Kerr recounts two Warriors workouts with Anthony Edwards
[+G7-off-day videos/transcripts]
Below the paywall at the bottom are quotes from Steve Kerr on Anthony Edwards and the Warriors’ two pre-Draft workouts with him back in 2020. “It’s a funny story,” Kerr said.
My thoughts on Game 7 in Houston heading into Game 1… First of all, aside from the game itself, it was a movie, with all the ancillary fun stuff:
From a pure basketball standpoint, I don’t know that I’ve seen better game plan execution from our squad since, well, Game 1 at Houston, actually.
They finally beat the Rockets’ inverted zone with pure Xs & Os. I thought the timing of it was perfect, as well. I’d have to rewatch the tape and, looking at my notes from the Comments of the livestream, early on it was largely defense and getting loose balls that kept the Rockets at bay in the first half.
Draymond Green and Brandin Podziemski came out of the gate hot. Of course, Buddy Hield was hitting shots and the “Big Mo” at the Q1 buzzer was an energy boost, but fast forward roughly 24 minutes of game clock and 12-point halftime lead, a Jabari Smith reload triple made it a 66-63 game with under three minutes to go in Q3.
And that’s when we saw the inverted screen (against what I like to call the “inverted zone”, ironically). One Wardell Stephen Curry set a pick for Draymond who then got the ball back at the rim from Jimmy Butler, then it was another catch on the roll from a Jimmy-Dray pick-and-roll, with Green getting a push shot in the paint to fall, and the Warriors took a 70-62 lead into the 4th.
I’m not sure if it was per normal rotations for Houston, but Ime Udoka kept his younger crew in there to start the 4th and without the double-big lineup that is more used to blitzing Steph, the Chef burned Smith off the dribble, then sidestepped Amen Thompson for a dagger. Suddenly it was 75-62 and Udoka immediately subbed Steven Adams, Dillon Brooks and Fred Van Vleet in.
From there, the Dubs basically held serve. The versatility of the new Golden State identity yielded diverse scores: Dray found Steph inside for a reverse layup past Van Vleet, a blitz of Curry found Green at the nail who dished to Hield for another triple, Steph turned the corner at the left hashmark with Adams blitzing and weaved through traffic for another layup, and after several great defensive sequences, Jimmy got another inverted screen from Steph which led to a spinning and fading jumper to keep the cushion at 88-74 approaching three minutes to go til the final buzzer.
Adams had been taken out after Curry had turned the corner on him earlier, and the TV broadcast showed him reacting to a coach on the Houston bench. Maybe he blitzed Steph on that one too late? In any case, Amen returned and Udoka stuck with Jalen Green for the remainder, as the Rockets needed to make up a double-digit deficit.
All in all, a satisfying defeat of the Rockets’ double-big with inverted zone strategy, one of my requirements for a deserving Game 7 victory. The other one? Turnovers, or lack thereof.
And it’s crazy that Curry literally said on the podium that his sole focus going into the game was to have no more than, well, one turnover. Had I been at the game, I would’ve asked him in passing (and facetiously) about the fact that he ended with double that and how happy his mom Sonya was with that result, as she used to fine him for excessive turnovers. So yes, he officially had two turnovers in Game 7.
Anyways, I fell out of my seat — figuratively — during the livestream postgame when Steph said his goal was only one giveaway. [Transcripts below the paywall will be unlocked when I post the next article, per usual.]
See? When the guys really commit to the game plan, we win. It’s as simple as that. My co-host from Game 6, Bruce Maro, has continually said all season long that we need to take XYZ opponent seriously. It begs the question: Why don’t they play like this all the time?
I don’t think it works that way, though. Basketball players’ habits always come up, good or bad. And a lot of the bad ones that Steph, Draymond and — let’s just go ahead and throw him under the bus this one time — Gary Payton II have, quite frankly their turnovers, techs and defensive assignment brain farts are all part of the package of “fun” that these guys have playing the game.
You simply don’t get the daggers, the stops in the paint versus seven-footers, and the amazing steals without a few wild sequences thrown in.
But in the playoffs, there’s this thing called urgency. Or “backs against the wall.” Things like that and “appropriate fear” will scale back the wildness.
So my big curiosity going into Game 1 at Minnesota is if there will be momentum with that proper attention to detail after surgically executing the game plan in Game 7. Will Curry and Green and the gang lean towards hitting two-pointers before launching hero shots? Will there be fewer risky sling and lead passes? We shall see.
Another big observation is, how many minutes will the Big Three play? I asked the audience in a YouTube poll during the Watch Party and they all felt that all three guys would easily cross the 32-minute mark. Why 32? That’s the magic number Kerr always brings up for Steph, but more so with the 82-game grind of the regular season.
IMO, Game 1 would be a good time to “experiment” with more youngsters in the rotation. Go heavy on the Strength In Numbers mantra for the opening salvo. Incidentally, the youngsters collectively were bad in Game 7. Aside from the early buckets by Podz, his block of Van Vleet at the halftime buzzer and then later his stellar defense as he took a charge on the massive Alperen Sengun, BP couldn’t buy a bucket and Moses Moody (he bricked every shot attempt, like, mine of them were close to going in) and Quinten Post looked like deer in the headlights.
Jonathan Kuminga had a rough go as well, as he got downhill one time, but got disrupted at the rim, then threw the ball to the other team and, finally, got engulfed by Adams on a box-out, which led to that aforementioned Jabari reload. Game 7 jitters or rustiness? Who knows.
These kids need some burn, quick, to shake off all those subpar Game 7 stints. After all, for the vets there will be a game every other night, travel back and forth halfway across our continent be damned, all the way through Game 5. Yep, ten straight days of games, every other day.
Interestingly, there’s four days in between Games 5 and 6. Did Adam Silver throw Joe Lacob a bone? I looked at the other series:
Denver vs. OKC is pretty much every other day with the exception of about 2.5 days — I say this instead of three full days because it involves a Sunday game which are usually matinees — in between Games 6 and 7 (if necessary).
Indiana vs. Cleveland is also pretty much every other day except three days between Games 2 and 3, then 2.5 days between Games 6 and 7.
For New York vs. Boston, pretty much the same as Indiana vs. Cleveland.
The paywall below starts with the excerpt from Steve on the Ant-Man and the story from 2020. The videos embedded are from postgame Game 7 in Houston, plus the Monday off-day Zoom call with Steve. Keep in mind, I included Game 7 pregame in the previous article.
Oddly, only a few beatwriters were on the Zoom call. Anthony Slater, Tim Kawakami and Danny Emerman were not. Maybe they were on a plane heading out to Minneapolis. As such, we didn’t get much info in terms of probing into said rotations and minutes concerns for the vets. Maybe we’ll get more clues at morning shootaround, although coaches are not required to speak during shootarounds. Kerr has, however, made exceptions to this in the past, depending. We’ll see.
Transcripts are after the paywall which will be removed at the next article (probably).