The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Hoops Tonight - Steph Curry & Warriors dominate Kings, Suns beat Clippers, 76ers push Nets to brink

Episode Date: April 21, 2023

Jason Timpf reacts to Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, and the Golden State Warriors' 114-97 win over the Sacramento Kings without Draymond Green. How confident is Jason in the Warriors' ability to pull off the series comeback? Later, he discusses Kevin Durant and the Suns taking down the Clippers without Kawhi Leonard to grab a 2-1 series lead as well as Joel Embiid and the 76ers pushing the Nets to the brink of elimination with their 102-97 win in Brooklyn, despite James Harden's ejection. #volume #herdSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Another podcast from some SNL, late-night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer, Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter.

Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and friends on the IHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A win is a win. A win is a win. I don't care what I'm saying.

Yep, that's me, Clivert Taylor the 4th. You might have seen the skits, my basketball and college football journey, or my career in sports media. Well, now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, The Clifers Show. This is a place for raw, unfills of conversations with athletes, creators, and voices that not only deserve to be heard, but celebrated. So let's get to it. Listen to The Clifford Show on the IHard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more behind the scenes, follow at Clifford and at TikTok's podcast network on TikTok. On the Look Back at it podcast.

From 1979, that was a big moment for me. 84 is big to me. I'm Sam J. And I'm Alex English. Each episode, we pick a year, unpack what went down, and try to make sense of how we survived it. With our friends, fellow comedians, and favorite authors. Like Mark Lamont Hill on the 80s. 84 was a wild.

I mean, it was a wild year. I don't think there's a more important year for black people. Listen to look back at it on the IHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Volume. All right, welcome to Hoops tonight here at The Volume. Happy Thursday, everybody. I hope all of you guys are having a great week so far. We are live on Amps.

Don't forget if you're watching on YouTube or listening on the podcast feeds that Amp is the very first place that you guys can get these shows. We're going to be breaking down all three games from tonight, although there's The Suns Clippers hasn't quite ended. They're up double digits late, and I will be shocked if they come back to win that one. So we're going to go ahead and get started before that game is finished. And then we're going to touch on the Warriors, avoiding the 3-0 deficit that would have been a death sentence for them and a convincing win. And then the Brooklyn Nets were up five late on Philly and Tyrese-Mexie stole the game away from them. So we're going to get into that.

A little bit of the ejection-related shenanigans in that game as well as I have some thoughts on Joe, and beat and his incessant flopping, which is driving me insane. You guys know the drill before we get started. Subscribe to the volumes YouTube channel so you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore Jason LT. So you guys don't miss any show announcements. And last but not least, for whatever reason, you guys miss one of these videos and you can't get back over to YouTube to finish. Don't forget, you can find them wherever you get your podcasts under hoops tonight. You guys have heard me talk about Game Time, the fastest growing ticketing app in the United States. If you're looking to get out to an NBA game, an NHL game, or even a concert or a comedy show,

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Again, enter your email and code hoops. That's H-O-O-P-S for $20 off. Download game time today. Last-minute tickets. Lowest price. Guaranteed. All right, let's talk some basketball. So, you know, I talked about this a little bit after game too.

But I said, you know, sometimes it's less about schematics. It's fun to sit here and be like, oh, what if we do this? or make this magical adjustment, it'll just completely change this entire series. And don't get me wrong, there are adjustments that take place in series, and some of them can be monumentally important. You know, for instance, like the warriors consistently slotting Andre Aguadala into the starting lineup in the middle of a series against LeBron James, because LeBron was having so much success against Harrison Barnes,

he was building his rhythm early in games and killing them. throughout, but by starting on Drago Dala, just made LeBron work harder earlier in the games and had an impact on his efficiency. There are adjustments that will swing series, a specific pick and roll coverage, a specific defensive matchup where one individual defender is giving a guy problems that the other defenders on the team haven't done. For instance, Davion Mitchell, the job that he's done on Steph Curry in the series, thought it was super interesting that Mike Brown didn't play him a ton tonight. But more often than not, it's less about schematics. And more about just doing better.

Steve Kerr in his interview after the third quarter, he basically said, look, like, we knew we just had to take better care of the basketball and rebound better on both ends of the floor. And that's what we did. Like, there's no magic cure other than just do your job better. And I've talked a lot about this, particularly in this series, as the dynamic of perimeter defense. It's not so much about, you know, finding the right guy here or there, but everybody as a team has to do a better job.

Yeah, ideally, you have Gary Payton on one of Deer and Fox or Malik Monk, and you have Harrison Barnes on the other, and you have Draymond Green on the back line. Ideally, that's what you'd have. You'd be able to contain those guys better, right? But today, there's no Gary Payton, no Draymond Green, and they had their best defensive game of the series. As a team, just swarming all over the floor, helping each other, making extra efforts, going out of their area to try to make plays all around as a team.

They just did better. and sometimes it's more about that than it is about any sort of schematic thing. I thought rebounding and taking care of the basketball was the story of the game. Just like Steve Kerr talked about, Kavana Luni led the way six offensive rebounds in the first half of a must-win playoff game when you are the only real center who's available on the roster. That is unbelievable clutch performance from Kavanaughan. Dante DiVincenzo was amazing off the bench. Every starter had at least five rebrand.

bounce. You know, and then Steph Curry, it's so easy to be like, oh, Steph Curry, great game, 36 points. I thought he was so laser-focused and locked in every single possession of this game. I was texting with some of our production staff during the third quarter about how, so I love the way that different types of, or different, like, I love the way that the different ways that savage competitors manifest themselves in personality types. You know, you have guys that are like LeBron James that are very boisterous and love the attention and kind of come off as, as, you know, prima donna like sometimes. And a lot of times people target that as a negative with him when, like, the persona is the persona, but that dude's a savage competitor. He works harder than most players in the

league. And he does the little things to win basketball games better than most players in the league. Like, it doesn't matter if you're the Kobe Bryant, like, jerk asshole mentality, or if you're the Michael Jordan jerk asshole mentality, or if you're the super nice guy and Steph Curry, or if you're the super kind of like a performative type of guy like LeBron is, is underneath it all. If you have that unbelievable competitive instinct, that's what drives these guys.

I always talk about it as like a hatred of losing more than a love of basketball. A love of basketball is a monumentally important part of being a great basketball player, but you also have to hate losing. because the actual things that go into winning games are not necessarily fun the way that offensive skill set, just polishing your offensive skill set and working on your game, that is fun. It's fun polishing those things. What's not fun is cracking down on the defensive rebounds when one of your teammates is boxing out.

What's not fun is sprinting back in transition and putting your body on the line when someone's barreling at you at full speed. What's not like, like Steph Curry, like that's your leader of your team and understand sized guy who's not, who doesn't have the best physical tools in the world and he's coming down on drivers from behind and it snashing the ball from behind them and scream into the crowd. Like, he was a warrior ready for this game. And his impact on winning went well beyond the 36 points that he had in this game. Now, one of the stories that you're going to see, and a lot of people were talking about it on

Twitter, I noticed. But there's going to be conversations about, are the warriors better without Draymond? And we do this all the time for whatever reason. and every time I get annoyed by how silly it is. The Warriors were 14 points better per 100 possessions with Draymond Green on the floor this season versus off the floor. They were 11 points better per 100 possessions last year in the post season

when Draymond was on the floor versus off the floor. You're not going into Sacramento and beating the Kings without Draymond Green. You need Draymond Green. That said, the Warriors are capable of winning without him, especially at home. And ironically, this game didn't really go the way I expected. I expected the Warriors to win game three and game four.

I was still confident that they would win game three after the Dram on Green suspension. I was still confident they would win game three after the Gary Payton news, which was bizarre today that he missed the game with an illness, which was super unfortunate under the circumstances. Here's the thing. As bad as the Warriors have been on the road this year, they've been just as good at home. They've looked like the championship winning Warriors at home.

And, you know, this is a consistent theme in the NBA, especially in the playoffs, but role players in particular generally tend to perform better at home than they do on the road. Dante DiVincenzo wasn't super impactful down in Sacramento. He had a monster night tonight, particularly as an athlete, just making plays all over the floor. Kavana Luni, winning battles here in Golden State that he was competing in in Sacramento, but not winning to the same extent. Like, guys just play better at home. And this Warriors team in particular has always fed off of their crowd and managed to pull games out,

especially against good teams this year at home when they've needed it. They've got to win without Dremont, but guess what? You need Dremont. And, you know, one of the most encouraging things for the Warriors in the series, and one of the biggest reasons why I have not picked Sacramento to win at any point, even when they were up 2-0, even when the suspension came down. The reason why I stuck with the Warriors is my pick. And again, the series is not over. I could still very well be wrong when it's all said and done.

But one of the big reasons why I stuck with my pick with the Warriors is the specific dynamic that was killing the Warriors in Sacramento, struggling in transition, that can be cleaned up. Struggling on the glass, that can be cleaned up. The dribble penetration from Deerrin Fox and from Malik Monk was the biggest problem. But they had kind of figured it out in game two, and they were starting to have some success. And I actually believe they would have won game two

had Draymond not been suspended. They were going to go back, or ejected, I should say. They were going to go back to this core lineup, the one that I expect them to go down with when the chips are down. Should game four be close? Should, or game four be close, excuse me? And game five when they're in Sacramento, I expect them to go down with this lineup.

But Steph Curry with Clay Thompson, with Andrew Wiggins and Gary Payton, and with Draymond at the five, that is the lineup that I expect them to go down with in Sacramento. That way they can match up straight. to cross with Gary Payton and Andrew Wiggins on Malik Monk and Deeran Fox. That lineup in Sacramento on the road, despite losing both games, was a plus five net rating in just under 40 possessions. Again, small sample size, but that's typical after just two games. But that grouping has been

winning their minutes kind of convincingly in Sacramento. And that's what I expect them to go down with. Again, with playoff series, it's less about like how you're winning and whether or not you can continue to win that battle of tug of war over the course of the series. The kings are going to win games a certain way. The warriors are going to win games a certain way. You've seen that in that series. How do the warriors win in Sacramento? They need to take the specific thing that Sacramento does so well,

which is dribble penetration from their guards, and they need to rein that in. They have the pieces to do so. On the other side of things for Sacramento, they do not have the pieces to handle Steph Curry. There is no version of this story where they control, Steph Curry, they have not been able to handle him in any of the three games of this series, whereas the Warriors have demonstrated some stretches where they've been able to lock down

defensively and get a lot of stops. So honestly, I felt like if Sacramento wanted to win this series, this was the game they had to win. And they did it. And it went different than I expected. Like I said, and I thought it'd be all offense. I thought Steph, Clay, and Jordan Poole would combine for like 80 points. Clay and Jordan Poole kind of struggled in this game. I mean, Clay made some shots at the end, but for the most part, Jordan Poole and Clay Thompson did not play well. They won this game on the defensive end of the floor and on the glass. They only shot 40% from the field in this convincing win at home. They just barely played well enough on offense, but in a crazy high-paced game, they managed to get

enough stops. I think this series is going back to Sacramento, tied it too, and I think game five will be one of the most important games of the series. I disagreed with, I talked about this earlier, but I disagreed with Mike Brown going away from Davyon Mitchell. He played like, I think, I want to say like 17 minutes in this game. Obviously, he can't stop Steph, but he can make Steph work hard. And I think one of the best pathways to victory in this series for Sacramento is to try to fatigue Steph, particularly with a lot of ball pressure from Davion Mitchell to make him work hard. You saw particularly in game two,

the game they played Davion the most minutes. You saw Steph start to leave some jumpers short at the end of the game, despite getting some pretty good looks. I think that's a big, like kind of adjustment that I'd expect Sacramento to make. I think that Mike Brown sensed that the game was getting off the rails a little bit, and it almost seemed like he stuck with Keegan Murray and Kevin Hurtr because those guys haven't shot well, and he knew the game was a loss, and I think he left him out there to just kind of try to get their rhythm in time for game four. But I don't think it's going to matter.

I think both Gary Payton and Draymond are coming back in game four. I think the Warriors are going to come out and put together another impressive double-digit win, and I think we'll head. into game five from there. All right, moving on to Clipper Sun. So when we started this show, they were up 13 in the fourth quarter. I'm pretty sure they ended up closing the deal from there. Russell Westbrook and Norman Powell put up a valiant fight,

but they just couldn't bother KD enough without Kauai out there. And then Devin Booker just lit them on fire in this particular game. I wanted to talk about the Kauai Leonard injury for a second, because I find this to be kind of bizarre. I'll be really curious to see in the postgame quotes from guys like Tyloo and Russell Westbrook. whether or not this was something that they were made aware of in the time leading up to the games. Kauai has had a tendency to just kind of surprise people with his injury status, which has been

strange. You know, I don't know where we go from here with Kauai. You could not possibly have approached this season with more caution as it pertains to wear and tear. And I get that from a certain perspective. I've, and I've said this for years, but I kind of disagree with that strategy. I'm a big believer in conditioning your body. Get your body used to taking on heavy mileage. That doesn't mean you drive it into the ground.

I don't even think it's necessarily out of line to say, hey, like sit out back to backs. Like that to me makes some sense, especially for guys like Kauai that have had injury history. But I do believe that when you are healthy, you should play. and you should play significant minutes. Why? Because this is a two-month grind where you're playing basically every other night. And if you want to win the trophy, you've got to win 16 playoff games. And you're probably going to lose another eight or nine more.

So, like, this is a hefty chunk of basketball where you have to play 38 to 40 minutes a night of really high effort and intensity two-way basketball. You have to condition yourself for that. But regardless of what it was, this strategy, didn't work. This strategy of resting him all season long, he broke down in two games to playoff basketball. And again, when I say, I don't know where it goes from here. I genuinely don't. Like, how do you change your approach from here? Like, are you going to go super cautious again next year under the same circumstances? Down to one in a series? Is he's going to, like, does Kauai seem like

the kind of guy who's going to push to come back in game four to attempt to rest control of this series that, you know honestly even if kawai outplays kd may not be enough to win and to do it on a bum leg and potentially do further damage let's say you win this series is your knee ready for a second round series against you know battling with erin gordon a bunch of games against the nuggets like i don't this is i look i i know there's going to be a lot of people that are going to go at kai uh during this stretch. I want to be clear. I don't think Kauai is too good at basketball to not love basketball. It's impossible to be as skilled as he is and to work as art as he has worked on his skill set if you don't love the game. So I know he loves the game and I know he wants to play. But for whatever reason,

he just has been super, super cautious and even that hasn't worked. So I don't know. like it's hard to even imagine what next season will look like for kauai under these circumstances and right now i'd be surprised if he came back to play it all in this postseason and who knows maybe he comes back in game four and everything's fine but i just don't understand why he wouldn't have played tonight under those circumstances especially in a one one series super bizarre i was so impressed by him in this playoff series too so it's just a bummer that i don't like this kawai this was a series i had marked as a sweep obviously super wrong and this was a series that i thought would be relatively boring. This has been one of my favorite series to watch, especially those first

two games. This battle between Devin Booker and Russ and Kauai and KD has been super entertaining, and it feels like we're getting robbed of that, and that bums me out. Moving on to Sixers Nets really quick. Tyrese flat out stole this game. The Nets were up five with, I think, just under two minutes left, and they run like a double pick and roll action, and they duck under the pick or run into the pick, Tyrese gets a good look, sticks a three, brings it back to two. They go down to the other end, they're swinging the ball around on the perimeter. Tyrese maxi just rips the ball away from Royce O'Neill, races all the way down to the other end and lays it in. We're tied. They go down, they get a stop, and Tyrese just walks down and takes that hard pound dribble between your legs, which is like

my favorite step-back three move. That particular move, that through the legs hard to the right is a really good move to sell a drive because it's one of the best ways to protect the basketball when you're driving to the right is to stick your leg out and dribble between your legs and it gets you nice and low to beat a guy in that leverage battle as you're trying to go to the right so a lot of defenders are going to take a backward step on that hard pound dribble between the legs and it's a really natural step back with a good base you're not having to having to cover a ton of ground got plenty of separation rose up stuck the jump shot and then joel and b with the clutch block at the end and the Sixers go up 3-0.

I finally appear to have picked a sweep right. We'll see. They've got to close out game four, but I expect them to. A couple of specific things that I want to complain about here. The officiating thing. And, you know, say what you want about officiating and decision-making. There's one thing that is, no matter what the case is unacceptable, and that's inconsistency. If you're going to eject Draymond Green from a game,

because he kicks another player. And then, literally two nights later, you're going to not eject a similar, like a star player, when he also kicks another player, when in both cases they were provoked. And I would argue Sabonis provoked Ramon more. He grabbed his ankle. Nick Clackson just kind of stepped over Joel and Bid.

Now, it's an aggressive, taunting type of play. and I would have not ejected either of them for the record, but that inconsistency is the problem. Yeah, the suspension, it has been made clear by the league, had more to do with Draymond's histrionics after the play. And Colin laid that out for me last night, and I actually agree with him now. It makes sense to me.

I'm bummed as a basketball fan that he wasn't able to play tonight, but it made sense to me. But the ejection itself, there's no consistency there, and that's the problem. and then later in the game, in a playoff game, in the fourth quarter of a game the Nets can win, Nick Claxton dunks on Joe L. Embeddn't taunts him a little bit and gets ejected. Mind you on a second technical, and again, like, it's so easy to be like, hey, Nick Claxton, you should have known better, you already had a technical, not a smart move. I get that.

But stop interfering in basketball games, unless, as an official, unless you have to know them. a really damn good reason to you are not the star of the show the players are we want to see joel and bide beat the nets at full strength with nick claxton on the floor we want to see the kings beat the warriors at full strength with draymond green on the floor you're interfering with the television product and again i get it if it's obvious you know dude cold cox a dude yeah eject him game for an inadvertent off arm to a guy in the crotch that would like like inadvertent like the inconsistency on this stuff the main character syndrome from officials is driving me insane and i've been talking about this all season it's one of the the most under discussed and undercover problems with the NBA right

now is the role of officials and them not understanding that their job is to facilitate good basketball games and nothing else there's no other role they play help us watch the basketball players. Not you, the basketball players. All right, I'm off my soapbox. I'll have one last soapbox to get on. This Joel Embed flopping thing, you know, I was really impressed with Joel Embed

in the second half of the season. I thought he attacked all the stars in the league. As much as I would have voted Janice for MVP, I accept the fact that Joel Embed is a deserving MVP winner. I've been really impressed by his skill development and everything he's doing at the foul line and the way that that's made him like borderline unguardable. I've been vouching for this Philly team all season as a real championship threat.

I was the guy who said that I expected James Harden to have a big bounce back year, and he's been much better than he was last year. I've been trying so hard to jump on this Philly bandwagon, and Joel Embed makes himself so unlikable with this crap. There was a play where, like, Joel and Bid, what is he, like 270 pounds? on a light little body check on an entry pass like splayed out on the ground. And I can't remember, I think it was Royce O'Neill.

It might have been Nick Clarkson. I think it was Royce O'Neill, though it bumps him. And he's just looking down at him like, dude, what are you doing, man? First of all, it's embarrassing. Second of all, it's dangerous. He tore up his teammates' knee last year doing it. Third, it's objectively bad for the television product. Fourth, the officials have no idea how to handle it.

more often than not they reward him. And fit that actually doesn't help him win basketball games, because if he played with physical aggression and actually held his ground, dudes would bounce off of him, and he'd actually still get foul calls, if not more foul calls, and he'd be more efficient. So, like, I can't get on the Joe L.M. B, you know, I can't get on that bandwagon until he cuts that shit out.

It's like, it's just, it's just objectively unlikable. Tomorrow is my wife's 30th birthday, and we're celebrating. This whole trip has been kind of centered around her, but we're going to celebrate tomorrow night. So we're taking that night completely off. But I'll be covering tomorrow night's games on Saturday morning. And then we're going to be going live on AMP on Saturday night after Lakers Grizzlies to break down all of the Saturday slate.

As always, I appreciate you guys. We've had a crazy successful week. And I appreciate you guys rocking with the show. And I will see you guys on Saturday morning. The volume. Another podcast from some SNL late night. comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and Friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odin Kirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and

head writer Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and Friends on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On The Look Back at it podcast For 1979, that was a big moment for me 84 was big to me I'm Sam Jay

And I'm Alex English Each episode we pick a year unpack what went down And try to make sense of how we survived it With our friends, fellow comedians And favorite authors Like Mark Lamont Hill on the 80s 84 was a wild year

I don't think there's a more important year For black people Listen to Look Back at it On the IHeart Radio app Apple Podcasts Or wherever you get your podcast A win is a win. A win is a win.

I don't care what I'm saying. Yep, that's me. Clifford Taylor the 4th. You might have seen the skits, my basketball and college football journey, or my career in sports media. Well, now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, The Clifers Show. This is a place for raw, unfields of conversations with athletes, creators, and voices that not only deserve to be heard, but celebrated.

So let's get to it. Listen to The Clivert Show on the IHeard Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more behind the scenes, follow at Clifford and at TikTok podcast network on TikTok. This is an IHeart podcast, guaranteed human.