Will Richard: “ball movement, making the simple play, playing off two (feet)”

[OKC-GSW video/interviews/transcript]

Will Richard reinforced the style of play of the Steve Kerr ecosystem postgame OKC on the podium, and yet it’s a reminder of how it doesn’t really matter if you don’t have your unique superstar and bucket-getter, one Wardell Stephen Curry, at least not against elite teams like the Thunder.

Ball movement. That’s really a lot of it, keeping the ball movement, making the simple play, playing off two (feet) and trying to play together. Those guys, they do so much for our team, so when they’re not out, you gotta make up for that by playing more together and just keeping everybody involved…

Second half, I probably got a little stagnant. I feel like I could have did a better job like running the floor, making it a lot easier on myself and stuff like that. I could have played off two better, so little stuff like that can get me in a rhythm, especially against a good defensive team like the Thunder…

We gotta make it a lot easier on ourselves by creating easy shots, to get each other going, maybe getting like backdoor cuts like that, making the right play off two and getting somebody the open look

And so Mike Dunleavy, Jr. has done well with this iteration to find the complementary pieces, especially drafting a diamond in the rough like Richard, but in the NBA, you need stars who can go get a bucket, buckets that don’t need to be manufactured by precision “0.5 Basketball”, mistake-free for nearly all 48 minutes.

I’ll dive into this some more in due time, as Kerr’s comments about being “realistic” about this aging squad really need the context of the other stuff he said on 95.7 The Game earlier today. He’s obviously all-in on making sure everything revolves around Curry. It’s too bad that when he’s gone, the little moons that circle around that planet are gonna have a hard time surviving out there, on their own.

But all in all, the paradox of the Steph ecosystem, which requires only complementary orbits, not raw talented runaway planets, is a fascinating one when you look at it from the prism of dissecting the game we love — and at the absolute foremost and highest levels.

This is like Ph.D physics and it’s very hard to put in words, which is why I love YouTube! 🤷🏻‍♂️ I’ll try my best, in due time…

The transcripts for Steve, Will and Moses Moody will be lifted from the paywall below after the next article posts…

00:00 What, I guess, just general thoughts on the loss tonight?

00:04 STEVE KERR, POSTGAME OKC-GSW: I’m sorry?

00:05 Do you have any kind of general thoughts on--?

00:06 Yeah, it was a tough night. We obviously were shorthanded, but I don’t think that was an excuse for the way we played. We weren’t well organized. We didn’t compete well together. Disappointing, obviously playing them, the best team in the league, but I thought we could have been a lot better.

00:31 Hey Steve, Happy New Year, by the way. Second — yeah, in the second quarter about the seven-minute mark, you guys got it within two and then after that they scored 19 unanswered points. Can you just talk about that stretch and what happened there?

00:45 I don’t know that was the stretch. It was — the whole game was lopsided. They won every quarter by, 9, 10, 11 points. They’re a great team and they got rolling and, like I said, I didn’t feel we were very well-connected tonight and never found any confidence, any rhythm.

01:09 Steve, we obviously didn’t know before the game of Jonathan was gonna play. When did he get hurt?

01:17 Just before the game.

01:20 Are you guys afraid that it’ll linger? Is it something that it’s--?

01:24 I don’t know. I have no idea.

01:26 Are you expecting the other veterans to return tomorrow?

01:30 I hope so, yeah. We’ll see with Jimmy. He’s at home sick. Draymond definitely will be back and hopefully Steph will be back as well.

01:43 Al only played 15 tonight. Are you thinking about going bypassing the restriction or, is he not gonna--?

01:49 I’m sorry?

01:50 Are you thinking about bypassing his restriction on back-to-backs or not? Is he not gonna play back--?

01:53 No, Al will not play tomorrow.

01:57 Steve, was there anything that you were hoping to see tonight that you didn’t see or was there any value you can take away from this, a game like this at all?

02:03 Not really. We just didn’t perform well and we, like I said, there was never any connection in the game, so not a whole lot to take from it.

02:15 What were you, I guess, hoping to see, better ball movement, better offensive possessions?

02:24 We had some good looks early and didn’t knock down the open ones that could have given us a little momentum, but just felt like the second half, we just didn’t have it and no rhythm. We gotta turn the page quickly and another game tomorrow.

02:45 There’s a soundbite circulating with sort of your comments on how at this stage, it’s unrealistic to maybe compete for a title year and then you’re out to the level of an OKC or a San Antonio right now. I guess, for you, big picture, is that sort of a fresh feeling that you’ve gathered and are adapting to these last couple of years or maybe a several year thing, which may be including that 2022 Finals run that I think you elaborated on in the soundbite as well?

03:12 Yeah, I think where we are as a franchise is we’re still a good team. We’re still competitive. We’re trying to give ourselves a swing at the plate every year and we did that last year. We went on a run late, got to the playoffs, won a round, felt like we had a really good shot to win another round. And Steph got injured, but the point of where we are with the age of our best players is we can still be good, but we’re obviously not in the same class as we were five, six years ago. We’re not in the same class as the team we played tonight and several other teams in the league, so there’s no point in denying that. So I think we have to embrace it and be realistic and give ourselves a shot and we can give ourselves a shot like we did a year ago, by connecting and staying healthy and getting on a run. And we’re still good enough to do that and if you do that and you have a shot, you get to the playoffs, you never know what’s gonna happen. And I think that’s where we are right now. And so we gotta keep fighting.

04:28 Do you think a night like tonight halts momentum at all? You guys had obviously weren’t five or six--

04:34 No, we’ve had a string of games, obviously just got back from the trip. This was a first of three in four. I think this was a one-off and we’ll bounce back tomorrow night.

—

04:49 Hey, Will.

04:50 WILL RICHARD: Hi.

04:51 What do you take away from a loss like this, where it’s mostly a blowout for throughout the most of the game?

04:57 Yeah, for me personally, we play tomorrow, you gotta forget about it. Definitely look at some stuff you can learn, but you gotta have a short memory when it comes to games like this and just be ready and prepared for tomorrow.

05:10 What’s one of those things you would wanna learn from a game like this?

05:13 Probably just trying to execute. I feel like it was tough because it was a lineup that hasn’t played together a lot, but trying to keep it simple for ourselves, keeping the ball movement and stuff like that. And I feel like in games like that you gotta talk a lot more, so to make up for that lack of connection.

05:29 How fast are you able to move on knowing that there’s a game already tomorrow night?

05:34 For me, I think about it like a NCAA tournament game or something like that or SEC tournament because those games are like back-to-back. You move on pretty quick knowing that you gotta come out prepared for the next game.

05:44 Does the mentality start to already switch when you’re on the bench or does it a buzzer’s end kind of move on now?

05:49 Yeah. I wouldn’t say while I’m on the bench, but as soon as that buzzer ends, you gotta forget about it because it’s in the past you can’t control that game no more.

06:02 In games when the starters or when the vets, the stars are out, what are some of the offensive focal points that Steve likes to emphasize?

06:10 Yeah, ball movement. That’s really a lot of it, keeping the ball movement, making the simple play, playing off two (feet) and trying to play together. Those guys, they do so much for our team, so when they’re not out, you gotta make up for that by playing more together and just keeping everybody involved.

06:24 Will, what personally did it allow to your offensive game to flow in the first half compared to the second half?

06:30 Second half, I probably got a little stagnant. I feel like I could have did a better job like running the floor, making it a lot easier on myself and stuff like that. I could have played off two better, so little stuff like that can get me in a rhythm, especially against a good defensive team like the Thunder. I feel like that’s something I can learn from in the future, though, to just make the easy play to get myself going and get my teammates going.

06:52 Guarding a player like SGA who can draw a lot of fouls, what sort of goes into that?

06:58 Yeah, just watching him. He’s a tough player. He’s gonna make some tough shots, so trying to do the best I can to just stay in front of him, contest every shot without fouling and just trying to make it as tough as I can for him.

07:09 Obviously, it’s a make-or-miss league and a lot of shots were missed today, when you guys are just going through that slump of missing shots, how do you break out of that? What do you do to get out of that?

07:18 Yeah, that’s gonna happen in basketball, but I feel like for us, we gotta make it a lot easier on ourselves by creating easy shots, to get each other going, maybe getting like backdoor cuts like that, making the right play off two and getting somebody the open look. I feel like that’s how you get yourself out of something like that.

—

07:34 Moses, is there anything to take away from a game like this, or do you just put in the past? How do you assess something like a performance like this?

07:44 MOSES MOODY: There’s always something to take from a loss. They were connected, moving the ball and making shots, making open shots, creating open shots, being able to withstand that. And then offensively, just playing connected, figuring out how to get each other involved.

08:07 You guys made it, I think, a two-point game in the second quarter and then they reel out that 19-0 run. Where’d you see the wheels start to turn right there?

08:14 Yeah, that’s when they was penetrating the lanes, kicking it out, one more, knocking down open shots. They made a lot of open — they made a lot of sh — created a lot of open shots for each other.

08:24 Will it be easy to turn the page quickly with a game as soon as tomorrow night?

08:29 Yeah, I think it’s pretty easy when you gotta do it tomorrow. You get another shot at it. We had a lot of momentum coming into this game. We still feel that, so being able to get our guys back and give it a good shot tomorrow.

08:43 Hello.

08:44 That’s the best part about a back-to-back. You can put this one away quick.

08:47 Hello Moses, what was your mindset when you guys know the core big three guys were out tonight?

08:54 A free swing. When it’s those games, you don’t have much to lose. You can go out there and play free. It’s different. You’re out there with different guys, different — the whole game’s different. The flow is different when Steph, Jimmy, Dray are there. They have the ball a lot and we play through them a lot, so when they’re not there that changes a lot of things. Everybody’s in the situations they’re not used to. That’s the situation we’ve been in this year a couple times and we gotta figure it out.

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