The Herd with Colin Cowherd - The Draymond Green Show - NBA Finals Game 1 Recap + Mailbag

Episode Date: June 3, 2022

The morning after losing Game 1 of the Finals to the Boston Celtics, Draymond Green gives his thoughts on how the game played out and what adjustments the Warriors can make, before discussing Adam Silver's 'State of the NBA' and answering mailbag questions. #Herd Produced by: Jackson SafonSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The volume. The Draymond Green Show is presented by Fandual Sportsbook. There's no better place to bet the action than on Fandul Sportsbook during the football season. It's easy to use. It's safe and secure. You get payouts in as fast as two hours. There's so many bet types. My favorite same game parlay bets.

There's live betting, player props, futures. If you're new, just download the Fandual Sportsbook app. To get started now, sign up. Please use the promo code Colin C-O-L-I-N. Fandul-S-Bourts book makes it easy. What's up, everybody? Welcome back to the Draymond Green Show. We are recording this Friday morning, which is obviously the morning after a 120 to 108.

Dubs lost in-game one of the finals. I'm here to talk all about it. you're here to listen to it. Let's get into it. Steph had 21 first quarter points, finished with 34. I absolutely love the way Steph came out fire. I think we can get to more of that. As the game goes on, I thought we started standing quite a bit. They're especially in the second half, which obviously made, you know,

The easiest offense to guard is an offense that stands. And I thought we stood around a lot in the second half, which obviously makes things tougher on him. And so if we around him can continue to move more like we were in the first half and the third quarter, I think that will continue to open things up for him and allow him to do what he started off doing. I also, I can't help but to think you come out guns blazing like that.

You've heard the noise. You know the talk and you're responding to that. When I look back at the game, I failed him because I didn't play well. And when he comes out guns, blazing like that, playing the way he's playing, I have to make sure that I do my part to make sure that that ends in a win. So I know I have to play better, but the way Steph Curry got out to that start was very promising. And I think, you know, we'll start to see more of that. And myself and other guys can help and make sure that that continues.

Al Horford, Marcus Smart, and this was the story of the game, by the way, Al Horford, Marcus Smart and Derek White combined for 15 for 23 from 3. Now, Al Horford's been shooting the lights out all playoffs. Marcus Smart has been shooting the ball extremely well in the playoffs, too. Derek White hadn't shot the ball from three, I should say, from three extremely well throughout the playoffs, nor historically over his career. What we do know is that he's capable. And obviously, the world knows he's capable since watching the game last night.

But we've been knew he was capable, but some of the threes he hit last night, like the rim just had to be wild. I think three of the five threes that he made was like right over people right in his face. When things like that happen, you have to live with that. At the end of the day, something has to beat you. And you're going to pick in an NBA game what is more likely to not beat you. You know Jason Tatum can beat you. You know, you know Jalen Brown can beat you. Jalen Brown had a good game last night.

But J.T. struggled a bit. Now, he struggled a bit from the field, three for 17 from the field, 12 points. But he did have 13 assists, which I think is a huge growth, a huge area of growth in his game. I think, you know, when you would watch him in the past, if he had a three for 17 night, you lead that game like, man, he played, like, he had a rough, rough, rough rough night. You didn't leave last night's game saying he had a rough night. He had a rough shooting night, but not so much a rough night. Now, in saying that, obviously when you win, win and it cures all. And so if he's three for 17 with 13 assists, obviously no one's singing the same tune

of him not having a rough night if that game doesn't end in a win. It did end in a win. So you have to give him credit for the way he was distributing the ball. But then obviously that is a direct impact I mean, a direct reflection of those guys making shots. Like, they were knocking shots down. And it's also a direct reflection of IMEUDoka and the respect that he's commanded from this team and what he's taught his guys and how he's helped them grow.

I think it's a direct reflection of that as well. And so what can we do to ensure that that doesn't happen again? Well, I think, number one, I think a lot of our rotations were off when you have dynamic drivers, guys that can put pressure on the rim like a Jason Tatum, like a J.L. Brown who put tons of pressure on the rim last night, you're going to be in some help situations. And with that being said, we have to make sure that our. rotations are on point when we are going to help. And I don't think we did that very well last night. I can recall maybe four or five of them on my hand that just led to one pass out three. And you have to make them make that extra pass. And so I think, you know, and just watching the game, like, you know, I was asked the question last night. A lot of Al Horford's threes were wide open.

You know, Marcus Smart had a couple wide open ones. Peyton Pritcher had a couple wide open. open once. You know, and so you can take those away, you know, and all of a sudden those guys aren't shooting 15 for 23 from 3. They're combining for 7 for 16, 7 for 17. That doesn't necessarily kill you. But 15 for 23. It's hard to overcome that. You know, I think they hit 21 three's on the night, 15 of them coming from three guys that are not their main three-point shooters. Another two coming from Payton Pritchard. You know, that's 17 of 21-3s coming from guys that are not their main guys who's really putting the ball in the hole. Now, Mark is Smart has really stepped up his scoring here in the playoffs. And as I said, he had been shooting well. But again,

as we all know, there are two main guys that's putting the ball in the hole as J.B. and J.T. And we did a great job on Jason and making him take tough shots. But how do you get those other guys under control to where they're not having the impact that they had? Now, I leave this game saying, I leave this game saying, and I know what most people will leave this game saying, most people will leave this game saying,

Jason Tatum's struggle, he won't struggle like that again. The Warriors are in trouble, blah, blah, blah, which I totally understand and I'm totally fine with that narrative or whatever people are going to say. Because ultimately, that was earned. So you give them that.

I personally leave that game saying, hmm, I won't play as bad as I play the game, which will affect our team in a positive way. But more importantly, I leave that game saying, we stop the guys that we need to stop, continue, you know, playing the defense on their guys that we were playing,

but stop the guys that we need to stop. They won't shoot 15 for, they won't combine for 15 for 23 from 3 again. So you take that out the game, make a couple tweaks on the offensive end, and we're right back in business. And so I don't make two, much of the loss. Obviously, you're down 0-1 at home. I don't say, I don't think it's time to press

a panic button. At the end of the day, it is the first to four, not the first to one, two, or three. And so we're not pressing no panic button. They played a good game. You have to get them credit. I thought we played pretty good or really good at times. But then I thought there were some there were some things that we could really clean up. I thought on the offensive end, we can slow down a tad. You know, when you're playing against a team that's pressure, pressure, pressure, and I think for the most part, we handled well, and then we got sped up.

And so I thought, you know, I think we can handle that a lot better. And I think we'll respond the right way. Now, you know, have to go back to the film and see some of the things that see some of the things that hurt them on the offensive end for us and then see the things that, you know, works for them and how can we do those things better and, you know, what can we do differently

in some of those spots. But I think for the most part, offensively, we just need to continue to ensure that we don't get stagnant. And at times when you are facing a defense that's switching a lot, you contend they see. they switch, they switch, they switch, and you can tend to slow down. And once you slow down and you stop and you stop cutting and all these,

then the offense just kind of stalls. And so that was, I think, our main issue on the offensive end. 14 turnovers for 23 points. This team reminds me a lot of the Spurs teams in the old, you know, back in not old days, I won't say old days, but the Spurs teams are the past where they don't make a ton of mistakes. And so because they don't make a ton of mistakes, they're going to make you beat them. And because of that, they just kind of stay within striking distance, stay with them striking distance, stay with them striking distance, as they did last night.

And then all of a sudden, you know, if they get hot, then you have a case like you had last night where in the fourth quarter, they just got hot. They didn't miss a shot for the first, however many minutes of the fourth quarter, or at least that's what it felt like. And so can't let the offense stagnate and then defensively got to shut the water off. When a team going to run had to shut the water off, we didn't shut the water off last night, and they got it going. So I expect us to come out game two with even a better focus than we came out with in game one. I thought game one, our focus was good. Again, I think there are some things that we could clean up. But I think for the most part, our focus was good, our intentions was good.

We had 14 turnover. Seven of those came in the second quarter. You know, so you clean that up. You cut that to four. So there are some things that we can clean up, and I know that we will clean up. And, you know, we expect to 1-1 go to Boston. The way I view it is in a playoff series, you have to, win a game on the road anyway. No, I, you're not just, oh, we play two games at home, win those two,

going to row, lose two, come back, win one. You have to win a road game anyway. So that's where we're at. We needed to win a road game anyway. In my playoff experience, we've always won a road game. It's no different now. You got to go win a game on a road. But first, we need to take care of home court, reestablish our home court. That's our first home court lost in these playoffs. So we need to reestablish our home court, which we will. I like the energy in Chase Center last night. I thought the energy in there was amazing. And again, that's something that we have to capitalize on.

And I have no doubt in my mind that we will capitalize on that. I have a question. You don't need to obviously reveal these specific tactical adjustments you guys are trying to make. But take us a little bit behind the curtain in the process. Like is it you coming out of that game with things you already know you want to adjust? Do you watching film today? You're watching film tomorrow. You're going to practice.

Like what's the process in individually you try to make adjustments as well as the team as a collective? I think that process for us is twofold. You have coaches watch a film. You have player or threefold, really. You have coaches watching film after the game. You have myself, Steph, Andre. who's probably watching the film on our own and or leaving the game thinking, I think we need to do this.

And so I walked out of the game thinking there are a couple things for certain that I know we could have done better and that a couple adjustments for certain, offensively and defensively, that I know I think will help and that we could have done better. So now what do you do? You take those things. We'll have film today. you take those things to the film room. Hey, these were some of my thoughts,

some of the things we could get better. Now, at this point in the season, these are also conversations, sidebar conversations that myself, Steph, Clay, Andre, these are also sidebar conversations that we will be having with Coach Kerr on the side, you know,

as some of the things that we think can help. And that's where I always say here. It's a collaborative effort. You know, we go to coach with some of the things we think he comes to us with some of the things. He thinks ultimately, if we get to one place like, ah, coach, I think we should guard this like this. Or I think we, and even more so on a defensive end, less on the offensive end, I think we should guard, you know, this, this way or blah, blah, blah. Normally, if it's not too far off the rail, he'll go with what we think because he always says, you know, it's important that we are comfortable in the game plan. And so if we want to do something, we saw something that we thought worked a little more, you know, he'll usually go that way.

And so that's kind of the process for us. You know, you walk away from the game just knowing the things you know, then you go watch the film. And sometimes some of those things that you walk away where aren't quite what the film, shows. And so then it's this balance of like, all right, the film show that, but that felt different on the floor. And you have that that happens at times as well of like, you know, a coach could watch something on film and be like, ah, this is what I saw on film. And I'm like, yeah, coach, I understand that and I saw that same thing on film, but this is how it really felt out there. And then maybe you're somewhere in the middle of that, right? Or maybe you're all the way right or all the way left.

You know, that's just kind of the nature of. And so it's a breakdown over the next couple days of really digging into the film. Then you watch the film over again. You catch something else that you didn't necessarily catch the last time. And so, yeah, this is a couple-day process. It's obviously that we have a couple days. If you only have one day, then that's what you have. But be that we have a couple days to let this digest,

to figure it out to make our adjustments and go in the game too. rolling, you know, then you just start your process and you're watching the film and you're recall and plays that you can recall and you kind of move from there. So I'm not sure if that's how it is everywhere else. Obviously, I've only been here, but I know here it is a collaborative effort and that's kind of the way that it goes. So that is my analysis on game one, my thoughts. In other news in the NBA, I saw that Commissioner Silver mentioned changing the voting process or possibly changing the voting process and taking a look at that for our NBA teams and different awards and things like that, which I think is very important. I saw where he said it's a scenario. of, and I'm going to misquote his words

because I can't remember it word for word, but he said it's a scenario of not so great solutions or something of that nature. And the media just being the best of these solutions. I disagree with that. I think that seems like maybe the more unbiased solution, but I don't think that's the best solution.

I think there are ways that you can go about this and if you give enough people a voice from different sectors, you get more of an honest vote. You know, like there's a competition committee. Every owner isn't on a competition committee, but because there's an owner and a general manager and possibly some coaches and, you know, so on and so forth, you get more of an honest vote because say if two owners are biased, right,

then like to this rule because of X, Y, Z. But then you have coaches and you have someone over here. And I think that's how you can get more of an honest vote. And so you make up a committee like, yeah, maybe there's possibly there's some media owner, but there are some coaches on there. There are some general managers on there, blah, blah, blah. Possibly some agents on there. Like, there are ways to make a vote more even.

But again, like I said, or you look at the whole process in determining what actually affects a contract. If you can't figure out the voting for our NBA, then you look at the entire process on what can affect a contract. Because, again, as I said before, No reporter from CNBC is deciding whether Jamie Diamond gets his bonuses or not.

And so it just doesn't make, it's like it doesn't make sense. You have a scenario where guys can work their whole entire lives for something. And then it's, in a lot of cases, it's then decided on someone who has not worked their entire life to play basketball. Most people have not played basketball in their entire life. And no playing basketball isn't the marker to speak to determine if you can speak on the game or no playing basketball doesn't just validate you to be an analyst. But the fact that you could study writing or not,

that you can work your way up by writing articles and then decide whether someone makes an extra $47 million in that. Absolutely insane. So I am happy to see that the league is looking, is revisiting that. I think that is incredible. I think it's something that needs to happen. It's one of those old systems that it needs to change. Like, it just makes absolutely no sense that someone who's not evaluating our game from an objective perspective,

from an objective point of view, with an objective point of view, because sometimes media can be subjective, I think it's absolutely insane that that's how it'll be decided what some, how much money someone makes or not. So that's great. I hope some changes does come there. I also saw that Commissioner Silver said that the league is not discussing expansion at this time. Vegas and Seattle just doesn't come out of nowhere commission. No. I respect it, commission, but how did that stuff just fly out of nowhere?

So I'm interested to see what happens over the next couple years with that. But it'll be interesting. Nonetheless, it was great to get kind of the state of the union update and what's going on behind the scenes. That's always cool to catch up on. So hope everyone caught that. Hope everyone enjoyed it. If you have not caught it, maybe go check it out. it is some great stuff there. You also want to keep up with what's going on in the game. At least I do because, again, it affects my livelihood.

So that's all I got for you from my point of view, from my thoughts. Take a couple of mailback questions before we get out of here. Jackson, you got anything for me, my brother. I do. From Dom 4th Splashbro at D553-18495. As a professional athlete, how sore does the body get during a seven-game series? Do you ever still feel sore from your previous game? You get sore from, like, game to game, for sure,

because it's, you know, you're playing in a series, and, I mean, it's intense basketball. It's the most intense basketball you're going to play. So, yeah, like after the game, the night after, or the next day, you're a little, you're sore. But when you're really sore, it's once the series end, because mentally, you're kind of, in this space of like just locked into the moment,

doing whatever you got to do to get yourself ready for the next game. And so mentally you can't allow your, like, you can't allow your mind to go to a place of even thinking like, oh, man, I'm just so sore. Like mentally it's like, as opposed to your mindset being I'm so sore, your mindset is more so what do I need to do to get my body ready for the next game. And that's a totally different mindset. And so that's kind of where you're at. The moment that series ends and you're no longer looking forward to that next game,

you feel like you got hit by a semi-truck. And it's crazy. Again, it's one of those things that just goes to show the power of the mind, how powerful one's mind is because the moment we finish a series. Like, I go back to like, Cavs, the Cavaliers series, when we swept those guys, after game four, I couldn't walk. I knew, but I knew the series was over.

I don't think the same, I would have dealt with the same pain that I was dealing with after game four if there was a game five. It's not like something, you know, abruptly happened, something happened where I turned wrong. Like, but sure enough, soon as we were done,

I could barely walk for the next three days. And I am certain it wouldn't have been that same thing if we were going to a game five. So it really just shows you how powerful the mind is. From Sanjay G at Sonsri underscore G. This finals is the longest distance between teams, about 2,700 miles since the last warrior Celtics final. How much does cross-country travel slash fatigue come into play?

This is sort of an adjacent question to the last one, but it's interesting, I think. It definitely comes into play because I think you, you know, you fly anywhere that far and it affects you. Whether you're playing basketball or not. You're not added in the fact that you have to play basketball, and it's a different story. Now, here's where I think that where you kind to, you, you're kind of, you. Here's where I think you kind of eliminate that. Yes, it's still tough. You're getting on planes and all that.

But in the NBA finals, due to the way the media is set up, both teams have to practice at the same place the day before the game. So with such far travel, just like the Boston Celtics got here on Tuesday, after game two on Sunday, we leave Monday, although we don't play to Wednesday. We'll leave on Monday so that we can be. there for practice on Tuesday for media and so on and so for. So with the NBA finals, you get that extra day in between for travel due to the media situation so you don't, it's not as big of,

it's not as big of a dilemma that you face normally in a season where it's probably only one day or as we saw during the conference finals, it was one day in between all the games, so that's travel, that's all of that. You don't, you know, the NBA finals, they kind of take care of some of that with the days in between the game. Like, the only game this series

that it's only one day in between these games, three and four, which both are in Boston. So that's kind of how I think that's part of the reason the league does it the way they do for the NBA finals so that fatigue isn't playing a part. In scenarios like this where, I mean, that's just about as far as west you can go and almost about as far as east you can go.

So I think that's why it's like that. That's why the scheduling goes like that. So it doesn't affect the game as much as it could possibly in other series. Last one. We'll go a little bit of a lighter note to close this out. From Andrew Pimentel at Andrew Pimentel, what was your first big purchase from your rookie year? Hey, Andrew, let me tell you something. And people can take this with a grain and saw.

I know it's a lot of money. But in theory, when I break this down to you, it's not. I was a second round pick, Andrew. Now, for me, I got more money than most second round picks get from my first year's salary. My first year's salary was 825 grand. All right, Andrew, slice that and half because I do, slice that about about 53, 54% because I do live in the Bay Area. So you slice that and it's no longer 825.

Let's just call it 400 grand that I take home. 40,000 of that goes to my apartment complex that I lived in. So there's 360,000, Andrew. 3% of that or 4% of that, which I end up finding out should, have happened on the entire contract, but that's a whole other story. Went to the agent. So of 825,000, 4% is roughly 36,000 or something. So now I'm almost at 300,000, Andrew.

Now I had to get a car. And I had to get furniture, which was, you know, probably, I'd, very cheaply went to a furniture outlet and furnished my apartment. But that was still another $30,000. So I'm at $270,000, Andrew. You get where I'm going with this. I didn't have enough money for a big rookie purchase. It was not a first round pick.

Contrary to what my resume may say, Andrew, I was not a first round pick. So it was a little tight on me with my rookie money because I didn't make the big money early on. So there you have it, Andrew. I was a little low on cash. There was no big purchases for me, my man. That is a wrap from this episode of the Dremont Green Show.

I will check back in with y'all after game two of these NBA finals. Until then, it's a wrap. Peace.