Kerr: Kuminga “absolutely part of that formula” that has no Steph Curry in it

[G2+off-day interviews/transcripts]

Good to see Jonathan Kuminga come back to being a key cog in the Warriors’ offense — remember my rejoicing after the Memphis top-locking of one Wardell Stephen Curry led to the inverted screens for JK? — as Steve Kerr yesterday said on the off-day Zoom call:

I think what I said the other day…I think rings true today. Everything has to be thrown out the window now without Steph and so everything we've been doing the last month or two has been based on finding a formula that worked and sticking with that formula and it's gotten us to this point. We're in a great spot. We're in the second round. We're 1-1 coming home, but there's no Steph, so everything has to be finding a new formula and JK is absolutely part of that formula. And we can't sit here and put together any analytics from the last few weeks that make any sense right now because there's no Steph and it's a completely different team, so the combinations are what they are. We're gonna do what we think is best and bring it tomorrow and bring the energy and see what we can do and JK's gonna be a big part of that.

Bottom line, the above wasn’t a huge revelation, really, but shout out to Kerith Burke for asking the “give away your strategy without giving away your strategy” question. Those are always hard to formulate (no pun intended).

So it’s good to see it all come back full circle, JK getting a chance to showcase his talents on the biggest stage tonight. You never know, might help out his market value come July. Sometimes you just have to let the universe figure it out for you.

Also good to see Jimmy Butler on the podium give a vote of confidence with the “attack, then attack again” strategy for Kuminga.

The full transcript(s) below will remain under lock and key below the paywall until I jump on here and type in the next article. I’m gonna also experiment with something: the video for the Kerr off-day Zoom call also does not yet have the full transcript in the YouTube Comments, either, which gives a little more importance to this website and its subscribers, for now.

Videos, then paywall, then full transcripts, in chronological order starting with Game 2 postgame: