Kerr gives “perfect example of where Draymond would've gotten everybody organized”

[ORL-GSW practice videos/transcripts]

Predictably, the loudest voices and so-called aggregators or “communities” on social media have been clamoring to trade the latest Warrior who has had a string of bad games, in this case Draymond Green.

Granted, it is actually trade season and even I have suggested that Green be re-labeled out of “untouchable” status if things continue to trend this way towards January 15th, when Jonathan Kuminga’s contract can be utilized in a trade. But practically speaking and on-court-basketball-wise, that’s ludicrous unless one of the players you get back in a trade is legitimately worthy of All-Defensive Team votes.

It’s easy to point to what Dray does wrong on offense or jump on the finger-pointing bandwagon and claim that he is expendable. This is primarily because of Jimmy Butler’s recent prowess in iso situations, particularly with one Wardell Stephen Curry resting on the bench.

But the fact of the matter is, there are still many holes in the Warriors’ defense, although obviously it improved some in the win against Phoenix.

Steve Kerr after practice, which was really just a film session, yesterday:

Frankly, we’ve had some bad luck, couple of close games recently. So I thought the bounces went our way last night. Gillespie misses the three from the corner, but it shouldn’t have come to that. We had a seven-point lead with like less than two minutes left. Didn’t handle it very well.

During the Watch Party livestream, and I have this in the notes in the Comments section, Steph, Gary Payton II and Jimmy connected on a beautiful tic-tac-toe — I also went over these passing-heavy plays in the recap. The Suns took the ball out of bounds and found Devin Booker on a slant-like football route. He turned the corner and finished with an and-one against Quinten Post, who was desperately trying to help.

I literally wrote, “SHEESH, IN THREE SECONDS,” in my notes.

Here’s Kerr’s description:

We just watched the final three minutes of the game for that reason, to see both offense and defense. I wanted the guys to see it and there were a couple of just mindless plays where we score and we’re all standing there instead of having urgency to get back. And they race the ball up the floor and we’re trailing the play. There’s no way that can happen.

And so we just have to be sharper and more on edge and that’s an area we miss Draymond, for sure, just his frenetic energy in clutch situations. It looked careless to me on the tape. The three-point play from Book, both Gary and BP got ahead of the ball instead of behind the ball and now it’s Book coming downhill, almost one-on-one. It was really like, he had Steph in front of him and Trayce trailing the play. (Booker) ends up with an and-one. If we just sprint back, we’re in great shape. So that’s not scheme, that’s just awareness. And so we’ve gotta be better with that.

Trayce Jackson-Davis thinks this is an “easy fix”:

There’s a few times where we didn’t get back on defense the way that we should have and those are easy fixes. We just gotta know who we’re matching up with, especially when we start doing the offensive-defensive lineups, so making sure that when we come into the game, we’re talking and communicating on who we’re guarding.

Now, I’ve already (on here, too) attributed four losses to lack of urgency (MIL, IND, ORL, POR). Looking at the standings right now, the Warriors could easily be 18-11 instead of 14-15.

But that would only put them in 7th. So not only do they need to treat Orlando tonight with some urgency, not just from the jump but also even if they are up seven with two minutes to go — and Dray might’ve helped with that against PHX — they have to do more than that.

The whole Jimmy iso thing now finally appearing as the second head of a two-headed snake and that should help with the extra oomph they need to get over the hump.

So, it’s urgency and more control on offense.

Incidentally, related to the Jimmy iso stuff, Steve also had the reason why he thinks Golden State can’t just easily replicate the 23-8 finish, at least not right now:

We were playing with Draymond at the 5 and we found the spacing, the iso spacing for Jimmy, let him go to work. And we got the movement for Steph. We had the floor spread with Draymond at the 5. Our offensive rating was really high. This year we haven’t played Draymond at the 5 as much and we haven’t played that lineup, frankly, as much, the one with Moses (Moody) and (Brandin Podziemski) starting. That’s for a variety of reasons. I won’t go into detail on that, but we are trying to stay bigger, play Trayce more, play QP, more Draymond at the 4. We think that’s good for us long term, but we have not been nearly as good offensively playing bigger as we were a year ago, playing small.

Below is the video from practice yesterday, which also includes Trayce and Podziemski, with its transcripts behind the paywall, which will he lifted next time there is another transcript. As such, the transcripts from the previous article is now available to all.

As I mentioned in the last post, I still want to talk about Curry’s individual defense so far this season, which will draw from his quotes postgame PHX-GSW, but that will have to wait…

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