On this episode, they heap check the twenty twenty one twenty twenty two season is a rap. The least predictable thing happened as Steph wins Finals MVP, Draymond Green bounces back, Jason Tatum can't make a shot, and the Warriors close it on the road.
Just like Steve.
Kerr, Draymond Green, Klay Thompson, and Steph Curry said they would who we got a new champion, Brock And like I said, they're not champions until they're champions, and now they're not not champions until they're not champions. So, ladies and gentlemen, the Golden State Warriors are your twenty twenty one twenty twenty two NBA champions.
Let that sink in.
The team that was slated to finish ninth in the West, the team that John Hollinger had as winning thirty eight games this year. I went back and looked, they are your current champions. I don't know if you could tell, but I couldn't be happier. I love this for them, underdog story dynasty that no one ever thought would happen from the very beginning. Unlike other media talking heads like John Hollinger, I never had a question about this Warriors team.
I knew that they could be great.
I saw the potential in this team from the very beginning. I just knew it would take a little push to get them there.
How I got there is irrelevance.
How they flourished and lived up to this potential that was driven by hate, not even mattering one bit.
The potential came out based.
On that little video that I did Andy Lou. Like I said before many times that the Warriors should start nine to one, I made a little funny video for Andy that happened to go viral that caused this Warrior's team to be locked in from the very start. And someone said to me last night, it wasn't you, It was Andy Lou who made this happen. And I said, this doesn't happen without the video to the tweet, it doesn't happen without the reaction to Andy Lou. This isn't
something without me making it something. And they said, you're right, you're right, fair enough, and our cleaning lady is here right on cue inspiration, actually thirty minutes behind inspiration, motivation, hate desire to prove some dumb chick on the internet wrong call it whatever you want, But there is a reason that this video that is quite banal, like pretty standard, won't go nine and one, not.
Really like a crazy take. I don't know, Like this is the fact that it went super viral tells you everything that you need to know.
There are two dozen Warriors Reddit threads about that video.
I looked it up today. It ended up on the NBC Bay.
Area as well as every major market medium outlet in southern and northern California. I even told was told the stef saw the video put up fifty piece in that tenth win, that tenth tenth game, that ninth win. But how does this that act? Like? There weren't legit question from others, not for me, but legit questions from others. Before the season, some people that were playing the game
had those same questions. Lots of people thought would Clay be the same would he be the same killer on both ends of the court, or would he get cooked by random G League players.
Let's play the video.
From Clay, play the tape from Clay, see what he has to say, which.
Has been three years now, was there ever any doubt for you a that you would be able to come back? The player that you have come back and b that we would be able to do this again once you came back.
Oh yeah.
I doubted man every day. I remember guarding LB September and I could not stay in front of this man, even will She, he who never played in the league. I was getting busted by him everybody. I was just the weak link out there. And I'm just like man. I swear I used to be a great defender. I swear I used to be a great shooter. And then Rick Celebrate, you tell me every day, like Clay, it's gonna be up and down, but once you we just need Clay for the playoffs and that's all it's gonna take.
And I was like, Okay, Rick, whatever you say. So I had so many doubts. Once I saw you two on the floor with Steph and the talent we had around us, I knew it was a rap, like no one can mess with us.
Even Clay had doubts.
There were some people who thought Draymond and his back injury would keep him from being effective in the playoffs. They were wondering, what the hell is wrong with Draymond? What happened to Draymond? Is there a clone in Draymond's place. Even his mom tweeted that out.
Please stop asking me what's wrong with Dre. I don't know.
Maybe this is a clone all Caps laughing my butt off, all Caps.
Where is the Draymond that helped us get here? I've never seen this either.
Some people thought Andrew Wiggins was soft and didn't have the backbone to contribute to a winning team, or even the mentality to lock in in high pressure moments and show up. Some people thought the Warrior should get a center or a big piece to compete of the big men in the East, like Embide, like Giannis, like bam Adebayo. Some people doubted if Steph could put a team on his back when it mattered, hence the.
Reason they had no finals MVPs. Some said Steph would have never.
Won a title without Kevin Durant if he was playing a fully healthy Calves team. Some people thought Kaminga and Moody should have been flipped for a big or for a splashy free agent. I do believe Draymond Green was one of those people. Some people thought that James Wiseman looked like a deer in headlights and was a liability on the floor. And that this team would be better off statistically without him. Not me, not me, never me. I was a believer. I was a devout warrior in
from the beginning. Give me my Holy Bible of Warriors doctrine, and I read it every night before I go to bed with a warm glass of milk, listening to Draymond Green's podcast Nope.
Not me so much show.
So I didn't even want to jinx them by putting money on them.
You know what I mean?
Think of me as a good soldier for everything that the Warriors do. Because what motivates the Warriors more than hate? Nothing, not a goddamn thing. Steph Curry, Petty King, Klay Thompson, Petty King, Draymond Green, Petty King. Do you think words of adoration get them going, lace their shoes up tight, lock in hell?
No, what makes them lock in? Suck? They should, That's what motivates them. It's called tough love. And as Clay said, all.
They do is shoot threes and win championships. It takes a little hate to get them there. And guess what, that's what they did. They went out and they shot a lot of threes and they won another chip Again. Steph Clay Dre Iguidala four championships, a dynasty and then before you say, hey, what did Iguadala do to help this team? Dre even said to Iguidala on his podcast
this morning. He said, I didn't think it was possible that Iguidala could be more impactful than he was in the year that he was Finals MVP and also an offensive and defensive force in not only the full playoffs but the finals against Lebron James. But he actually said Andre's contributions not playing basketball, even though it was an ego shot, were even greater contributions that he had when he won Finals MVP.
The only question remains.
Are the Warriors one dynasty or two? Even after the win, my favorite part was Klay Thompson.
Good dude, Clay.
Steph calls himself the petty King, but Klay Thompson really the petty king. He what we got in his postgame presser was art and also made me go, damn, let's let's play that clip.
Cool frav season. So this was a collective effort and strengthen numbers is alive and well, I can't wait. There's this one player on the Grizzlies who tweeted strength and numbers after they beat us in the previous season, and it pissed me off so much. I can't wait to retweet that thing. Freaking bum I had to watch that. I almost like this freaking cloud. Okay, okay, okay, sorry, that memory just popped up. You're gonna mock us like you ain't ever been there before. Brou We've been there.
We know what it takes, so to be here again.
They tried to get questions Pauls.
They tried to get questions off to him, to get them off with.
They shouldn't. That's the number one goal of media.
Little rule for those who do this when they're speaking and they haven't completed the thought yet, even if it looks like they have, just just keep silent because they might say more, and what they say is probably gonna be better than the thing that they just said before, because their brain's still going and they're processing, and they're getting more and more unfiltered as they get their takes
off and they're getting comfortable. Just do that, like, for example, that little back and forth between me and Draymond Green where I said, what was that scuffle between you and Drake? And he goes, do you have a basketball question? Do you know how hard it was for me to sit in the silence and not say no or not follow up on that. I just sat there and we stared at each other for one one thousand two, one thousand three until he answered, that's what they should have done
with Clay Strengthen numbers is a live and well. There was a Memphis Grizzlies player after a random win in March.
March twenty ninth.
Jaron Jackson Junior tweeted strength in numbers after they beat the Warriors in a random March regular season game, and Klay Thompson, almost three months later, at the podium with his hat on and his championship.
Trophy, said, what a clown? You bumm one more time?
I can't wait. There was this one player on the Grizzlies who tweeted strength and numbers after they beat us in the previous season, and it pissed me off so much. I can't wait to retweet that thing. Freaking bum freaking bump this freaking cloud.
Okay, just freaking cloud.
Okay, sorry, that memory just pumped up.
Okay, Okay, yeah, I'm gonna show you what time it is. Clay's not even playing basketball. Well no, I think he came back at that point, but he was not himself at that moment. And the Warriors looked done. No Draymond Green, they looked strugs. I think they beat him by a lot too. Oh, yes, this was the This was during the March madness when they beat him without jaw, they beat him without Steven Adams. And he's like, strengthen numbers.
You gonna mock us like you ain't ever been there before, brou We've been there, We know what it takes, so to be here again.
Hold that?
Hold that, He says, Oh, I love Clay Thompson so much. Oh no, Jared Jackson, you better delete your account after that. You got you gotta delete Twitter after that, My guy, that was national television. That was twenty thirty forty million people who saw you get absolutely cooked by one of the nicest guys in the league.
He got you a bum and a clown in ten seconds. And hold that. What is it that you're supposed to hold? Think about that? Think about that? What are you What is it that Jared Jackson supposed to be holding? Is it the l or is it? I don't know.
I don't is it my pocket. I'm not sure. I'm not sure, but it's not good. I'll just say that Golden State winning has Draymond Green now saying, welcome back to the Warriors Invitational, which is now called the Finals. The Finals are now the Warriors Invitational. We welcome you in. We bring someone in.
It's ours every time.
Now, I mean now we have to take a peek into the locker room of the Boston Celtics. I tell you what, this is not in the script, but there is nothing sadder then watching the away team pop champagne in the other opponent's arena and then taking a look into the locker room of the opponent.
I did that.
Toronto beat Golden State in Golden State, and I tell you what, there's nothing sadder. It's like, whoa, You're in your own crib. They're literally spraying champagne all over your They're they're reckless with it, they're loud, they're trying. Your locker rooms are near one another. Yours are bootsy ass. Yours are the good locker rooms. They're in the boots he ass locker rooms. They're destroying, yelling, Golden State saying Draymond green to mock you. It's just a bad situation.
And I think everyone besides Al Horford and Robert Williams are to blame for this loss. But no one is taking it harder. No one is getting beat up by the media more than Jason Tatum. Tatum awesome in the playoffs, really really good, be putting himself into the pantheon of maybe top five players right now in the NBA. And then he gets to the finals and he just he just deflates like a little like a little blow up doll.
It was bad.
He couldn't take care of the rocket all this postseason, which is why he became the first player in NBA history, first player in NBA history to turn the ball over one hundred times in a playoff run.
That is a clot.
Although he averaged twenty two seven and seven, that's pretty good, the stats don't really tell the story. In addition to averaging four turnovers per game, how come I didn't take that prop on BEDMGM. He simply just could not make a layup or a two to save his life. These are numbers around the rim and in the mid range. Let me just go through them for you. Two for twelve two for ten, six for fourteen, four for fifteen,
five for eleven, five for fourteen. The man shot almost fifty percent from three and thirty percent from two.
Let me ask you, this, is it harder to shoot a two than it is a three? Because Jason Tatum would have you believe that it is.
And this is so much worse than the turnovers what you consider a fair number of these were from close range, smoking layup after layup. Keep in mind he shot fifty three percent from inside and.
Mid range this season. What a drop off.
So you're talking about like literally a fifty percent decline in percentage.
That's ridiculous.
He also shot a sixty four, a pathetic sixty four percent from the charity stripe in this series, a full twenty percent, twenty points lower than his season average eighty four percent free throw shooter normally sixty four percent free throw shooter in the finals. Why, how, what is wrong with Tatum? He must be injured? These cannot be Jason
Tatum numbers. I think probably in like ten days, maybe five days, we're gonna get a think piece written by like Jackie McMullen about what went wrong with Jason Tatum.
He had a separated shoulder or a lap or a trap in pin.
He didn't have full of mobility in his right or left arm. That happened starting in the Miami Series, and he played through it like the warrior that he is.
Otherwise, there is no other explanation.
People are cooking him like that Tatum Kobe tweet a text message exchange that they were supposedly where he sent Kobe the tweet I got you, and there's now just like mem after mem after me and being like, don't text me ever again.
That's so fucked. Here's the thing, though, the team should probably be very proud.
Of the way that they got to this finals, considering that they were fifty percent below fifty percent in January twenty five and twenty six, and you go to the finals, you should feel really proud about that. Well over half the season they were a five hundred team. They were up to one on the Warriors. This team has moving forward, not only a lot to be proud of, but a lot of questions to answer.
They're gonna get a fucking point guard to what like? They it worked, but it didn't like are they gonna do it?
Especially this new Marcus Smart reverted all back to the old Marcus Smart.
When the lights got.
Bright, he's chucking and chucking and chucking, and it's like, this is why we didn't like you, Marcus Smart, because you shot four for seventeen from three, Like what, you should not be shooting more than six threes a game, and that's generous. Tatum, he couldn't buy a mid range. He had no shot clock or game awareness. And like Tatum, he couldn't protect the ball either. He averaged the exact same amount of turnovers as Jason Tatum in the last
five games of the finals. How much he was injured too, right, Nobody talked about that in the Finals, but he was missing games in the Heat series with the swollen knee, a hurt foot. I don't know, he never he never didn't play in that. He didn't miss a game in the Warrior series, but we know he was banged up to just like Robert Williams, they were a hospital wing at the end.
Let's be honest, Jaylen Brown two to em Udoka. I am so proud of what you did. Like I joke a lot, but.
To get a guy from his humble beginnings and wasn't really even in the league and from my hometown. He grew up less than a mile and a half from me, just the neighborhood over from me and Kenton Kenton Park. He's a North Portland guy. I'm on the edge of North North and Northeast Portland. And for him to bring his friends from back home, and I said to Aaron,
you know, make these boys dogs. And for him to make them dogs for the most part, in you know, less than a full season, I get kind of I don't know, I get kind of choked up about it, Like that's not a lot of people come out of Northeast p Portland and do that. So e you like you're the guy, like you did what Brad Stevens never could do. And so to me, you're the coach of the year. To me, you're one of the best in the business. And I wish you had a head coaching
job a lot earlier than you did. So everything happens for a reason. I'm happy it's Boston. I'm happy you're in the spot that you're in. But like you deserve it, you do. And I think he's gonna probably make some changes. I think he's gonna figure out some roster moves, figure out a way to get a secondary ball handler if you're in a spot where you know Golden State can switch everything just like Boston can. And when that happens,
you're putting the ball into the wrong people's hands. And now you've got Jason Tatum handling the ball and Jaylen Brown handling the ball, Marcus Smart doing a lot of playmaking, and they just can't. So I think that they need to find somebody else, even if he comes off the bench like Tyas Jones. I know Tias Jones wants to start, but Tyas Jones would be awesome. He's got the lowest turnover assistant turnover ratio, like the best turnover to assist ratio.
In the league. He would be perfect.
Could you imagine Ema Udoka deciding we're gonna put Tyas Jones in instead of Marcus Smart and just see what happens at the end of games, just for third quarters in the playoffs. I mean, just take care of the rock. You're just at your one job. Take care of the rock, shoot some threes, play make. Whether he stays in Memphis, I don't know, but he would be a perfect piece, and you could make the argument that Boston should have
been up three to one in this series. Whether they could have kept Golden State from winning three straight, I don't know. The Warriors kept getting better and Boston kept getting worse. Truthfully, the really chance, the only chance they really had, was to go up early and to try to sneak one out, just to squeak win. It felt like they never had a chance though, even when they were up to one. As soon as that Staph game happened, it was a seminal moment. Game four Staph performance where
he put up over forty. You were like, it's a wrap, It's wrap. I don't know what Steph's gonna do next.
He went zero for nine. They still won that game. What is I mean?
It was just wild the Warriors also, they Boston, like I said, couldn't protect the ball.
They had poor shot selection.
They ran into a three headed busaw of Steph, Clay and Wiggins, even Jordan Poole to a degree. Pool in Game six with Steph Curry, Pool was like otherworldly in that first half. Emy Udoka says, it's a learning experience. We're gonna grind away in the summer, We're gonna improve. I think the biggest part for us is the IQ section. Uh, oh, gotta get smarter, gotta get better. And you can say, like, oh, is that Robert Williams Is that time lord who missed
the team plane, like slept through the team plane. Robert Williams is the only guy that didn't turn the ball over. The only guy protecting the rock is the big man down low with the bum knee. So it's not Robert Williams with the low IQ. I can tell you that. I can say if we if we want to know who's playing low IQ basketball late in games.
It rhymes with Larcus fart. Listen.
Time is gonna tell how they improve the IQ of this team, but they need to figure it out. I also think they need to go to like some ball handling clinic over the summer. You know, have like a do the Kyrie Irving thing where they put the ball inside the plastic bag. Just do that over and over and over and over and over again, because those handles
were atrocious. Will they handle the pressure and not give a twenty one zero run In the future, Time will tell, But for now, the Golden State Warriors are.
Your NBA champions. They are the defending champions.
Now.
They have been to the finals, in every single year since twenty fifteen that they've had Clay and Steph on the same roster healthy, Like Draymond said, like Clay said, like Steph said, you don't want to see us next year. That's they said last year when they got bounced in the playing game, and that was right.
They proved to be right.
They are not They were not champions until they were champions, and like I said, said, they are now not not champions until they are not not champions.
God, I love basketball. I'm gonna miss it. So on Monday, we're gonna break down.
Kind of the ten storylines, takeaways of what we got out of this season, Surprises, things that we saw that ended up coming to fruition where teams go from here, and then Wednesday and Friday it will be very draft focused.
Hopefully we'll get some good guests to break down what's going on, if there's gonna be any trades, which players are doing well in the combine and team workouts, which ones are falling shade and sharp, and then post post draft analysis team by team, who won the draft, who lost it, Trades that happened on Draft night always an exciting thing.
Remember Draft Night last year, was the Russell Westbrook trade.
So I don't know if there's anything that's gonna top that in terms of shockability, but it's gonna be one hell of a ride. So thank you for watching and listening all season long. It has flown by. That's all the time that we have. The season is over and the busy season is now here a free agency. We'll be back Monday with a new episode wrapping everything up.
Do not forget to download, subscribe, Tell all your friends, every single one of them, and follow us on heat Check, This, heat Check and Tristan Criek on TikTok, Twitter and Instagram.