Jordan Poole “gonna have a target on his back” + more from Nuggets-Warriors

[notes/quotes/video: Kerr, Steph, Draymond, Wiggins]

I think I’ll add a new wrinkle to these posts. After every game we get a flood of comments on YouTube about a particular subject matter. I’ll gather the entire transcriptions on the top subject and group them together for you. Of course, we’ll usually catalog the videos and related tweets below that.

I’d probably add my own two cents on things, but then it usually ends up being along the lines of what Steve Kerr and/or Stephen Curry said anyways — covering the team since 2009 will do that to you.

So anyways here are the responses to all the angry commenters that suddenly concluded “Jordan Poole” sucks,” after the loss to the Denver Nuggets in which Poole only shot the ball five times and his leading of the second unit found them in a hole by the end of the second quarter.

Kerr: “I mean they were they were putting a lot of pressure on him on pick-and-roll. Denver did a really good job this offseason adding Bruce Brown and KCP (Kentavious Caldwell-Pope). Two big, physical defenders in the backcourt. I thought they did a good job on Jordan and with our second unit, which we're still in the midst of sort of finding an identity with that group and that'll help Jordan. but in the meantime, he's gonna have a target on his back. That's what happens when you get really good and win a championship and play as he did in the playoffs and sign a big contract. This is how it works. We'll try to help him and we'll start finding an identity with that second unit and he'll be playing with both groups and he’ll be fine.”

Draymond Green on the second unit, not Poole specifically: “They are figuring it out. You are talking guys who, two guys in that lineup who have been teammates with the rest of the guys for three weeks, some four weeks. It takes time for everything to come together. Quite frankly the second game of the season, you are still figuring out rotations. What rotations work great together and which ones don’t. In what scenarios, which rotation you can go to. They had a rough night tonight. They will figure it out. They have been great all preseason. Not worried about it. As they continue to go, they will get better and better and be fine.”

Andrew Wiggins: “JP is a competitor. He didn’t score a lot tonight, but he’s due for a big game coming up. I believe in him, everybody here believes in him and we know what he's capable of, so I don’t think anyone is worried. I don't think he’s worried. We have all the confidence in him. We saw what he did on the biggest stage. I know he’s going to be due for a big game soon.”

STEVE PREGAME

DISCLAIMER: These are all just notes for my main workflow of YouTube videos, tweeted by beatwriters, as listed, or transcribed by me. I used to transcribe every interview but it became too tedious and not worth the investment for the small amount of views we got on the soundbites on YouTube. The links to the tweets are not available because sometimes I don’t use the full tweet and just having a ton of tweets on this website imo isn’t aesthetically pleasing and gets away from the main goal: transferring information (not so much entertainment) to the brains of DubNation asap.

• Steve Kerr says Patrick Baldwin Jr. (right thumb sprain) should be ready to go Sunday against the Kings. Won't play tonight though. (CJ Holmes)

• Kerr said they’ll bump up Klay Thompson’s minutes gradually: “He won’t be much more over 20 minutes or so.” Thompson played 20 minutes in the season opener and Green played 25. (95.7 The Game, Kendra Andrews)

• Kerr says no morning shootarounds will for the most part be the “default…It just feels right this year to have that be our default. Winning the championship last year, long haul, short summer, any chance we get to give guys a little extra rest we're going to do that…more regular part of the routine,” considering the long season they're coming off of and the veterans on this team, for now he thinks this is the right way to go, though there will be days with shootarounds when that feels right. (me, Kerith Burke, Janie McCauley, Tim Kawakami)

• Kerr answers a question about contracts and young players by saying they celebrate all of them, then jokes: “You don't think about next year, because in this league we could all be gone except for Steph.” (me, NBCSBA)

• Kerr ended his pregame presser by offering condolences to the family of famed NBA referee Tony Brown, who died on Thursday at 55 after a battle with Stage 4 pancreatic cancer. (CJ Holmes)

• Jamal Murray will not play for Nuggets vs. Warriors. Nikola Jokic is good to go as far as coach Michael Malone knows. Says his wrist is still feeling sore. Malone says the decision to rest Murray tonight stems from the team starting their season with three games in four nights, including a back-to-back. But Malone says that it’s not the plan all season long, necessarily, to rest him on one end of every back to back. (John Dickinson, Kendra Andrews)

PREGAME VIEWS

IN-GAME COMMENTARY

Some topics:

2:27:00 Kuminga and Moody

3:17:00 Wiseman -- will we be able to afford him later? (don't worry about that now)

3:18:00 Draymond looks fast!

3:41:00 J-Mike and Draymond = Mahorn and Barkley?

3:58:00 we lose but we're still happy lol

4:19:00 Wiggins thinks Poole is due for a big game but how many fans said that tonight?

IN-GAME VIEWS

STEVE POSTGAME

STEVE

DRAY POSTGAME

• Draymond Green: “We didn't start off with a strong defensive presence... That's on me. Whether I was out there or not, we were awful defensively. We have to set a tone on that side of the floor and that starts with me…Our defense will be great, and I have no doubt in my mind about that. But it takes time.” (Madeline Kenney, 95.7 The Game, Dalton Johnson)

• On the bumping up of minutes and the plan from Rick Celebrini: “He got me back in nine weeks…I’m not gonna stop trusting him now…That’s not something I’m gonna fight. Rick is top of the top.” (me)

• Draymond shares some of what he's been trying to teach Wiseman: more effective vertically rather than side to side. (NBCSBA, me)

WIGGS POSTGAME

• Andrew Wiggins: “lock in defensively, we’ll be good…We’ll get our groove. I feel like we’re one of the best defensive teams in the league. Tonight we weren’t.” (me, 95.7 The Game)

• On Jordan Poole: “He's due for a big game coming up. I believe in him, we believe in him…I don’t think anyone’s worried. I don’t think he’s worried.” (95.7 The Game, me)

• On rebounding: “Just dive right in there and yet and grab the ball.” (me)

STEPH POSTGAME

NOTE: The following is a full transcription of part of the interview, provided by Warriors PR. There were not many tweets that had quotes, probably because it was really late by the time the interview was taking place.

ON THE DEFENSE IN THE FIRST HALF:

“A lot of it just not getting into the ball and making them feel us. They run some good actions like, they’re obviously running their offense through the big fella and just got a lot of easy stuff, and then they get their confidence going and they just shot the ball really well after that. We tried to make that last ditch effort to get back in the game but we know how this league works, you give a team confidence coming off a loss and they’re very determined the first half, and you make it really hard on yourself going down 18 (points). That’s a lot to overcome thinking you can just go on a second-half run and not assert yourself early on the defensive end.”

ON THEIR FINAL OFFENSIVE PLAY:

“I mean, it’s all just reads to figure out one, if they’re going to foul and two, just if they’re not and they kind of hesitate, just trying to find a good look, because you know there’s going to be a lot of bodies around and the amount of time on the clock is in between, you get a quick two or trying to find other possessions. So, I caught it, thought KCP (Kentavious Caldwell-Pope) was going to foul and he didn’t. I haven’t seen how much space Klay had but I mean, that’s a shot if it goes in everybody’s talking about how great of a play it was. I wouldn’t highlight that too much just because, we shouldn’t be in that situation to begin with.”

ON IF BEING THE DEFENDING CHAMPIONS IMPACTS OTHER TEAMS’ APPROACHES:

“Yeah, I think it’s a sense of urgency, that thin margin. You’re not going to blow every team out. It’s not going to feel like it did opening night where everything we did, even though we didn’t shoot it well, everything we did felt pretty in sync, everybody was kind of clicking. You look up, you’re up 16, 20 (points), double digits the whole second half and it feels easy. And then, you get a team that’s coming off a tough loss and like I said, very determined out of the gate, so you’ve got to match that energy and to your point, there’s a little bit of history involved with teams that you played in the playoffs or teams that feel like they want to take your spot come playoff time. So, you’ve got to definitely understand the lessons that you need to learn, and have a sense of urgency coming out no matter who we’re playing, because it’s really hard to win in this league and we all know that.”

👍👍💛💙