The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Hoops Tonight - Warriors Preseason Reaction + NBA Power Rankings: Will Steph Curry, Draymond Green & Warriors repeat?

Episode Date: October 2, 2022

Jason Timpf reacts to Stephen Curry and the Golden State Warriors' 96-87 preseason victory over Bradley Beal and the Washington Wizards. Jason shares his thoughts on the Warriors' poor shooting, elite defense, and how players like Moses Moody, Jonathan Kuminga, and James Wiseman will step up this season with Gary Payton II and Otto Porter Jr. gone. Plus, Jason breaks down the Golden State Warriors ahead of the 2022-2023 NBA season. Has another playoff run taken its toll on this aging Warriors core of Steph Curry, Draymond Green, and Klay Thompson? How will the Warriors integrate Jonathan Kuminga and James Wiseman into their rotation? What do the Warriors need to do to repeat as NBA champions? #Volume #herd #colincowherdSee 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. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal, but encouraged. It's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque.

Others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast's Superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days, I'd put on 10 pounds. I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the IHard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On the Look Back at it podcast.

From 1979, that was a big moment for me. 84 was 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 year. 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. What's up, guys? It's Jason from Hoops Tonight, presented by Fandual. Football season is here, and there is no better place to get in on the action than with Fanduel.

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1-800 gambler or visit fanduel.com slash RG in Colorado, Indiana, New Jersey, and Virginia. 1-877-7-770 stop in Louisiana. 1-800-270-1-117 for confidential help in Michigan. 18778 Hope N.Y or text Hope N.Y to 467-369 in New York. In Tennessee, redline, dial 1-800-889-9-97889 in Tennessee. Visit www.w.w.1-800 gambler.net in West Virginia. All right, welcome to Hoops tonight presented by Fanduel here at The Volume. Happy Friday, everybody. Congrats on making it to the weekend. I woke up and I watched some NBA basketball this morning. Some real, recent NBA basketball, Warriors versus the Wizards in Japan. We have

two Warriors-related videos coming out today. This morning, I'm going to do about 10 minutes or so, give or take on that preseason game and just some of the takeaways that I had from it. I had to watch that game anyway, because it was a, you know, for our power rankings videos, we've been doing deep dives into offensive sets and defensive concepts and all these different things. and with everybody, I've had to use last year's footage, and in some cases, I've had to go back multiple years to when guys were healthy. And so, obviously, with this being the Warriors at number one today,

I had the fortune of been able to look at today's footage and actually look at what sets they plan on working on this season. So all of that X's and O's stuff I'm going to save for tonight's video. Again, that usually will come out around 8 or 9 o'clock Eastern time tonight. we'll be doing a full deep dive into everything I expect from the Warriors this season. I wanted to focus on three main concepts from this preseason game. One, explaining the poor shooting, because I don't think it's overly complicated. Two, looking at how good they already are on the defensive end of the floor,

and specifically a look at Moses Moody and Jonathan Caminga. And the last but not least, James Wiseman, who are 20 points and nine rebounds, a great start to the preseason for him. We're going to dive into all of that. I am going to reference a bunch of plays today. As you guys know, when I do my little intro at the start of the show, I talk about how you guys should follow me on Twitter because that's where I can use NBA footage,

not allowed to use it on YouTube. Well, I cut together a few minutes of specific clips from this morning's game, and I did a voiceover over them, explaining different things that stood out to me. There's some stuff with Wiseman, some stuff with Moody and Cominga, some stuff with some specific sets that they're running,

then a handful of Wizards items in there as well. You're going to find that on my Twitter feed at underscore Jason LT. 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, as I said. And last but not least, if for whatever reason you guys miss one of these videos and you can't get over to YouTube to finish them, you can find them wherever you get your podcasts under hoops tonight. So to start, the poor shoot it.

So it was more than like beyond atrocious. Andrew Wiggins, Moses Moody, Jonathan Comingo. Steph Curry and Jordan Poole combined to go six for 35 from the field. That's just 17%. So I had a couple Warriors fans say like, oh, don't cover this game. It was ugly. Don't worry about it. I'm not stressed about shooting percentages this early on. The number one thing, in my experience playing basketball, the number one thing that matters with shot making is getting your legs underneath. It's really that simple. Finishing around the rim, it's how strong are your legs as you're going through contact. Elevating when you're in catch and shoot situations after you just played really

hard defense or after you just ran off of a couple of screens. Or you had the basketball in your hands and you're making a move and you're getting to a spot. It's all about elevating and getting good lift. If you get good lift, you have a much better chance of making your shot. During the beginning part of training camp, every single year that I play basketball, that first month, your legs are destroyed. Why? Because they're trying to build you up and get you ready for a regular season. I've been talking with my high school kids, we've been doing our preseason workouts for the last month or so. And I've been telling them, like, now is the time to be pushing yourself. Because they start late. They don't even start tryouts until early November.

Get through that wall now. So that when you're getting ready for tryouts, you've got your legs underneath you. But so many of these guys, I mean, it's a long season. It's a nine-month season for teams that intend to contend for the championship. So there's just a lot of basketball, and they're taking on a lot on their bodies right now. And generally speaking, it can take them. few weeks, sometimes even a little bit longer, to really get your legs underneath you. So I'm not the least bit surprised that they shot poorly, and I'm not concerned about it at all. The defense already

looks sharp. You know, LeBron has a saying that he shares with his, you know, close circle and his teammates all the time when they're talking about, you know, partying or things like that. He always says keep the main thing, the main thing. Like no matter what we're doing, we can have fun, we can have these side ventures, we can do all these things, but no matter what, the main thing is the main thing. And for LeBron, he's just referring to basketball. But for the Warriors, that's defense. Like, we always think of the Warriors as a fluid offense, a team that runs things the right way. It plays a very, you know, player movement, you know, body movement type of offense. But the reality is, is defense has always been their main thing. Last year, they were 16th in offense, and they were second in defense,

and the defense looks really good already. So I wanted to do a deep dive from the film, and I've got some clips from this, like I said, that's in my Twitter feed that you guys can find at underscore Jason LT. But right now they've got to replace the Gary Payton the second minutes and the Auto Porter Jr. Minutes. My guess is Dante DiVincenzo will fill one of those roles. He looked okay today. He's coming back from an injury, so it'll take a while for him to really get back to what he was. But one of those roles are going to need to get filled by either Moses Moody or Jonathan Caminga. I think that's a big part of why they didn't pay Gary Payton. I think that's a big part of why they let Autoporter go. It's simply put, these are those guys, these are the future. These

guys are the guys they've invested draft picks in. These are the guys that they've invested their future and they need one of these guys to blossom. And right now it's kind of like a little bit of a toss up because they both have completely different strengths right now. I think Golden State trusts Moses Moody way more offensively right now to play within their system, just taking the right shots, furthering the advantage, attacking closeouts, making the right play. I think they view Jonathan Cominga as ahead defensively. And I think that that stands out on tape. Moses Moody's little bit top heavy, big wide shoulders, not super quick right now, but he does have some strengths. And so I think their, I think their hope is that Moses Moody kind of figures things

out defensively, because I think he makes the most sense fitting with them. My feel, what I put in my notes is Moody's trial by fire, because my feel from what I saw in today's preseason game, they put him out there and guess who they had him guard right away, Bradley Beale. It was like, look, man, we need you to be able to defend. offend quick players, big players, every archetype of player in a playoff series. Let's see what you got. Let's start right now, literally in September, and let's see if we can have you ready by April. And, you know, it was funny on the first couple of possessions, he was guarding Bradley Beale. He got beat off of the dribble. There was one where he was kind of chasing over the top,

and it was a dribble handoff. And Bradley Beal just kind of stopped and looked at the rim for a second. and Moody lunged kind of to his left side and Bradley got some downhill penetration. And then there was a second dribble drive where he got some penetration. After that, he held his own a little bit better. Again, he's never going to be quick enough to just stay with those guys sliding his feet if he's going to apply ball pressure. Every defender needs to find out what their individual strengths are. Moses Moody has long arms.

And so the big thing that's going to take an adjustment for him this season is understanding that it's okay for him to give a little bit of ground because he's got long arms to make up on the contest. And so from that standpoint, it's going to be, it's going to be good for them to continue with that trial by fire. Throw him on bad, on difficult matchups as much as possible during the regular season, especially quicker players, because I think he'll actually do okay against stronger players and lean into that for 82 games. Let him take his lump. He's going to be barbecued several times. And that's okay. But you've got to lean into that because they need to be him to be that guy that they can play in the playoffs this year.

I thought Jonathan Cominga looked great defensively. He, gosh, what's the shooter that plays for Washington? I'm blanking on it right now. Corey Kisper. So he was guarding Corey Kispert and just giving him a nightmare time chasing him over the top of screens. And like that was the number one thing that stood out to me on tape from Jonathan Kaminga this morning is just how good he is already at chasing over the top of ball screens and off of dribble handoffs and off ball. screens and things along those lines. That's not easy as a big guy. I've said this a lot on the show. The type of body type that performs best in chasing over ball screens and off ball screens

and things along those lines are usually short, stubby guys with low centers of gravity that are difficult to knock off their spot, and they blow up screens just by being physical running through. And Kaminga is doing a really nice job of taking lunging steps over the top and giving a little bit of separation, which is natural, but then recovering with his athletic You could tell he was in court Kisper's head. There were two plays in particular where he was curling off of dribble handoffs. And on both of them, he kind of pump faked on the jump shot because he was scared Kamingo was coming, worked further down the lane.

And on one play, he forced a turnover and on the other, he kind of like smothered him on a pull-up jump shot that he ended up airballing. He's ahead defensively right now. But once again, it's the same stuff with Jonathan Kamingo on offense. He overpenetrates too much. And then he gets into the thick of things. and then he tries to force passes, but people are hanging on your arms and stuff, and it just results in turnovers or difficult things along those lines.

Right now, he just needs to kind of understand. I think right now on the offensive end, he's got further to go than Moody has to go on the defensive end. So I think he'll be the one that ends up being the guy that they'd really try to cultivate more. But, I mean, he's still a tantalizing prospect. I just think he has further to go. A couple minutes on James Wiseman, the good stuff. his length around the rim gives Golden State a dynamic that they really haven't had.

He's already using verticality really well. He snuffed out several attempts around the rim, which is good because most young bigs fouled too much. That's kind of like a predictable thing for young bigs. And for him to kind of figure out that like, hey, I have freakishly long arms. I'm seven feet tall. Let me just stand there with my arms up and these dudes are already going to have enough trouble trying to finish over the top of me. He's playing with a lot more physicality defensively. Offensively, he's got a long way to go with physicality, and we'll talk about that in just a second. But like, on the defensive end, I noticed him embracing the contact aspects of defense a little bit better. There was a play where Bradley

Beale was driving to the left. I think it was right before the end of the first quarter. And I'll have this play in my video breakdown as well that you'll find on my Twitter feed. But Daniel Gafford is ducking in under the rim and shoving James Wiseman under the rim, which is a typical attempt by offensive players to clear out the paint. so that their player can elevate up and finish. And to James Wiseman's credit, he just kind of shoved Gafford in the back and pushed him off of him,

and then went and met Bradley Buell at the rim and blocked him. And I was like, wow, like, there you go. He's embracing the physicality a little bit more. Again, like, physicality goes both ways. Generally speaking with officiating, if one dude is inflicting his physicality on you, you are allowed to meet that with equal and opposite force. That's why I always get on LeBron fans

who complain about him not getting enough foul calls. I mean, the dude plays bully ball. The refs are basically are explaining their whistle with a tradeoff. Like, LeBron's going to be bully, we're going to let these guys hit him back. And that's basically how it goes. And that's the thing. Like, if you see a guy trying to meet you with physicality on the offensive end or on the defensive end, hit him right back. Basketball's a contact sport.

Go for it. His hands around the rim on offense were really impressive. There were two plays in particular, a Jonathan Caminga drive on the left baseline, and then a play where Draymond kind of got a dead ball. on the right wing where he picked up his dribble and he was kind of caught with nowhere to go, where Dremont just kind of threw a lob pass over the top. And Wiseman pinned the guy down, caught it and then finished with the left-handed hook. There was another one, like I said, the Kaminga one where he kind of shoveled a difficult pass

in traffic in the lane, and Kamiga caught it and drew a foul. His hands are good around the rim, and that's going to be really good with this particular team. The one thing I want to see him work specifically on is being more physical with his jump hook. We talked about this a lot in our summer league breakdowns. of Kaminga, but if you remember, or of a Wiseman, but if you remember, I talked about how on jump hooks, you want to initiate contact first and go towards the rim. And if you fade away, it's one thing if you're fading away

when you don't have a physical advantage. But when you're fading away when you have the physical advantage, you're just making a shot more difficult than it needs to be. There was a play mid-second quarter where he caught the ball right around the charge circle or a little bit further out, maybe like six, seven feet. And he had a shorter defender on him. And instead of turning with physicality for his left-handed hook, he kind of turned out away from the basket and made it like a dramatic fading hook and he missed it.

I'd just like him to have him initiate contact before he does that. One last thing. So there was a pick and roll play where Steph and James Wiseman ran pick and roll from the top of the key out of their five out set, which we're going to talk about more in our power rankings video. But he gets a dunk, a lob dunk from Steph. Classic pick and roll, ball screen, Steph comes off, guard chases over the top, big steps over to Corral Steph, Steph just throws a hook, lob pass up above the rim. Wiseman gets it and dunks it. On the very next possession, they ran the exact same play, and Kyle Kuzman had to tag out of

the weak side corner to stop that lob to Wiseman, and they ended up getting a wide open three for Draymond Green, although he missed it. Those are the kinds of dynamics with vertical spacing with Wiseman that's going to add an interesting dynamic to their offense. There were some sloppy turnovers. There was a play where Steph cut back door and James Wiseman threw a bad pass when he wasn't in and threw it out of bounds. There was a pick and pop with Stefan Wiseman out of their five out where Steph tried to throw a looping pass back to Wiseman pop into the three point line and it got deflected and turned over. So a little bit of sloppiness there with the Steph Wiseman dynamic. That was there two years ago too. They just need more reps. These guys need lots

and lots of reps to get used to each other and their different play styles because the kind of stuff they're going to be running with those two is very different than what they've been doing in general with Golden State over the years. But yeah, so don't freak out about the poor shooting. That's normal at this point in training camp. Defense looks good. That's great. James Wiseman looked awesome. That's great. Moses Moody and Jonathan Cominga have a difficult season ahead of them. But I think that they're targeting Moody is the guy.

And then all the footage of the things that I'm talking about will be on my Twitter feed. You can check that out there. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal but encouraged. It's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque. Others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast's Superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year.

Within probably 10 days, I'd put on 10 pounds. I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the I-Hard 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, Clever Taylor the 4th.

You might have seen the skits, the reactions, my journey from basketball to college football, or my career in sports media. Well, somewhere along the way, this platform became bigger than I ever imagined. And now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, The Clifford Show. This is a place for raw, unfiltered conversations with some of your favorite athletes, creators, and voices that not only deserve to be heard, but celebrated. One week, I'll take you behind the scenes of the biggest moments in sports and entertainment,

and the next we'll talk about life, mental health, purpose, and even music. The Clifford Show isn't just a podcast. It's a space for honest conversations, stories that don't always get told, and for people who are chasing something bigger. So, if you've ever supported me or you're just chasing down a dream, this is right where you need to be. Listen to The Clifford Show on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more behind the scenes, follow at Clifford and at TikTok Podcast Network on TikTok. Do you remember when Diana Ross double-tapped Little Kim's boobs at the VMAs?

Or when Kanye said that George Bush didn't like black people. I know what you're thinking. What the hell does George Bush got to do a little kill? Well, you can find out on the Look Back at it podcast. I'm Sam J. And I'm Alex English. Each episode, we pick it here, unpack what went down, and try to make sense of how we survived it. Including a recent episode with Mark Lamont Hill waxing all about crack in the 80s. To be clear, 84 is big to me, not just because of crack.

I'm down to talk about crack on day, but just so y'all know. I mean, at this point, Mark, this is the second episode where we've discussed crack. so I'm starting to see that there's a through line. We also have AIDS on the table right now. Thank you finishing that sentence. I don't think there's a more important year for black people. Really? Yeah.

For me, it's one of the most important years for black people in American history. Listen to look back at it on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Today we're going to be covering everything about the Warriors, why I have them number one, what they accomplished last year, statistically, what changes they've made to the roster this offseason, what their depth chart looks like right now, what they like to do on the offensive end of the floor. I'm going to spend a good amount of time just kind of breaking down what their sets look like so you can have a better understanding of how the Golden State offense works. Talk about some of their offensive metrics from last year, looking at what they do on the defensive end of the floor, how they came back

to beat the Boston Celtics with a defensive effort, then what their best case scenario is, their worst-case scenario and their X-Factor. So every conceivable angle of Warriors basketball we are going to cover in this season preview today. You guys know the drill before we get started. Subscribe to the volumes YouTube channels. 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. That's also where I put NBA footage, because I'm not allowed to use it on YouTube. I did a three and a half minute long video this morning that broke down some of my favorite takeaways from that preseason game this morning. You can find that on my Twitter feed a bunch of those plays I specifically referenced in the full YouTube video that we did earlier

this morning. And then last but not least, if for whatever reason you miss one of these videos and you can't get back over to YouTube to finish them, we do have them in podcast form wherever you get your podcasts under hoops tonight. So why do I have the Golden State Warriors at number one? I don't necessarily think they're the most talented team in the league. I think that the clippers and the Celtics both just have just barely a little bit more talent. Golden State is one of the most talented teams in the league, but I do think in terms of two-way players, the Clippers and Celtics have just a little bit more talent, just barely, a little bit of an advantage there. But the Golden State Warriors are the best collection of talent, coaching, a modern basketball

approach that works today, attention to detail, experience, and continuity. in this league. And that's why I have them at number one. It's all of those things combined. As we learned from the Boston Celtics last year, having the most talented team in the league doesn't translate necessarily to good basketball if you're sloppy, you know, if you're not well coached. And we spent a lot of time on that yesterday. You can find that in the number two video. A lot of warriors talking there as well as we were going over the NBA finals quite a bit. But I wanted to take a couple of seconds on a few of those concepts. So when we're looking at talent, like I said, the Clippers and Celtics might have a tiny bit more, but not much.

Steph is the only real superstar on the roster. But Clay, Dray, Dremont, Andrew Wiggins, and Jordan Poole are all stars in their roles, meaning their impact on winning mimics that of a star just in a different type of role than we're used to seeing for most stars. Everyone in their rotation is a good basketball player. What does that mean? It means they're well-rounded. It means they're not specialists. They're not guys that just shoot threes or just play defense. They all do everything.

They all can defend multiple positions. They all can pass. They all can dribble. They all can shoot. That well-rounded versatility is what you need to succeed in this particular system. One of my favorite things about Golden State is I think their player development understands the right things to work on. You guys know the things that I preach on this show all the time. And I was actually having a conversation with Samus Fondiari from Light Years.

and I know a lot of you Warriors fans listen to him. Great guy got to meet him in person when we were in Vegas for Summer League. But we were talking about the player development in Golden State. And he talked about how the two things that they preach the most are pull-up shooting in terms of development and perimeter contain on the defensive end of the floor, like sliding your feet and containing the ball. What do we preach about all the time on this show? Those are two. Pull-up shooting is the number one skill to beat most coverages.

because most coverages are designed to take away the easy things and at the expense of leaving open the more difficult things, like pull-up jump shooting, for instance. And then on the defensive end of the floor, containing the basketball is the key to make any defensive scheme work. We're going to talk a lot about that today. The point is, is their player development in Golden State teaches the right things.

And so as a result, they've got a team full of really well-rounded basketball players, and that's a huge part of why they're as good as they are. coaching. Steve Kerr and Eric Spolstra are the two best coaches in the league, in my opinion. They understand what works best in the modern NBA on both ends of the floor. So many coaches around the league have a very traditional approach. We talked about this a lot with Mike Boodenholzer and what he's, what Darvinham is bringing to the Lakers. We talked about this a lot with the Lakers in general with the way they're constructing their roster with small guards and big athletic players as opposed to wings that can defend multiple

positions and play a more versatile style. the Golden State Warriors from the top down are targeting the right types of players that succeed in the modern NBA. And then their coach, Steve Kerr, is teaching them to play a modern style. We're going to talk a lot about that today, particularly as it pertains to their five-out offense, which we'll talk about quite a bit. They're malleable with their defensive and offensive approach. They're willing to make adjustments. There's not a lot of pride there. Like they like a ball movement, player movement offense, right?

Well, in the NBA finals against Boston's drop coverage, they leaned heavily into high pick and roll trying to get step off the dribble jump shots. Why? Because that's what the Boston defense was giving. That's Steve Kerr not being stubborn and understanding that his job is not to coach the Warriors' offense in a vacuum. His job is to coach the Warriors' offense against that specific opponent. And like I said, they preach the right things.

Perimeter contained. Player movement versus ball movement. A lot of teams around the league, will pass the ball well, but they don't keep their bodies in motion as much as Golden State does. Their attention to detail in every aspect of the game is as good as you'll find around the league, if not the best. When we get to the defense section, wait until I read to you guys the defensive metrics. I've had five or six defensive metrics that I've targeted as indicators of coaching, and the Warriors are near the top in literally every single category. So hats off to Steve Kerr,

that's a huge part of why I'm so confident in them. Experience. This is the idea of understanding how to win basketball games. We can talk about talent all day long. We can talk about schemes all day long. Advantage is in a playoff series or whatever. Or skill sets. We can talk about that kind of stuff all day long. But basketball games are usually won in those details. And that's not just Steve Kerr. That's Clay, Steph, and Dremont, and all the guys who've been around all these years that have felt the pain of loss enough times and understood what it took to win enough times. that they know that those details are what wins games. More often than not, and this will be a theme throughout this entire season

as we're covering the league, containing the basketball on the perimeter, like sliding your feet, extra efforts in rotation, rebounding, so like boxing out, crashing the glass, getting to lose balls, transition defense, sprinting back and getting matched up, talking to each other, understanding the flow of the game, like never getting too high, never getting too low, responding well to runs, staying on the gas when you get a lead, and then closing out games, when it's a four-point game, with four minutes left, you can win a lot of basketball games just by executing.

Like every possession down the floor, running the right set, getting the right shot, and defending well, yeah, some shots are going to go in and some shots are going to miss, but if you execute well at the end of games, you're going to win most of the time. The Warriors have a great deal of experience. They understand how to win basketball games, and that's a huge part of why I have them at the top. The Warriors have been there and done that so many times that I just trust them. everything going into that NBA final series against Boston, everything was pointing me towards Boston from matchups around the floor in terms of the physicality, the perimeter players.

I thought Jalen Brown and Jason Tatum would be able to get to their spots pretty easy against that group. And I still pick the Warriors. You know why? All of those things. Because I knew the Celtics were a little bit better, but I knew they weren't as good of a basketball team. Because being a basketball team is all of those things that I just laid out. And then last but not least, continuity. And I spent a great deal of this, a time on this on Warriors Media Day,

so I'm not going to go too much further. Locker room chemistry, those guys are like brothers. They have clear understanding of roles. It's easy to plug new players in. And they have basketball chemistry. They have a good feel of where they're going to be on the floor at any given time. And last but not at least, understanding their scheme. Steve Kerr has a complicated scheme.

They run more sets than anybody in the league. So if you have the same guys there for that long, they all know the offense. And so to me, they're a clear number one. And I don't think, even though we have a top tier, with Milwaukee and Boston and the Clippers and the Warriors, there's one team that separates themselves in all of those categories in its golden state. That's why I had them at number one. So last year, they were 53 and 29.

They won the championship. They were 16th in offense and second in defense. Steph Clay and Draymond only played in 142 of 246 available games. So they were not dealt a very good hand of cards last year either. All three of them were still ramping up in the Denver series. Steph was just coming back from a foot strain, foot sprain. Draymond Green had been working his way back from a back injury, and then Clay Thompson was just back to playing NBA basketball for a couple of months.

So just a really impressive season all around. This off season, they lost Auto Porter Jr. and Gary Payton second. The interesting thing there is, if you look at their on-off numbers from the playoffs, they were dominant with Gary Payton on the floor, and they were actually negative with him off the floor. So he was a plus minus hero in the playoffs because of what he did defensively and the little ways he found ways to be dangerous on the offensive end of the floor, whether that was knocking down the occasional corner three or running pick and roll with Steph and rolling to the basket, cutting to the basket, offensive rebounds, things along those lines. They're going to need to find somebody that can replace that role, him in Otto Porter Jr. They did add Dante DiVincenzo, who I think will help.

To Michael Green, I'm less excited about, but, you know, I want to see how things shake out a little bit more. but they're going to need one of Kaminga or Moody to blossom into a reliable playoff player this year to replace Gary Payton second. Looking at the depth chart, at the guard position, Steph Curry and Jordan Poole, on the wing, Clay Thompson, Andrew Wiggins, Jonathan Cominga, Dante DiVincenzo, Moses Moody, Jamichael Green, and Patrick Baldwin, Baldwin, Jr. Not going to talk much about Patrick Baldwin, Jr. tonight because I just need to watch a lot more of him before I can have an opinion. You guys know me. I'm not going to really talk about something if I don't know enough. and then Biggs, Draymond, and Kvon Looney.

So talking about the offensive end of the floor. They ran a couple of non-five outsets in that preseason game, and I'm thankful I had the preseason game because all these other teams I had to go into old footage to try to do the best I could to figure out what they run on offense. I got actual stuff that they're running from this training camp, which was helpful and informative here. So they ran a horn set where James Wiseman and Draymond

bracketed around Steph, and that ended up kind of breaking down, and then Wiseman ended up getting a seal because it ended up in a switch and Monty Morris was on him. They also ran a random four-out set where Steph was at the block, and it was their classic screen, the screener set, like, Steph back screened for Andrew Wiggins. Monty Morris, like, just barely hesitated as he went to help on the Andrew Wiggins screen, and then Steph immediately came off of a second pin down and got a wide open, not a wide open, but a pretty decent look at three. But other than those two sets, almost everything they ran, the entire game was five out. That means guys in the two corners, guys on the two wings, guy at the top of the key. Now, the difference, you guys know I love

five out basketball, talk about that all the time on the show, but there's a big difference between the way the warriors run five out and the way the rest of the league runs five out. First of all, the warriors run sets out of five out. A lot of teams five out is a spacing concept. It's more just this is how we situate the floor, and we just need somebody to beat somebody off the dribble so that we can start our driving kick and start to get good stuff out of that. But the Warriors are running sets, and I mean, they're running sets almost every time down the floor. They run more sets than anybody in the league, and it's not even close. About three out of four times when they come up the floor, they're running a set, and even on that fourth time,

they're running some kind of action, maybe just a high ball screen or something along those lines. they don't just play pickup basketball. They run organized basketball. I saw a stat earlier. The best metric that I've seen that kind of tracks this kind of thing is number of shot attempts that you take off of screens. The Golden State Warriors took about 11 shots per game off of screens. And the second place team in the league was the Portland Trailblazers with six. So literally the Warriors run almost twice as many sets per game as the rest of the team.

teams in the league. Other teams you see near the top, there are teams like Miami. They run a lot of sets too. But the Warriors run sets more frequently than any team in the league. Why do they do it five out? Because most teams who run sets, they want players around the block like horns or four high or four low because they want their bigs around the screen. The reason why they run everything on the perimeter is because the Warriors players have gravity. We've talked about this concept before. When Steph and Clay and Jordan Poole are running off his screens, one of the most frequent defensive breakdowns is multiple defenders following them. But those two defenders are going away from the basket. That's taking place outside of the three point line. So in the same way that five out

offense is designed to build driving lanes for drive and kick teams like the clippers and the Celtics, for the Warriors, it's actually meant to open up cutting lanes and slipping lanes and roll lanes. So like a lot of their actions are, you know, dribble handoffs or ball screens, but it's designed for Draymond or Looney or whoever it is to slip those actions when his man offers help as Steph or Clay is coming off that screen. It just has so much open space around the basket for them to slip and roll into and have space to finish around the rim. And then the fundamental concept in Five Out,

and this is the same for driving kick teams as well, it's just harder for you to cover ground in rotation. So if I'm in a four out one in and I beat my man off the dribble or I hit a pick and pop slipper, like a guy slipping to the basket, the help defender is that one in, and he's already there. Because the four out one in, the inside guy is probably going to be on the opposite block in what we call the dunker spot. So his defender is going to be standing right under the basket.

Because as far as the NBA is concerned, as far as the rule goes, you can be in the paint if your arm's length away from your defender, right, if you're like within legal guarding distance of your defender. So I can stand directly under the rim because my guy's in the dunker spot, I'm in legal guarding position. Now I'm turning and I'm helping as guys are driving right into me. But what if instead of him being in the dunker spot, he's in the opposite corner? Now I'm in a bit of a predicament.

I have to like step into the lane and then step out of the lane and then step out of the lane. A lot of really good offensive players will time their drives or time their slips or cuts right as you're lunging out of the lane, which is what opens things up around the basket. Or if you do have to help, you have to abandon your man in the short corner now. and now that short corner is open. Just covering ground and rotation and actually offering helpside defense is 10 times harder in a five-out scheme than it is in a four-out one-in or a three-out two-in scheme. So that's why the Warriors do it.

That's why the rest of the league does it. But the key difference is that the Warriors will do it with the intention of slipping and rolling and cutting rather than necessarily driving to the basket. So they opened up the game with a five-out double-driple handoff with Jordan Poole coming out of the left corner. Looney and Dremont both went to go set the screen. There was a dribble handoff. Jordan Poole came off of it. He actually ended up getting a wide open 20-footer at the top of the key.

He just missed it. They ran this particular action a bunch, the double dribble handoff coming out of the corner. They had a really interesting counter there where if the guy in the corner, so like a lot of teams will see this action coming, right? And so they'll top side. So like if I'm guarding Jordan Poole and I know he's coming off of that double dribble handoff going this way, I might literally just get entirely in his way. so he has to go through my chest.

Well, in that case, they just cut out. And when they cut out, what will happen is the first screener will just turn and he'll come off the screen instead. And they'll run something out of that. So it's kind of like a read-and-react system. They've got baked-in counters for when you try to jump in front of their plays, which is the way smart offenses run. And it was really impressive to see that this morning from the Warriors.

They also, like instead of a dribble handoff version of that play, they run a pass version of that play. So like just two guys will go screen for Steph Curry coming out of the corner and then they'll pass it to him as he's coming off of that screen. They had one of those in the first half where they hit Draymond slipping. So Draymond was the second screener. Steph caught the pass right as he was coming off. Draymond's man, I think it was Chris Apso Porzingis in this case,

hedged out on Steph. So Steph just threw an easy little drop pass into the pocket and Draymond went up and made a layup. They ran a lot of double high ball screens. So they'll have Steph bring it up on the left wing. They'll have one guy in the left corner. And then the guy at the top of the key, and then the right wing will be Wiseman and Dremont,

or Dremont and Luni. And they'll both come over and set that double screen. Anytime we talk about double pick and roll, as you guys know, one guy will typically roll to the basket. The other will pop to the three-point line because both bigs will typically drop. And usually you get open stuff around the top of the key. They also ran just some basic high pick and roll with Wiseman.

usually Steph coming out of the wing, Wiseman top of the key, they would set it. They'd have Draymond on the right wing or in the right corner away from the ball as far as he could be, and then two shooters in the corner in the wing, and then just run regular pick and roll. They got a lob dunk out of that. Immediately on the next possession after the lob dunk, Draymond was in the right corner, and Kyle Kuzman had to tag the roller, which opened up a wide open three for Draymond. So basic kind of like give and take of help defense when you start to have success in the paint.

but they just run a ton of stuff every time down the floor, usually some form of double screen, either a double ball screen, a double dribble handoff or a double off ball screen. But it's all designed to get that initial advantage of usually a guy slipping to the basket or cutting. And then from there, they just play basketball. Like if Draymond slips down the lane and he doesn't have a layup, he might kick it out to the guy in the corner, and then they play their driving kick. So they will play driving kick, but they do it out of sets rather than doing it out of initial advantage, creation. And it makes sense because, you know, this is not a huge physically imposing ball handling team.

You know, this isn't, this isn't Kauai Leonard and Paul George coming at you every possession. So you're not worried about getting bludgeoned by driving. These are smaller, skinnier players that operate off a screen. So it makes sense that a team like the clippers would beat you with dribble penetration and then a team like the Warriors would beat you with sets. But then once that initial advantage is created and they get into rotation, then it's a team. just drive and kick basketball, and everyone's kind of doing the same thing at that point. Looking at isolation, they were the 24th most frequent isolation team in the league, but the eighth most effective. This is just about being picky about when you isolate. Steph averaged 1.2 points

per possession in isolation, which is literally outstanding, but he only ran 117 of those possessions all season. That's because he's picky. He usually will only do it if he gets a big on a switch. Again, that's just about being smart, understanding what your strengths are. and being picky about things that you're, that you don't want to do as often, and then leaning into your strengths. This is a great off-screen team. That's why they lean heavily into that. They had the third most efficient pick-and-roll ball handling trio in the league.

This is about pull-up jump shooting, like we talked about earlier. Pull-up jump-shooting is the best way to beat most pick-and-roll coverages. Jordan Poole and Steph were both in the 85th percentile league-wide as pick-and-roll ball handlers, which is awesome. They were the sixth most frequent dribble handoff team and 10th most efficient. efficient. Clay Thompson was pulling the most weight here. He was at 1.02 points per possession in dribble handoffs, which was the 74th percentile in the league. No NBA team cuts to the basket more than the Warriors do. They register 12 cut possessions per game at 1.3 points per

possession. To give you a comparison, the Mavs and the Sixers register about half as many cut possessions per games. That just kind of gives you some perspective on how frequently they do that. Like I talked about earlier, I already mentioned this stat. They run almost twice as many off-screen possessions as the rest of the league. Eleven for them, the Blazers were in second place with six. Again, this is just one of the many indicators, and you could just tell by watching the Warriors play that this is the case, but this is one of the many indicators that they run more sets than the rest of the league. Most of the teams that I encountered during this series, they would run sets to start quarters. They would run stats out of basically dead ball situations like made free throws or

or like out of timeouts, things like that. But in the actual flow of the game, the vast majority of these teams are just running the ball up the floor and running a high pick and roll or picking on a matchup and trying to get into their driving kick. The Warriors run sets, live ball, dead ball, whatever, about 75% of the possessions, from what I can tell by watching, that's a stat that kind of shows an example of how that gets quantified.

It's just harder to defend player movement than stagnation. That's just a basic concept in basketball. If you bring up the ball and you just get to your spacing and one guy starts to work off the dribble, the other four guys are standing. And if I'm guarding a Warriors team where on every possession there's three or four interchanges and an action being run, it's just more fatiguing physically to try to guard a team like that. And I think that's one of their biggest playoff advantages. The Warriors almost always go up 2-0 in a playoff series.

It's uncommon for them to drop one of their first two playoff games. And a huge part of that is their offensive system is so, different from the rest of the league that teams get caught off guard early in playoff series. It takes a little while to adjust. Speaking of adjustments, Steve Kerr's willingness to adjust is one of the things I appreciate about him. He's not stubborn, even though he has a strong basketball belief system. Off the dribble shooting versus Boston is the best indicator of this.

So during the regular season, the Warriors attempted about 22 pull-up jump shots per game. But they were playing against a Boston Celtics team that was very good defensively, and that switched a lot of off-ball actions, particularly ones that were guard-to-guard. So as a result, like, because they were dropping, running drop coverage against ball screens or other things that involved the big man, Steve Kerr leaned heavily into pick and roll. Why? Because he's got Steph Curry, the best off-the-dribble shooter of all time, and off-the-dribble three-point shooting is one of the best ways to beat a drop coverage,

especially one like the Celtics where the big man was lagging too far back. Well, they went up from 22 pull-up jump shots per game in the regular season to 28 pull-up jump shots per game in the Celtics series. That's an indicator of how they were willing to adjust their offensive approach to match the actual need of what they needed to beat that Boston defense. Another example of this willingness to adjust was against the calves in 2015 when they were trapping the step high pick and roll. And they just got into, they just just spammed high pick and roll hitting Draymond as the slipper. slipping to the basket and then him hitting on Drago Dahl in the corner. Again, that was not a team that just spammed high pick and roll in the regular season. That was just something they did as an adjustment to beat a specific matchup.

There's no value in being stubborn. All that matters is winning the basketball game, and I trust Steve Kerr to make those adjustments. Steph, sometimes things just don't go right in the playoff series, and you need a heroic effort to carry you. And that's Steph in game four of the finals. Like, sometimes you're down two games to one, and the physical matchups aren't really going your way,

and you're on the road against a really talented team, and you just need some guy to reach down and pull out an all-time great NBA playoff performance, and that's what Stepp did in game four of the finals. This is why we talk so much about best player in the world. This is why we talk so much about top-tier superstars in the game of basketball just matters more than it does in other sports. As we go back in champions, Steph last year,

Janus the year before that, LeBron the year before that, Kauai, then Steph and KD. then Steph and KD, then LeBron, then LeBron, then LeBron, then LeBron, you get the point. You need one of those guys, and the Warriors have one of those guys in Steph. And then like we talked about earlier, the players surrounding Steph are all good basketball players. They all are versatile. They're not specialists. Moving to the defensive end of the floor.

Their scheme, they switch one through three or one through four, depending on whether or not they have one or two bigs on the floor. And then they drop with their bigs. But they don't switch indiscriminately. they're picky about it to try to avoid mismatches. The vast majority of NBA teams try to attack Steph as much as possible. And Steph is a good defensive player. We're going to talk about that in a minute. But it's mainly for fatigue purposes.

It's not like, oh, it'll be easy to score on Steph. It's, oh, if we attack Steph all game long, we might be able to wear out his legs and he might miss some jump shots on the other end of the floor. Well, the Warriors will do things like pre-switching. As they make adjustments in series, they will put Steph on matchups where they don't like to use them in ball screens, a great example of this is that Maverick series.

Early in the series, Steph was guarding Reggie Bullock, and they kept doing quick pick and pops with him with Luca. And it was just challenging for Steph to guard those actions. So they, like, switch that and put, I can't remember exactly who they put him on. It might have been Dorian Finney Smith. I can't remember. But they put him somewhere else. So I think it was DFS because they put him there because Dorian Finney Smith is not as good as a pop, like, movement shooter.

and so those little pick and pop actions weren't working as well. Those are just little X's and O's things and adjustments that the Warriors will do to stop teams from targeting step. Again, for the purpose of saving him the fatigue that's caused from it. Metrics from last year. This is insane. If you guys remember, the things that I talked about that teach me about how good a coach is and how good his attention to detail is, defensive rebounding, how well they do dribble contain, points in the paint allowed and defending the three-point line, understanding the most valuable

shots, transition defense, those are the things I look at. Well, not only were the Warriors second in defensive rating, they were sixth in defensive rebounding percentage, so they were a great defensive rebounding team. They were third in steals. That's associated to dribble contain. We're going to talk about that in a minute. They were fourth in paint points allowed. They were sixth in transition defense according to cleaning the glass, and they were 14th and three-point defense. So of the five key metrics that I track the most associated with coaching, they were top six and four of them, and they were top half in the other with 14th and three point defense. And to be, it's just really difficult to do both.

If you prioritize a three point line, you're naturally going to give up more stuff in the paint. So Steve Kerr just, he understands what works in modern NBA defense. He coaches it really well. The guys are bought in. They, you know, their star, Steph. The biggest credit I offered to Steph is that he just tries hard on defense. defense every single night, even though he's only slightly above average, just that effort goes so long towards setting the tone for the rest of the roster. The last thing I wanted to talk about as it pertains

to the Warriors on the defensive end is the value of dribble contain. And so I wanted to start with the 20-22 finals here. So early in the series, they go down two to one. And Warriors fans, some Warriors fans, like, oh, they're just making all their threes or, you know, oh, we're helping too much or whatever it was. yes, they were making a lot of threes, and yes, the Warriors were helping too much, which was allowing the Celtics to get into their dribble contained. But the main reason why was the Celtics were getting great dribble penetration. And they were getting great dribble penetration because it's Marcus Smart, you know, Jason Tatum, Jalen Brown, and Derek White that are getting into the lane a lot,

and they're difficult matchups to handle. But what really happened over the course of that series is at the end of the series, mainly Clay Thompson and Andrew Wiggins, but also some Draymond Green and Gary Payton, they just started containing the basketball. Clay Thompson did an amazing job on Jalen Brown towards the end of that series of sliding his feet, taking that contact in the chest, and turning Jalen Brown into a pull-up jump shooter. And then Andrew Wiggins, obviously, like, I talked about how I think Jason Tatum is the best perimeter defender in basketball.

Andrew Wiggins is right there. It's like those two guys and McHale Bridges and, uh, and like Ben Simmons that I'd put in that tier. Andrew Wiggins is right there. And the job that he did on Jason Tatum containing that ball handler was so important. Now, this is where the turnovers and the steals come into play. Because think of it like this. If I don't have to help because you're containing the basketball,

now I get to be in normal guarding position. What's normal guarding position? Depends on who you're guarding. But typically that means I'm far enough away that I can help, but close enough that I can recover if there's a shooter there. Translation, you're in the passing lane, okay? You're kind of like a little bit of distance off of your man, looking at the ball, looking at the man, ready for the pass to come out so you can close out or play the passing lane.

Well, what ended up happening a lot with the Celtics is as Clay Thompson and Andrew Wiggins and Gary Payton and Draymond Green contained the basketball, those guys would drive into the lane a little bit, like get to the 16, 17 feet, get cut off and then panic and look around and no one's open. And no one's open because they're not helping. And they're not helping because you're containing the basketball. And so then what ends up happening is you panic and you just throw some stupid pass that looks open and it's not. The next thing you know, they're running the other way. And then there's other stuff.

There was some sloppy ball handling. You know, Tatum got picked at half court a few times. There was some sloppiness in there. But a lot of those Boston Celtics turnovers were fueled by, Clay Thompson, Draymond, Gary, Gary Payton, and Andrew Wiggins, just containing the basketball so that no one else had to help. And when no one else had to help, no one was open. And so when they were throwing those passes, they're throwing them into dangerous passing lanes, and they're turning them over. That dynamic swung the series. The Celtics went up to 1 because they were getting

dribble penetration, and then they lost three straight because they no longer were getting dribble penetration. And that's a ton of that credit. I want to heap on the Warriors perimeter guys for just sitting in a damn stance, sliding your feet and taking that contact in the chest. It's just good basketball. Again, this is a huge part of player development. I thought it was really interesting, and I talked more in detail about this in the preseason breakdown that I did, but Moses Moody and them putting him on Bradley Beale in that preseason game today, them saying, like, look, man, if you're going to be someone that we can depend on in a playoff series, we need you to be able to contain the basketball. I think they're going to throw him all sorts of difficult matchups early in

the season just to kind of build that up. And he's going to have to learn a unique way to a unique way to play defense because he's not as fast. He's going to have to give more ground and make up with his length as more of like a positional defender as we always talk about. But I'm really curious to see how Moses Moody handles those matchups over the course of the season. But internally, organizationally, the warriors are always hammering home that concept of perimeter contain. Everything else in defense works better when you contain. Not only the turnovers like we were talking about. But then you stay out of rotation. So like if I give up a straight line drive, my teammates got a cover for me. So now I've got to sprint over to some other spot on the floor to get the

next guy. And if we stay out of rotation, it's just less running. So it's like, if one guy does his job containing the basketball, it makes everyone else's job more physically easy. It's also easier to rebound because in rotation, you get cross matches. When you get cross matches, you have little guys on big guys. And when little guys are on big guys, the big guy usually gets a rebound. So just in general, that dribble-contain concept is so important, and the Warriors are great at it. It's a huge part of why they're so successful defensively. So what's the best case scenario for this Warriors team? Don't need to spend too much time on that. There are more talented version of last year, so they should repeat if the young guys develop. Worst case scenario,

obviously injuries are always a problem with these teams. An injury to someone like a Clay or a Draymond or Steph would be pretty catastrophic, especially if it was Steph. If they fail to replace that Gary Payton's second role, that could be an issue when they get to the later rounds, like the conference finals and finals just when they're playing more talented teams. If that happens, they could potentially lose to one of the top tier teams in like the conference finals, but to me, they're the clear favorite in the league. Biggest X factor, this is the first time I've done three guys instead of one, but I put Wiseman Moody Cominga. They let Autoporter Jr. and Gary Payton the second go because these guys are supposed to fill those roles. for wise men in particular it's a tricky dynamic because they don't really need him in the rotation when they're healthy Looney and Draymond proved last year that they were enough but it's obviously a little bit extra depth there

but because he's that third big in a league that's going away from bigs it makes his role a little bit somewhat inconsistent a little bit clunky his ability to shoot the three should help in theory there a little bit but his his role is going to be inconsistent and throughout the year I'm a little bit worried about. So he's the one guy that would keep an eye on because that can mess with the young player's rhythm too. But he needs to play more physical on both ends of the floor, which we talked about in detail in this morning's video, so I won't go any further.

But lastly, he needs to embrace the little things to earn a playoff spot in this rotation. He went for 20 and 9 this morning. That's great. I think he's a guy who could average 20 and 10 in the league for a long time. But on this team, they don't need that. They need him to be a version of Looney that has some vertical spacing and some perimeter spacing. That's what they need from it.

They need defense. They need him to be a functional cog in the Golden State machine offensively. So if he embraces those little things, he will claw out a rotation spot because he's talented enough. But if he doesn't and he worries about a shot too much and he doesn't embrace the little things, he could be one of the guys that could squeeze out of the rotation towards the end of the year. Then with Moody and Cominga, it's offense defense. I think Moody is already at a point where they trust him offensively, but I don't think he's good enough defensively.

And I think Cominga's already a point where they trust him defensively, but they don't trust him offensively. I actually think Cominga's got further to go on the offensive end than Moody does on the defensive end. So Moody is the guy that I'd look at as a guy that I think will get more and more minutes as the season progresses. Like I said, tough matchups early on in the year to test his defensive medal. He's the guy that's going to be that they end up depending on in a playoff series in all likelihood. but I'm not going to elaborate too much there because I talked about that a little bit this morning. But yeah, that's all I got on the Warriors for today of a lot of Warriors basketball this week. We will be back on Monday with another seven games worth of preseason content.

We're also going to do some gambling stuff over the next couple of weeks. So like over-unders and MVP, first-team all-MBA, coach of the year, that kind of stuff. So lots of film breakdown, lots of NBA futures and stuff over the next couple of weeks. and then we're what, two and a half weeks away from regular season basketball. So it's going to be a marathon, not a sprint, a lot of basketball, but I appreciate having you guys along for the ride. As always, I sincerely appreciate your support. I'll see you next time.

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