So to say that Golden State offers a problem to any defense is probably the understatement of the year. The team runs eleven deep, sometimes twelve. Everybody knows their role. Gary Payton the second is back. He's gonna be big for them. Also, Andre Iguidala has basically had his entire body on ice all season for this moment. He doesn't need to play basketball anymore. He only wants to play in NBA Finals. That's it, that's it, that's it for him.
Everyone knows this. They have superstar guys, and they have guys on the cusp of greatness.
They have role players who have been.
Shunned and discarded from Minnesota. They have rookies who are contributing. So depending on how you look at it, it's heaven. If you're a Warriors fan, you feel like you've got the future, the present, and the past all rolled up in one beautiful little team that plays beautiful game of basketball. Or it is a complete unmitigated disaster if you're the rest of the league wondering whether this Golden State team's gonna have.
Another decade decade of prominence.
Right email you, dook, I can't even imagine how you think about this.
I'm trying. I'm not doing a great job, but I'm not a basketball coach.
I think you just think about how Memphis did it and just try to find ways like Steven Adams changed the game for them, brought Kevon Loone in. I don't know what they're gonna do for that, but the fact that Memphis held Golden State to an adjusted offensive rating of negative point seven is something that you need to get into the film room and dig into. They had an aor adjusted offensive rating of plus ten or better
against every other team this playoff run. Negative point seven against Memphis, plus ten or better on offense against everyone else. That's the stat that the Warriors and Boston needs to watch. Like I said, the Warriors turn the ball over a ton in the regular season, but they cut that down a lot in the playoffs. What Golden State now has going for them boils down to two big things.
The first is they are nine to zero at home in the playoffs. Wow, that's huge.
From twenty fifteen to twenty nineteen, they averaged six home losses per playoffs.
This is that's stupid. That's stupid.
Like they're better than they were in their reign. Why how I don't know.
Second, the fourth quarter, as per usual, has belonged to Golden State.
They have outscored their opponents by twenty five points per one hundred possessions in the fourth quarter. That's the best by any team in the playoffs in any quarter ever. Like ever, this means that they they're like, get up by thirty, Get excited, get excited.
First quarter, second quarter, third quarter, go up, go up on us eighteen. All good, Steph Curry, you'll watch him. Just watch this.
Keep this in your mind's eye when you watch this. There will be a game where Boston is up like seventeen nineteen points, and then they'll cut, they'll cut to the bench and it'll be like it'll be like ten thirty in the fourth quarter, and Mark Jackson or something he'll be like, well, well, Mike.
I don't know. We couldn't have seen this coming.
And then as they're talking about how unprecedented this lead is for Boston, they'll show Steph Curry on the bench with a towel over his head and his little mouthguard chewing on it, and you're like, this little is gonna come back in and like two minutes and it's night night, and.
That's what they will do.
They're a team and Boston, as we know, when they get up, they can get complacent. Miami Heat came back multiple times, Milwaukee came back multiple times.
If you get up.
On Golden State, I don't care if it's thirty, keep your boots on their necks until it's that trick time and you make Draymond, you know, put the towel in the air. Cause it's like there's no insurmountable lead for this team.
They are four and.
Three when trailing after three and six and four when they fall behind by ten or more. They should be zero in ten when they fall behind by ten or more in the fourth quarter, but they are not.
They are better than five hundred. No lead is safe. How about this? How about this?
When they get a lead, are they four and six? No, they're eight and zero when they're leading after three quarters, So you better make sure they're not up after three quarters.
They're doing this in the playoffs by their passes.
As we know the beautiful game of basketball. They play three hundred and thirty six passes per twenty four minutes. What a deluge, confusing, annoying, frustrating, tiring, and player movements. Of course, eleven point three miles traveled per twenty four minutes, both second in the m They've also let all playoff teams in assist percentage. It's gonna be a challenge, folks. All these little stats, all these little nuggets. It doesn't look good for Boston. This is also gold This is
Golden State's series to lose for all those reasons. In my opinion, I think that Boston poses problems for Golden State, but I think Golden State poses a lot bigger problems for Boston. I'm not saying that Boston can't win because I think Memphis could have beaten Golden State. They certainly didn't want to go back to Memphis in Game seven, and who knows what would have happened if John Moran
wouldn't have gotten injured. But like if the nuts or candies and nuts, it'd all be Christmas morning or whatever the saying is. So Boston's gonna need to win in the Bay in order to make this thing happen, and that is going to be very very hard to do. Finally, let's talk a little bit about X factors for both teams, which is which means ancillary pieces peripheral pieces, not star players, not key role players, but antillarry players that need to step up. And who that could be for Boston, I
think that's Derek White. Derek White's a very pesky perimeter defender. He's like Marcus Smart. He knows emy Udoka's system like the back of his hand because he came from San Antonio and that's the same San Antonio scheme that emay Udoka is running. He's going to be really really big in terms of hitting corner threes, hitting three pointers at the top as well. If you're open, Derek shoot, Like,
be confident. They're going to sag. Golden State is going to sag off of quote unquote lower shooter percentage guys like Let the Scrub shoot, Grant Williams, Derek White. Derek White's gonna need to hit a bunch of them in order for that to change how Golden State plays their defense. He's a very very smart player at understanding angles. He's going to be able to cut Steph off instead of chasing Steph around. He's gonna be able to like almost cut the corner and stop the ball from coming into
STEP's hands. Bumping players off their spots and if Eric White can hit those shots, I think that's gonna be a really huge factor there. That's how Dallas won Game four, by the way, open shooters in the corner who hit him night night. For Golden State, I think we've already seen Andrew Wiggins emerge as a key role player. So for me, I think the series will hinge on this ancillary player, Kevon Looney. If Kevon Looney gets fifteen, sixteen,
seventeen boards a game, there's just there's that's it. That's that's the key stat for me, because he's a six eleven small five who has basically played himself out of the beginning of the playoffs. They brought him back in solely because Steven Adams was playing really well, and now he has re emerged as a key cog in this system. He can play good defense, and whether he can be solid on switches or he's not getting cooked by Tatum
and Brown, that's gonna be huge. That will be the key key stat for me to watch is how Kevon Looney gets rebounds. Offensive rebounds, specifically, because Golden State getting extra possessions means nothing good for Boston. Conclusion, Boston make it a rock fight. Just make it a rock fight, make it ugly. Force Golden State to turn the ball
over a ton. If you can get them to turn the ball over fifteen sixteen, seventeen times a game, you're going to go up early and you might be able to deflate some of the guys that are younger, like Jordan Poole's confidence.
Like think of it like this, Think of it like this. This is analogy.
So imagine you're a chick on the Bachelor and you're going on a group date. Right, and you're on the date, and the other girl is Miss Universe. Right, You're never gonna be able to miss you out Miss Universe.
Miss Universe.
You're never gonna be more beautiful than Miss Universe. So don't go anywhere where she can be in a bathing suit or where she.
Dresses up in a cock still dress. You're never winning that date.
You need to go somewhere where you're sweaty, where you're using your brain, where you're dirty. Maybe she breaks a nail, maybe she exposes her lack of intellect.
That's that's what you need to do. You're uglier.
They're never gonna be as good as playing as Golden State at playing the beautiful game, So they need to make things as ugly as humanly possible. That's how you put yourself on even footing with them. Boston can't let it happen. Golden State, just don't try. Don't turn the ball over.
Really, that's it.
If you can turn the ball over less than ten times a game, that's gonna be it. That's gonna be really it for you. Keep the ball moving, offense, moving motion. Try to limit Jordan Poole's minutes. Try to figure out a way to hide Jordan Poole when he's in the game. Like when it's called they call it pool party, like make it pool.
Make it, make it pool conference. Like make it more business like you know what I mean.
Like when we talk about the pool party, it's a little too hectic for me.
Like it's a little too.
Vegas summertime, too many drinks, too much bad happens when it's the pool party. Make it more like a pool business meeting, you know what I'm saying. Like just kind of like make it more something that I can rely on Jordan Poole to operate effectively on the offense and defensive end. Try to get a lot of good production out of Clay and Wiggans, So you don't need pools offense. You can just like maybe put his ass on the bench. No pool party time for me, keep bigger defenders on
the floor to help out. My prediction, Warriors in six, Warriors in six. I think the Warriors will be up three to one after four. I think they'll close it out in Boston actually, which would be sad because Chase fans won't get a ring there. Maybe Warriors in five actually feels like it's happening at Chase. Feels like it's happening at Chase. For me, that's the only way for the legacy. And I think Steph does. I think Steph does get his first Finals MVP. Also, very quickly the
Draymond Kevin Durant thing. Look it up so funny. Draymond Green basically said that Steph Curry got seven times more double teams than Kevin Durant did when they played on the team together. Kevin Durant then went on, which is what he does, go on Twitter, quote, tweet it and say, in my opinion, this is absolutely false. Steph did not get seven times more double teams than me. Oh that's wrong.
So legacy, legacy versus legacy. A lot of unfortunate situations were very elite, skilled players, some of the best to ever do it, have to feel some level of insecurity where they need to defend their quarter unquote legacy because random people on Twitter are dumb enough to believe that neither one of them is good enough to be in the top ten of all time conversation, which is just absolutely bonkers in my opinion, but check that out, go
and find it. There's a million places where they discuss it. And Steph Curry's legacy is unaffected by not having in finals VP in my in my opinion, and that's coming from someone who has said Steph Curry's not even a point guard.
So there it is.
That's all the time that we add for the heat check. We'll be back Monday.