floor, and we
Speaker 1: just need somebody to beat somebody off the dribble so
Speaker 1: that we can start our driving kick and start to
Speaker 1: start to get good stuff out of that. But the
Speaker 1: Warriors are are running sets, and I mean, I mean
Speaker 1: they're running sets almost every time down the floor. They
Speaker 1: run more sets than anybody in the league, and it's
Speaker 1: not even close. About three out of four times when
Speaker 1: they come up the floor they're running a set, and
Speaker 1: even on that fourth time, they're running some kind of action,
Speaker 1: maybe just a high ball screen or something along those lines.
Speaker 1: They don't just play pickup basketball. They run organized basketball.
Speaker 1: I saw a stat earlier the uh the best metric
Speaker 1: that I've seen that kind of tracks this kind of
Speaker 1: thing is number of shot attempts that you take off
Speaker 1: of screens. The Golden State Warriors took about eleven shots
Speaker 1: per game off of screens, and the second place team
Speaker 1: in the league was the Portland Trailblazers with six. So so, literally,
Speaker 1: the Warriors run almost twice as many sets per game
Speaker 1: as the rest of the teams in the league. Other
Speaker 1: teams you see near the top. They're like teams like Miami.
Speaker 1: They run a lot of sets too, But the Warriors
Speaker 1: run sets more frequently than any team in the league.
Speaker 1: Why do they do it five out Because most teams
Speaker 1: run sets they want players around the block like horns
Speaker 1: or four high or four low, because they want their
Speaker 1: bigs around the screen. The reason why they run everything
Speaker 1: on the perimeter is because the Warriors players have gravity.
Speaker 1: We've talked about this concept before. When Stephen Clay and
Speaker 1: Jordan Pool are running off the screens, one of the
Speaker 1: most frequent defensive breakdowns is multiple defenders following them. But
Speaker 1: those two defenders are going away from the basket that's
Speaker 1: taking place outside of the three point line. So in
Speaker 1: the same way that five out offense is designed to
Speaker 1: build driving lanes for driving kicked teams like the Clippers
Speaker 1: and the Celtics, for the Warriors, it's actually meant to
Speaker 1: open up cutting lanes and slipping lanes and roll lanes.
Speaker 1: So like a lot of their actions are you know,
Speaker 1: dribble handoffs or all screens, but it's designed for Draymond
Speaker 1: or Looney or whoever it is, to slip those actions
Speaker 1: when his man offers help as Steph or Clay's coming
Speaker 1: off that screen. It just has so much open space
Speaker 1: around the basket for them to slip and roll into
Speaker 1: and have space to finish around the rim. And then
Speaker 1: the fundamental concept in five out, and this is the
Speaker 1: same for driving kick teams as well. It's just harder
Speaker 1: for you to cover ground in rotation. So if I'm
Speaker 1: in a four out one in and I beat my
Speaker 1: man off the dribble, or I hit a pick and
Speaker 1: pop slipper like a guy slipping to the basket, the
Speaker 1: health defenders that one in and he's already there because
Speaker 1: the four out one in the inside guys probably gonna
Speaker 1: be on the opposite block and what we call the
Speaker 1: dunker spot, so his defender is gonna be standing right
Speaker 1: under the basket. Because as far as the NBA is concerned,
Speaker 1: as far as the rule goes, you can be in
Speaker 1: the paint if your arms length away from your defender
Speaker 1: right if you're like within legal guarding distance of your defender.
Speaker 1: So I can stand directly under the rim because my
Speaker 1: guys in the dunker spot, I'm in legal guarding position
Speaker 1: now turning and I'm helping as guys are driving right
Speaker 1: into me. But what if instead of him being in
Speaker 1: the dunker spot, he's in the opposite corner. Now I'm
Speaker 1: in a bit of a predicament. I have to like
Speaker 1: step into the lane and then step out of the lane,
Speaker 1: and then step into the lane and then step out
Speaker 1: of the lane. A lot of really good offensive players
Speaker 1: will time their drives or time their slips or cuts
Speaker 1: right as you're lunging out of the lane, which is
Speaker 1: what opens things up around the basket. Or if you
Speaker 1: do have to help, you have to abandon your man
Speaker 1: in the short corner now and now that short corner
Speaker 1: is open. Just covering ground and rotation and actually offering
Speaker 1: helps side defenses ten times harder in a five out
Speaker 1: scheme than it is in a four out one in
Speaker 1: or a three out two in schemes. So that's why
Speaker 1: the Warriors do it, That's why the rest of the
Speaker 1: league does it. But the key difference is that the
Speaker 1: Warriors will do it with the intention of slipping and
Speaker 1: rolling and cutting rather than UH necessarily driving to the basket.
Speaker 1: So they opened up the game with a five out
Speaker 1: double dribble handoff with Jordan Pool coming out of the
Speaker 1: left corner. UH Loony and Draymond both uh I went
Speaker 1: to go set the screen. There was a dribble handoff
Speaker 1: Jordan Pool him off. If he actually ended up getting
Speaker 1: a wide open twenty foot or at the top of
Speaker 1: the key, he just missed it. They ran this particular
Speaker 1: action a bunch, the double dribble handoff coming out of
Speaker 1: the corner. They had a really interesting counter there where
Speaker 1: if the guy in the corner, so like a lot
Speaker 1: of teams will see this action coming right and so
Speaker 1: they top side. So like, if I'm guarding Jordan Pool
Speaker 1: and I know he's coming off of that double dribble
Speaker 1: handoff going this way, I might literally just get entirely
Speaker 1: in his way, so he has to go through my chest. Well,
Speaker 1: in that case, they just cut out. And when they
Speaker 1: cut out, what will happen is the first screener will
Speaker 1: just turn and he'll come off the screen instead, and
Speaker 1: they'll run something out of that. So it's like kind
Speaker 1: of like a read and react system. There's they've got
Speaker 1: baked in counters from when you try to jump in
Speaker 1: front of their place, which is the way smart offenses run.
Speaker 1: And it was really impressive to see that this morning
Speaker 1: from the Warriors UM they also uh They also like
Speaker 1: instead of a dribble handoff version of that play, they
Speaker 1: run a past version of that place. So like just
Speaker 1: two guys will go screen for Steph Curry coming out
Speaker 1: of the corner, and then they'll pass it to him
Speaker 1: as he's coming off of that screen. They had one
Speaker 1: of those in the first half where they hit Draymond slipping,
Speaker 1: so Draymond was the second screener. Steph caught the pass
Speaker 1: right as he was coming off Draymond's man. I think
Speaker 1: it was Christaps Porzingis in this case hedged out on Steph.
Speaker 1: So step just throwing easy little drop pass into the
Speaker 1: pocket and Draymond went up and made a layup. They
Speaker 1: ran a lot of double high ball screens, so they'll
Speaker 1: have Steph bring it up on the left wing. They'll
Speaker 1: have one guy in the left corner and then the
Speaker 1: guy at the top of the key, and then the
Speaker 1: right wing will be Wiseman and and and Draymond or
Speaker 1: Draymond and and Looney and they'll both come over and
Speaker 1: set that double screen. Anytime we talked about double pick
Speaker 1: and roll, as you guys know, one guy will typically
Speaker 1: roll to the basket, the other will pop to the
Speaker 1: three point line because both bigs will typically drop and
Speaker 1: usually you get open stuff around the top of the key.
Speaker 1: They also ran just some basic high pick and roll
Speaker 1: with Wiseman um usually Steph coming out of the wing,
Speaker 1: Wiseman top of the key. They would set it. They
Speaker 1: have Draymond on the on the right wing or in
Speaker 1: the right corner away from the ball as far as
Speaker 1: he could be, and then two shoters in the corner
Speaker 1: and the wing, and then just run regular pick and roll.
Speaker 1: They got a lob dunk out of that immediately on
Speaker 1: the next possession. After the lob dunk, Draymond was in
Speaker 1: the right corner and Kyle Kuzman had to tag the roller,
Speaker 1: which opened up a wide open three for Draymond. So basic,
Speaker 1: kind of like give and take of help defense when
Speaker 1: you start to have success in the paint. But they
Speaker 1: just run a ton of stuff every time down the floor,
Speaker 1: usually some form of double screen, either a double ball screen,
Speaker 1: a double drible handoff, or double a double off ball screen.
Speaker 1: But it's all designed to get that initial advantage of
Speaker 1: usually a guy slipping to the basket or cutting, and
Speaker 1: then from there they just play basketball, Like if Draymond
Speaker 1: slips down the lane and he doesn't have a lap,
Speaker 1: he might kick it out to the guy in the
Speaker 1: corner and then they play their driving kick. So they
Speaker 1: will play driving kick whether you do it out of
Speaker 1: uh sets rather than doing it out of initial advantage creation.
Speaker 1: And it makes sense because you know this is not
Speaker 1: a huge, physically imposing ball handling team. You know this
Speaker 1: isn't this isn't Kawhi Leonard and Paul George coming at
Speaker 1: you every possession, so you're not worried about getting bludgeoned
Speaker 1: by driving. These are smaller, skinnier players that operate off
Speaker 1: a screen. So it makes sense that a team like
Speaker 1: the Clippers would beat you with dribble penetration and then
Speaker 1: a team like the Warriors would beat you with sets.
Speaker 1: But then once that initial advantage is created and they
Speaker 1: get into rotation, then it's just driving kicked basketball and
Speaker 1: everyone's kind of doing the same thing at that point.
Speaker 1: Um Looking at isolation, they were the most frequent isolation
Speaker 1: team in the league, but the eighth most effective. This
Speaker 1: is just about being picky about when you isolate. Steph
Speaker 1: averaged one point two points per possession and isolation, which
Speaker 1: is literally outstanding. But he only ran a hundred and
Speaker 1: seventeen of those possessions all season. That's because he's picky.
Speaker 1: You usually will only do it if he gets a
Speaker 1: big on a switch. Again, that's just about being smart,
Speaker 1: understanding what your strengths are and being picky about things
Speaker 1: that you're that that you don't want to do is often,
Speaker 1: and then leaning into your strengths. This is a great
Speaker 1: off screen team, That's why they lean heavily into that. Um.
Speaker 1: They had the third most efficient can roll ball handling
Speaker 1: trio in the league. Uh, this is about pull up
Speaker 1: jump shooting. Like we talked about earlier, pull up jump
Speaker 1: shooting is the best way to beat most pick and
Speaker 1: roll coverages. Jordan Pool and Staff were both in the
Speaker 1: eighty five percentile league wide as pick and roll ball handlers,
Speaker 1: which is awesome. They were the sixth most frequent dribble
Speaker 1: handoff team and tenth most efficient. Clay Thompson was pulling
Speaker 1: the most way here. He was at one point zero
Speaker 1: two points per possession and dribble handoffs, which was the
Speaker 1: seventy four percentile in the league. No NBA team cuts
Speaker 1: to the basket more than the Warriors do. They register
Speaker 1: twelve cut possessions per game at one point three points
Speaker 1: per possession, both awesome. To give you comparison, the MAVs
Speaker 1: and the Sixers register about half as many cut possessions
Speaker 1: per games. That just kind of gives you some perspective
Speaker 1: on how frequently they do that. Um, they, like I
Speaker 1: talked about earlier, already mentioned this that they run almost
Speaker 1: twice as many off screen possessions as as the rest
Speaker 1: of the league eleven for them. The Blazers were in
Speaker 1: second place with six. Again, this is just one of
Speaker 1: the man any indicators, and you could just tell by
Speaker 1: watching the Warriors play that this is the case. But
Speaker 1: this is one of the many indicators that they run
Speaker 1: more sets than the rest of the league. Most of
Speaker 1: the teams that I encountered during this series, they would
Speaker 1: run sets to start quarters. They would run stets out
Speaker 1: of basically dead ball situations like made free throws or
Speaker 1: or like out of time outs, things like that. But
Speaker 1: in the actual flow of the game, the vast majority
Speaker 1: of these teams are just running the ball up the
Speaker 1: floor and running a high pick and roll or picking
Speaker 1: on a matchup and trying to get into their driving kick.
Speaker 1: The Warriors run sets live ball dead ball whatever about
Speaker 1: the possessions. From what I can tell by watching, that's
Speaker 1: a stat that kind of shows, uh, it shows an
Speaker 1: example of how that gets quantified. It's just harder to
Speaker 1: defend player movement than stagnation. That's just a basic concept
Speaker 1: in basketball. If you bring up the ball and and
Speaker 1: you just get to your spacing and one guy starts
Speaker 1: to work off the dribble, the other four guys are standing,
Speaker 1: and if I'm guarding a Warrior's team, were on every
Speaker 1: possession there's three or four interchanges and in an action
Speaker 1: being run, it's just more fatiguing physically to try to
Speaker 1: guard a team like that. And I think that's one
Speaker 1: of the biggest playoff advantages. The Warriors almost always go
Speaker 1: up too oh in a playoff series. It's uncommon for
Speaker 1: them to drop one of their first two playoff games,
Speaker 1: and a huge part of that is their offensive system
Speaker 1: is so different from the rest of the league that
Speaker 1: teams get caught off guard early in playoff series. It
Speaker 1: takes a little while to adjust. Speaking of adjustments there,
Speaker 1: Steve Kerr's willingness to adjust is one of the things
Speaker 1: I appreciate about him. He's not stubborn, even though he
Speaker 1: has a strong basketball belief system. Off the dribble shooting
Speaker 1: verse Boston is the best indicator of this. So during
Speaker 1: the regular season, the Warriors attempted about twenty two pull
Speaker 1: up jump shots per game, but they were playing against
Speaker 1: the Boston Celtics team that was very good defensively and
Speaker 1: that switched a lot of off ball actions, particularly ones
Speaker 1: that regard to guard. So as a result, like because
Speaker 1: they were dropping running drop coverage against ball screens or
Speaker 1: other things that involved the big man, um, Steve Kerr
Speaker 1: leaned heavily into pick and roll. Why because he's got
Speaker 1: Steph Curry, the best off the dribble shooter of all time,
Speaker 1: and off the dribble, three point shooting is one of
Speaker 1: the best ways to beat a drop coverage, especially one
Speaker 1: like the Celtics where the big man was was lagging
Speaker 1: too far back. Well, they went up from twenty two
Speaker 1: pull up jump shots per game in the regular season
Speaker 1: to pull up jump shots per game in the Celtics series.
Speaker 1: That's an indicator of how they were willing to adjust
Speaker 1: their offensive approach to match the actual need of what
Speaker 1: they needed to beat that Boston defense. Another example of
Speaker 1: this willingness to adjust was against the Calves in two
Speaker 1: thousand fifteen when Um, when they were trapping the staff
Speaker 1: high pick and roll and they just got into They
Speaker 1: just just spamed high pick and roll, hitting Draymond as
Speaker 1: the slipper, Uh slipping to the basket and then him
Speaker 1: hitting on Dregudal in the corner. Again, that was not
Speaker 1: a team that just spamed high pick and roll in
Speaker 1: the regular season. That was just something they did as
Speaker 1: an adjustment to beat a specific matchup. No, there's no
Speaker 1: value in being stubborn. All that matters is winning the
Speaker 1: basketball game. And I trust Steve Kerr to make those adjustments. Um, Steph,
Speaker 1: Sometimes things just don't go right in the playoff series
Speaker 1: and you need a heroic effort to carry you. And
Speaker 1: that's Steph in Game four of the Finals. Like, sometimes
Speaker 1: you're down two games to one and the physical matchups
Speaker 1: aren't really going your way, and you're on the road
Speaker 1: against a really talented team, and you just need some
Speaker 1: guy to reach down and pull out an all time
Speaker 1: great NBA playoff performance. And that's what Steph did in
Speaker 1: Game four of the Finals. This is why we were
Speaker 1: we talked so much about best player in the world.
Speaker 1: This is why we talked so much about top tier
Speaker 1: superstars in the game of basketball just matters more than
Speaker 1: a dozen other sports. As we go back in champions
Speaker 1: Steph last year, Jannice the year before that, Lebron the
Speaker 1: year before that, Kauai, then Stephen Katie, then Stephen Katie,
Speaker 1: then Lebron, then Steph, then Kauai, then Lebron, then Lebron.
Speaker 1: You get the point, you need one of those guys,
Speaker 1: and the Warriors have one of those guys and Steff,
Speaker 1: and then, like we talked about earlier, the players surrounding
Speaker 1: Steff are all good basketball players. They all are versatile.
Speaker 1: They're not sp shlists moving to the defensive end of
Speaker 1: the floor. Um their scheme, they switch one through three
Speaker 1: or one through four, depending on whether or not they
Speaker 1: have one or two bigs on the floor, and then
Speaker 1: they drop with their bigs, but they don't switch in discriminately.
Speaker 1: They're they're picky about it to try to avoid mismatches.
Speaker 1: The vast majority of NBA teams try to attack step
Speaker 1: as much as possible. And Steff is a good defensive player.
Speaker 1: We're gonna talk about that in a minute, but it's
Speaker 1: mainly for fatigued purposes. It's it's not like, oh, it'll
Speaker 1: be easy to score on Staff. It's if we attack
Speaker 1: Steph all game long, we might be able to wear
Speaker 1: out his legs and he might miss some jump shots
Speaker 1: on the other end of the floor. Well, Warriors, the
Speaker 1: Warriors will do things like pre switching as they make
Speaker 1: adjustments in series. They will put step on matchups where
Speaker 1: they don't like to use them in ball screens. A
Speaker 1: great example of this is that Maverick series. Early in
Speaker 1: the series, Steff is guarding Reggie Bullock and they kept
Speaker 1: doing like quick picking pops with him with Luca, and
Speaker 1: it was just challenging, uh for Steff to guard those actions.
Speaker 1: So they like switch that and put I can't remember
Speaker 1: exactly what put him on um. It might have been
Speaker 1: Dorian Phinney Smith, I can't remember, but they put him
Speaker 1: somewhere else, so I think it was DFS because they
Speaker 1: put him there because Dorian Phinney Smith is not as
Speaker 1: good as a pop like movement shooter and so those
Speaker 1: little pick and pop actions weren't working as well. Those
Speaker 1: are just little xs and those things and adjustments that
Speaker 1: the Warriors will do to stop teams from targeting Staff again.
Speaker 1: For the purpose of saving him the fatigue that's caused
Speaker 1: from it um metrics from last year. This is insane.
Speaker 1: If you guys remember the things that I talked about,
Speaker 1: that talked to me, that teach me about how good
Speaker 1: a coach is and how good his attention to detail is.
Speaker 1: Defensive rebounding, how well they do dribble contain, um points
Speaker 1: in the paint allowed, and defending the three point line,
Speaker 1: understanding the most valuable shots, transition defense, those are the
Speaker 1: things I look at. Well. Not only were the Warriors
Speaker 1: second in defensive rating, they were six in defensive rebounding percentage,
Speaker 1: so they were a great defensive rebounding team. They were
Speaker 1: third in steels that's associated to dribble contain. We're gonna
Speaker 1: talk about that in a minute. They were fourth and
Speaker 1: paint points allowed. They were sixth in transition defense according
Speaker 1: to Cleaning the Glass, and they were fourteen and three
Speaker 1: point defense. So of the five key metrics that I
Speaker 1: tracked the most associated with coaching, they were top six
Speaker 1: and four of them, and they were top half in
Speaker 1: the other with fourteenth and three point defense. And to
Speaker 1: be I it's just really difficult to do both if
Speaker 1: you prioritize the three point line, you're naturally going to
Speaker 1: give up more stuff in the paint. So Steve Kerr
Speaker 1: just he understands what works in modern NBA defense. He
Speaker 1: coaches it really well. The guys are bought in. They um,
Speaker 1: you know, their stars death. The biggest credit I offered
Speaker 1: to Steff is is that he just tries hard on
Speaker 1: defense every single night, even though he's only slightly above average.
Speaker 1: Just that effort goes so long towards setting the tone
Speaker 1: for the rest of the roster. The last thing I
Speaker 1: wanted to talk about, as it pertains to the Warriors
Speaker 1: on the defensive end, is the value of dribble contained.
Speaker 1: And so I wanted to start with the finals here
Speaker 1: so early in the series, to go down two to one,
Speaker 1: and Warriors fans, some Warriors fans like, oh, they're just
Speaker 1: making all the threes or you know, over helping too
Speaker 1: much or whatever it was. Yes, they were making a
Speaker 1: lot of threes, and yes the Warriors were helping too much,
Speaker 1: which was allowing the Celtics to get into their dribble
Speaker 1: contained But the main reason why was the Celtics were
Speaker 1: getting great dribble penetration and they were getting great dribble
Speaker 1: penetration because it's Marcus Smart, you know, Jayson Tatum, Jalen Brown,
Speaker 1: and Derek White that are getting into the lane a lot,
Speaker 1: and their difficult matchups to handle. But what really happened
Speaker 1: over the course of that series is at the end
Speaker 1: of the series, mainly Clay Thompson and Andrew Wiggins, but
Speaker 1: also some Draymond Green and Gary Payton, they just started
Speaker 1: containing the basketball. Clay Thompson did an amazing job on
Speaker 1: Jalen Brown towards the end of that series of sliding
Speaker 1: his feet, taking that contact in the chest and turning
Speaker 1: Jalen Brown into a pull up jump shooter. And then
Speaker 1: Andrew Wiggins obviously, like I talked about how I think
Speaker 1: Jayson Tatum is the best perimeter defender in basketball, Andrew
Speaker 1: Wiggins is right there. It's like those two guys and
Speaker 1: McKay Bridges and uh and like Ben Simmons that I
Speaker 1: put I put in that tier. Andrew Wiggins is right there,
Speaker 1: and the job that he did on Jayson Tatum containing
Speaker 1: that ball handler was so important. Now this is where
Speaker 1: the turnovers and the steels come into play, because think
Speaker 1: of it like this, if I don't have to help
Speaker 1: because you're containing the basketball. Now I get to be
Speaker 1: a normal guarding position. What's normal guarding position depends on
Speaker 1: who your guarding, but typically that means I'm far enough
Speaker 1: away that I can help, but close enough that I
Speaker 1: can recover if there's a shooter there. Translation, you're in
Speaker 1: the passing lane. Okay, you're kind of like a little
Speaker 1: bit of distance off of your man, looking at the ball,
Speaker 1: looking at the man, ready for the past to come
Speaker 1: out so you can close out or play the passing lane. Well,
Speaker 1: what ended up happening a lot with the Celtics is
Speaker 1: as Clay Thompson and Andrew Wiggins and Gary Payton and
Speaker 1: and Draymond Green contained the basketball, those guys would drive
Speaker 1: into the lane a little bit like get to the
Speaker 1: sixteen seventeen feet, get cut off, and then panic and
Speaker 1: look around and no one's open, and no one's open
Speaker 1: because they're not helping, and they're not helping because you're
Speaker 1: containing the basketball. And so then one ends up happening
Speaker 1: is you panic and you just throw some stupid pass
Speaker 1: that looks open and it's not. The next thing you know,
Speaker 1: they're running the other way. And there's other stuff. There
Speaker 1: was some sloppy ball handling. You know, Tatum got picked
Speaker 1: at half court a few times. There was some sloppiness
Speaker 1: in there. But a lot of those Boston Celtics turnovers
Speaker 1: were fueled by Clay Thompson, Draymond Grand, Gary Payton, and
Speaker 1: Andrew Wiggins just containing the basketball so that no one
Speaker 1: else had to help. And when no one else had
Speaker 1: to help, no one was open. And so when they
Speaker 1: were throwing those passes, they're throwing them into dangerous passing
Speaker 1: lanes and they're turning them over. That dynamic swung the series.
Speaker 1: The Celtics went up to one because they were getting
Speaker 1: dribble penetration, and then they lost three straight because they
Speaker 1: no longer were getting dribble penetration. And that's a ton
Speaker 1: of that credit. I want to heap on the Warriors
Speaker 1: perimeter guys for just sitting in a damn stance, sliding
Speaker 1: your feet and taking that contact in the chest. It's
Speaker 1: just good basketball. Again, this is a huge part of
Speaker 1: player development. I thought it was really interesting and I
Speaker 1: talked more in detail about this uh in the preseason
Speaker 1: breakdown that I did. But Moses Moody and then putting
Speaker 1: him on Bradley Beal in that preseason game today them
Speaker 1: saying like, look, man, if you're going to be someone
Speaker 1: that we can depend on in a playoff series, we
Speaker 1: need you to be able to contain the basketball. I
Speaker 1: think they're gonna throw him all sorts of difficult matchups
Speaker 1: early in the season just to kind of build that up.
Speaker 1: And he's gonna have to learn a unique way, a
Speaker 1: unique way to play defense because he's not as fast.
Speaker 1: He's gonna have to give more ground and make up
Speaker 1: with his length um as more of like a positional
Speaker 1: defender as we always talk about. But I'm really curious
Speaker 1: to see how Moses Moody handles those matchups over the
Speaker 1: course of the season. But internally, organizationally, the Warriors are
Speaker 1: always hammering home that concept of perimeter contain everything else
Speaker 1: in defense works better when you contain not only did
Speaker 1: the turnovers like we were talking about, but then you
Speaker 1: stay out of rotation. So like, if if I give
Speaker 1: up a straight line drive, my teammates gotta cover for me,
Speaker 1: so I've got to sprint over to some other spot
Speaker 1: on the floor to get the next guy. And is
Speaker 1: if we stay out of rotation, it's just less running.
Speaker 1: So it's like if one guy does his job. Containing
Speaker 1: the basketball makes everyone else's job more physically easy. It's
Speaker 1: also easier to rebound because in rotation you get cross matches.
Speaker 1: When you get cross matches, you have little guys on
Speaker 1: big guys, and when little guys are on big guys,
Speaker 1: the big guy usually gets a rebound. So just just
Speaker 1: in general that that UH dribble contained concept is so
Speaker 1: important and the Warriors are great at It's a huge
Speaker 1: part of why they're so successful defensively. So what's the
Speaker 1: best case scenario for this Warrior's team? Don't need to
Speaker 1: spend too much time on that. There are more talented
Speaker 1: version of last year, so they should repeat if the
Speaker 1: young guys developed worst case scenario. Obviously, injuries are always
Speaker 1: a problem with these teams. UH. An injury to someone
Speaker 1: like a Clay or a Draymond or step would be
Speaker 1: pretty catastrophic, especially if it was steph Um. If they
Speaker 1: fail to replace that Gary Payton the second rule role,
Speaker 1: that could be an issue when they get to the
Speaker 1: later rounds like the conference finals and finals, just when
Speaker 1: they're playing more talented teams. UM. If that happens, they
Speaker 1: could potentially lose to one of the top tier teams
Speaker 1: and like the conference finals, but to me, they're the
Speaker 1: clear favorite in the league. Biggest X factor. This is
Speaker 1: the first time I've done three guys instead of one,
Speaker 1: but I put Wiseman, Moody cominga they let OUTO Porter Jr.
Speaker 1: And Gary Payton the second go because these guys are
Speaker 1: supposed to fill those roles. If for Wiseman in particular,
Speaker 1: it's a tricky dynamic because they don't really need him
Speaker 1: in the rotation when they're healthy. Looney and Draymond proved
Speaker 1: last year that they were enough, but it's obviously a
Speaker 1: little bit extra depth there. But because he's that third
Speaker 1: big in a league that's going away from Biggs, it
Speaker 1: makes his role a little bit somewhat inconsistent, a little
Speaker 1: bit clunky. His ability to shoot the three should help
Speaker 1: in theory there a little bit, but his his role
Speaker 1: is going to be inconsistent throughout the year. I'm a
Speaker 1: little bit worried about. So he's the one guy that
Speaker 1: would keep an eye on um because that can mess
Speaker 1: with the young player's rhythm too. But he needs to
Speaker 1: play more physical on both ends of the floor, which
Speaker 1: we talked about in detail in this morning's video. So
Speaker 1: I won't go any further, but he needs lastly, he
Speaker 1: needs to embrace the little things to earn a playoff
Speaker 1: spot in this rotation. They he went for twenty and
Speaker 1: nine this morning. That's great. I think he's a guy
Speaker 1: who could average twenty and ten in the league for
Speaker 1: a long time. But on this team, they don't need that.
Speaker 1: They need him to be a version of Looney that
Speaker 1: has some vertical spacing and some perimeter spacing. That's what
Speaker 1: they need from it. They need defense. They need him
Speaker 1: to be a functional cog in the Golden State machine offensively.
Speaker 1: So if he embraces those little things, he will claw
Speaker 1: out a rotation spot because he's talented enough. But if
Speaker 1: he doesn't, and he worries about a shot too much
Speaker 1: and he doesn't embrace the little things, he could be
Speaker 1: one of the guys that could squeeze out of the
Speaker 1: rotation towards the end of the year. Then with Moody
Speaker 1: and Cominga, it's offense defense. I think Moody is already
Speaker 1: at a point where they trust him offensively, but I
Speaker 1: don't think he's good enough defensively, And I think Cominge
Speaker 1: is already a point where they trust him defensively. But
Speaker 1: they don't trust him offensively. I actually think Comminge has
Speaker 1: got further to go on the offensive end then Moody
Speaker 1: does on the deep fensive end. So Moody is the
Speaker 1: guy that I look at as a guy that I
Speaker 1: think we'll get more and more minutes as the season progresses.
Speaker 1: Like I said, tough matchups early on in the year
Speaker 1: to test his defensive metal. He's the guy that's gonna
Speaker 1: be uh that that they end up depending on in
Speaker 1: a playoff series and all likelihood. I'm not gonna elaborate
Speaker 1: too much there because I talked about that a little
Speaker 1: bit this morning. But yeah, that's all I got on
Speaker 1: the Warriors for today. Have a lot of Warriors basketball
Speaker 1: this week. Um. We will be back on Monday with
Speaker 1: another seven games worth of preseason content. We're also gonna
Speaker 1: do some gambling stuff over the next couple of weeks,
Speaker 1: so like over unders and m v P First Team
Speaker 1: All NBA Coach of the Year, that kind of stuff. So, uh,
Speaker 1: lots of film breakdown, lots of you know, NBA futures
Speaker 1: and stuff over the next couple of weeks, and then
Speaker 1: we're what two two and a half weeks away from
Speaker 1: regular season basketball, So it's gonna be a marathon not
Speaker 1: to sprint a lot of basketball. But I appreciate having
Speaker 1: you guys along for the ride. As always, I sincerely
Speaker 1: appreciate your support and now we'll see you next time.
Speaker 1: The volume