Time to Root for Timeline Two

[PHX-GSW-SAC videos/Q&As/transcripts]

Somehow there will be no mea culpa from the kids on Xitter/Riddit if we win this game huh?

I mean, here is math: “Two timelines” consisted of James Wiseman, Jonathan Kuminga and Moses Moody and any other Draft picks you want to throw in there. It did not include the main vets.

Tonight, at least two major pieces of that original second timeline are starting tonight. And so tonight is a second timeline game, pure and simple.

At the very least JK and Mo, just by starting tonight, have proven they are not busts. And if they win tonight?

Then they prove they can beat an average NBA team, which is no easy task.

Of course, when the primary mission of a thumb-typist on an app that rewards outrage with so-called “engagement” is to complain and throw someone under the bus, none of the above logic will be accepted.

Kudos to Tim Kawakami of The SF Standard, who dealt with these weirdos albeit they were SF 49ers fans whining about no trade happening yesterday. That was a masterclass in comeback quips to the poor zombie thumb-typists. Here’s an example: https://x.com/timkawakami/status/1985819756260454492?s=46

Then don’t watch the games. You are too important a human to be so sad.

But, you know, no time for that. Kinda busy excited and hopeful for a great win by the youngsters tonight — which will only prove to the coaching staff and vets that they need to actually play more and we do need to start winding down the careers of the old guys, albeit gradually. No more running them into the ground after a nice OT win versus former champs, despite how great they claim to feel — as Steve Kerr mentioned recently on the podium at practice:

From our wonderful Discord server which tracks all the latest Warriors news:

Pregame GSW-SAC:

- Speaking pregame, Warriors head coach Steve Kerr says Brandin Podziemski, Will Richard, Moses Moody, Jonathan Kuminga and Quinten Post will start against Sacramento. (Sam Gordon, Whitley Sandretto)

- Kerr said he texted with Steph today — symptoms worsened overnight. He rested today, didn’t make trip to Sacramento. Warriors are “He said his symptoms got worse. Hopefully in the next couple of days he will be alright.” They play at Denver on Friday. (Nick Friedell, Anthony Slater, Whitley Sandretto)

- Steve Kerr on trusting rookie Will Richard to start despite not playing last game: “He’s a player who can connect lineups because of his passing, because of his awareness…I told him how this is the NBA, how strange it is. He didn’t play last night and now he’s starting tonight. (Kenzo Fukuda)

- “He’s doing great. He brought a great approach to this season. His teammates really helped him this summer after the contract stuff.” Steve Kerr on Kuminga’s attitude. (Whitley Sandretto)

Transcripts from last night against Phoenix, including Devin Booker commenting on Dillon Brooks’ technical:

00:00 DEVIN BOOKER, POSTGAME PHX-GSW: Just not following the game plan. It’s tough, a veteran team that you know is definitely battle tested, so they’re gonna make you pay for every mistake. We gotta come in more focused. We gotta rally the troops and whatever we gotta do, we gotta get off to a better start and play how we play in that third quarter.

00:19 Started fourth, curious, the communication, Coach said that was a talking point of ‘cause they do so much movement, so much cutting, so much screening. How would you rate that overall tonight?

00:30 I think we’re good in spots, at some points of the game, that’s not gonna cut it, playing a championship caliber team like that. Lesson learned. Yeah, we gotta be ready to go next time. Clipper game. and the next time we see the Warriors, I think we have a better understanding.

00:51 How important it is. Curious, obviously, I think you guys got it down to, I wanna say, up around nine and they went on that run in the third and I think you guys got it down to seven. And then did you hear what Dillon said from the bench, because it led to the tech or?

01:06 No, I didn’t hear it.

01:06 Okay, I’m just curious, even at that point in the game where it’s winnable, how do you weigh in the whole idea of making the fight to get back in it, but then not being able to pull it back? You’ve said before you there so much energy trying to get back into a game like that.

01:20 Yeah. I think just in general, any fourth quarter techs, whether you’re playing or not, you should just try to stay away from them. And, he addressed the team, said it was selfish and we moved forward.

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01:32 Moses, tomorrow no Steph, maybe no Jimmy in Sacramento. You guys have been in this position before, but how equipped do you think this group is to handle those losses for a game?

01:45 MOSES MOODY: Yeah, for the first time doing it this year, but yeah, I think we’ll be all right. We, we, play that way in, in practice. A lot of time in preseason it’ll be this group versus that group and so we used to playing with each other a little bit. I think we got all the pieces we need.

02:01 What was the key for you tonight coming off the bench?

02:06 Coach made a big emphasis on playing with energy, crashing the boards, running in transition, and those are all the things that I like to do and I think I do pretty well, so just putting a focus on that. I think that got a lot of things going.

02:21 Moses, you’re shooting about 45% from three and it’s gotta go up after tonight. I was wondering, did you make any mechanical adjustments to your shot or anything, any sort of changes over the off season to the way you shoot?

02:32 I did make a tiny change. It’ll be hard to explain without me really breaking everything down, but just a just once little small thing, to get a little pop under it. But yeah, other than that, just a lot of work.

02:49 You finished the season last as a starter on a really strong lineup. This season, it doesn’t start out that way. Kerr mentioned it, it’s like it just obviously didn’t start out great for you, just in terms of starting whatever the minutes. You’re used to this, we’ve all seen you go up and down, but was this any different, you’re in a great starting lineup, season starts, you’re not in the starting lineup again?

03:13 I think it’s part of life. Stuff goes your way. Stuff doesn’t go your way. I guess that’s why they, that’s why I got the nickname Stay Ready Mo. Just knowing no matter what the situation is, you gotta deal with it and I think that’s where we at, day by day.

03:31 I think in the, you’ve talked about finding rhythm in certain combinations, certain groups. In the groups that were working with you tonight, what was working well with the shooting and the rhythm there?

03:42 I think when you do all the other things, then stuff tends to go good for you. So that’s running in transition, that’s rebounding as playing defense. So I think when you run the floor hard, a lot of times you just happen to be open and probably because you were down there before everybody else was and you were set, so just connecting the game and doing all of the small things and then the big things go well.

04:06 Moses, the way they made their run in that third quarter, what was said in between the third quarter and the fourth to maybe reset you guys to whether you guys go on that 15-3 run to, to help close it out during the middle of the fourth, wake up call?

04:22 Throughout the game, when you’re winning like that, it’s a test to yourself, your attention span, being able to put a whole game together, stay locked in, stay, keep doing the small things even when you’re up by 20. So I think at that point it’s a bigger game. We’re playing against ourself. Then the other team, because as you’ve seen the last couple games, just letting our guard down and playing down to the situation sometimes and it’s, I think, that was a test for the night, so I’m glad we were able to stick together and put the whole thing together.

04:59 That it? Yeah. Cool. Thank you. We’ll have Quinten up here. Thank you.

—

05:03 Quinten, what was working today for you?

05:05 QUINTEN POST: For me, I think the pick and pop was working, especially early on. They had a 5 on me, that opened up and, as a team, always helps when you make shots. I thought especially in the first half, we did a good job of taking the three ball out. In the second half, we let ‘em loose, struggled on the glass a little bit towards the end, but it’s always tough when a team shoots a lot of threes, to getting those long rebounds. But in general, we kept them to 107 points, not too bad. I thought we did a good job defensively, led up in the third quarter a little bit, but we recovered well.

05:48 When, we were talking to Moses about the let up in the second half, especially the third quarter, he used the phrase, like, attention span. Is that a term that you guys use behind the scenes? Is that something that, that you think about just in terms of keeping your focus throughout a game?

06:03 I think Moses is really good with his words. That’s not really one of our terms, but I understand what he’s saying. Like, when you’re up 20 at half and you’re playing a, and you play a good half, I, it is sometimes hard to keep that focus. But in the modern NBA, with teams shooting so many threes and obviously you’re playing against real good players every night, you can’t let up. And that is what happened a little bit, but we bounced back. I thought we locked in towards the fourth and we finished up the game.

06:35 A good response, everybody. I’m sorry, could you repeat that again?

06:41 Yesterday you talked about needing more communication on the defensive side of things. How’d you guys feel like you did, communication wise, defensively?

06:50 I think a lot better. They did a lot of guard to guard action and I think our switching, modern basketball is all about switching and scrambling, and I thought we did a lot better job than, than our last road trip.

07:07 Quinten, speaking of the road trip, those two games where you guys blew the leads late because of turnovers and they like the attention span, the focus issue, what was the difference tonight? Was there anything said after or in between the third and the fourth quarter to reset you guys to this way that didn’t happen, the third game in a row where you guys blew a big lead?

07:27 Like you said, the turnovers, we had 15 in total. I think that’s, try to probably want to keep it under 12, but 15 isn’t a bad number for us. We definitely had, have had worse. And I do think getting Steph the ball in those, in that fourth quarter had us settled. And yeah, I felt like we, we did a good job of making that game our own and not letting it slip away from us.

07:55 When Steph was up at the podium, he was coughing and sneezing pretty badly. How he was, you could tell he was sick. I was wondering during the game, did you see that he was struggling or battling with through that illness?

08:05 A little bit. Yeah, I saw him struggle to get his breath. He battled through it. He was still huge for us and he’s Steph and he, he won that game.

08:22 Also, Jimmy goes down, does after at halftime, doesn’t come back in a second half. Does that maybe create a little emotional let down to start that third quarter and maybe let how they were able to get back in when you don’t have Jimmy on the floor like that?

08:34 Yeah, no excuses. Obviously, it, it always hurts when one of your best players goes down, but I wouldn’t say that was the reason for the. The let down, it’s also just kind of part of basketball, right? Like it’s never gonna be a linear game. There’s always gonna be swings and obviously it hurts if Jimmy goes down, but it’s on us to keep our cool and keep our attention span and finish the game.

09:04 Great. That it, you guys? Perfect.

00:00 STEPH CURRY, POSTGAME PHX-GSW: Yeah, I’ll be all right though. I need a day to, hopefully, kick it to the curb and get back to full strength. But it is good enough to get through tonight, but it’s getting worse, so I don’t wanna stay too close or far away from y’all.

00:14 I know you always wanna play, but with a back to back, is that in question at this point?

00:20 Yeah. Obviously, it would take a lot for me not to play, but the way it is going and how the schedule’s been and just how I feel, obviously, we’ll monitor it to see how it goes, but I want to be a hundred percent for the long term.

00:39 So you felt, it during the game?

00:41 A couple days now, after the Milwaukee, Indiana situation. Like I said, I was just trying to dig deep, especially in the second half to get through the game, knowing Jimmy was out, too, and yeah, it was a battle out there, but it, thankfully we got it done.

01:04 How have those conversations with Rick and Steve and Mike, excuse me, just in terms of like when to pick spots to maybe rest and how to manage back to backs, how have those conversations compared to previous years?

01:16 We’ve only had one. A lot of it is the standard understanding how the schedule’s going, how we’re feeling physically, mentally, some of the data that they’re pulling from games and how we’re moving, the speed of the game and all that type stuff. We only had the one conversation yesterday and some clarity came out of it just in terms of how we’re trying to get through, especially this next couple weeks, ‘cause it’s pretty dense and we’re all over the place, but it’s not rocket science, really. It’s just if you’re able to play, if something pops up, sickness or something that’s ailing, that Jimmy’s, I think it was his back, was it back? Like, you wanna be cautious, but we’re trying to build momentum, as far as those two games on the road, hurt a little bit, but we’re, we’re all just collaborating.

02:17 Steph, we talked a lot about focus and execution after these first few games. Why do you think that has been such a struggle? And even tonight it was like, you guys are rolling and then it slowed down a little bit in the third and then you had to find your way in the fourth?

02:36 We would like to make everything easy or make it look easy in the sense of winning games like this. And obviously we came out first half strong, built a big lead in the first, they made a run, we responded. No matter what lineup was out there, we always had an answer. It got a little dicey in that fourth quarter, but that’s just ‘cause there’s, they’re a talented team in the sense of how they play fast paced. D. Book is an unreal scorer and playmaker. If they’re making threes, it’s tough and they switch one through five. I think our last three games, including, it is just an understanding of how different teams are playing in today’s NBA and being able to adjust to it. And thankfully we built up a big enough lead that through some of those droughts we still had some cushions, so we’re still getting better. That’s the biggest thing. We’re not where we want to be, but we’re trying to win through the learning curve.

03:35 Do you feel like your play’s been impacted by the sickness?

03:40 Tonight, the second half, the tank was on E. I’m not blaming the air ball on that, but just like I said, just trying to get, dig through it and get to the finish line and get a win and get it moving.

03:56 How soon do you have to officially decide on tomorrow? That sounds like you guys--?

04:04 Pretty quick, but I’m gonna go see the docs right now and see what’s going on.

04:09 I’m okay if you want to go head off.

04:11 I appreciate you.

—

04:12 Yeah Steve, we just talked to a sniffling and coughing Steph Curry. How much do you think that’s affected him? He said for a couple days and could you see it affecting him tonight?

04:21 STEVE KERR: Oh, for sure. Yeah. He’s wiped out right now. I don’t care what the doctors say, he’s, we gotta get him some rest. I’ll make the decision right now. He’s not gonna play tomorrow. He needs some rest. He’s been sick. All the travel, everything just caught up to him, so hopefully getting some rest and hopefully he’ll be ready to go for Denver.

04:47 And Jimmy, was that precautionary or was that something that happen again?

04:51 Yeah, I mean it, he was questionable for a reason. He felt like he could go then he tweaked it a little bit. So we took him out, so he’s questionable for tomorrow, as well.

05:06 Do you think Draymond will go?

05:08 We’ll see. We’ll see. It’s, we have to assess where he is as well, but we’ve got a, we’ve got a, great challenge ahead to, to go try to win a game shorthanded and I’m excited for all the guys who are gonna be playing tomorrow.

05:27 We talked, you were talking pre-game about, you do have to take another look at how you approached these guys. Obviously, it was early season, maybe the Portland game was the one time, but was just Steph’s energy level part of the initiative of that conversation? Wait a minute, like I can tell there’s something going on here.

05:44 Yeah, I could tell on the road trip that all three of those guys looked tired. I mentioned it’s a very unusual schedule to start the year and none of ‘em had missed a game and I think they just ran into a little bit of a wall and, obviously, Steph came down with the illness. So we’ll get through it and we’ll be fine, but it’s, it’s just a really tough part of the schedule and we’ll, we’ll do the smart thing.

06:13 You got Pat Spencer in there in a little kind of a dead period, end of the second quarter. This could be, seeing these players come in, not having major roles and contributing like that. Is that, could you find a lift from something like that, not just Spencer, but several guys?

06:30 I thought the bench was great. Moses was the Player of the Game tonight. His defense on Booker and his shooting, he was fantastic. He’s just, just found his groove now, after missing most of training camp with the ankle. So it was a tough start to the season for him, mainly because we just found a different starting lineup and a different rotation while he was out and we were doing pretty well, but he’s forcing his way back into the mix, for sure. And then Quinten was great. but I thought the bench, Buddy, Pat, Trayce in the first half, really, took control of the game. It was fun to watch.

07:14 Steve, to follow up on Moses, what do you see in his shot? He seems more decisive maybe and how much will you need him if Jimmy is out for any stretch and without Steph scoring tomorrow night, it would seem like you need him to keep producing?

07:28 I, yeah. This, there’s a reason he was our starter last year, the last 30 games after we made the trade. His on ball defense combined with his shooting and toughness, the way he crashes the offensive glass, so it’s great to see Mo out there and we’re gonna need everybody. Tomorrow will be a night where we’ll get Will Richard in the game. We’ll get Gui in the game. We need those high energy guys throughout the season. I thought the, that group changed the game in Indianapolis the other night, Gui and, and Moses. So it’s fun to see when the bench guys play like that and we’re gonna need everybody. It’s a long season, but we have a lot of depth and we’re gonna use it.

08:17 Steve, you went to, to Trayce in the first quarter after two straight DNPs. What did you think about him and especially the way that him and QP kind of balanced each other out with their differing skill sets?

08:27 Yeah, we wanted to get Trayce in when Draymond was out for the rim protection and defense in the paint. He was a real presence, diving to the rim, offensive rebounding. It was just fun to watch Trayce be that assertive and really just being aggressive in the paint, keeping balls alive. And, and then his defense was fantastic, so especially when Draymond is out, we are, we’re really gonna need Trayce.

08:56 Brandin’s been really effective off the ball with Jimmy and Steph, but if those two don’t play tomorrow, what do you expect to see from him in Sacramento, more on ball responsibility or?

09:06 BP?

09:07 BP, yeah.

09:08 Yeah. Yeah, he’ll for sure have a lot of on ball responsibility. So will JK, Pat, as well, so we’ll share those duties and, like I said, I’m excited. These are games that are great opportunities for a lot of guys.

09:25 No Gary tonight, Steve. Is, was he having any health issue or just the way it broke tonight?

09:31 Just the way it broke. We played 11 guys. It’s hard to play more than 10 and it’s nothing that Gary has done, it’s, it’s just we’ve got a lot of guys and we went a different direction tonight. He’s still gonna play a big role this year.

09:50 Did you get any like in-game word on Jimmy? He did seem a little hobbled out there, but just, did the back, you guys gave him the green light and then obviously he left. What’d you hear about him?

10:01 I just heard at halftime that he was out for the rest of the game and that’s all. I didn’t get any detail.

10:11 Steve, we talked a lot about focus and execution the last couple games in India and Milwaukee. How did you think the guys responded specific to those two elements tonight?

10:25 Really well in the first half and then we let our guard down a little bit in the second half, but I thought the first half was great, 20 assists and five turnovers and, second half, we turned it over 10 times. Just right outta the gate in the third quarter, we had a couple turnovers and Phoenix did a great job. They’re really playing hard and organized. Book’s playing at a really high level and they’re shooting a million threes, so that’s a, that’s not an easy team to play against.

11:03 Question, less basketball related. Prop 50 passed while you guys were playing tonight. I wonder if you had a comment on that.

11:11 Yeah, I voted for it today. I didn’t love voting for it, but I felt it was necessary, so it’s hopefully we can get back to a point where our democracy feels strong and healthy. It’s not right now and that’s, But I like the way it was, the law was phrased that if the other states decide to go back to what’s fair, then we will too, then that’s why I voted for it. Thank you.

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