Hoops Tonight - LIVE: Warriors-Grizzlies LIVE Play-in Reaction

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questions in the chat. Jackson's gonna hop on with us and we'll go through some questions for ten fifteen minutes.

forward to Jackson's doing some incredible work there. Make sure you guys follow us there, and then every week we do a mailback, So drop your mailbag questions in YouTube comment so that we can get to them throughout the remainder of the season.

That's just what the play in game is like. And that is why the Warriors wanted so badly to win that game on Sunday. There was an easy silver lining to point to to be like, oh, well, would you rather play your next four weeks of this super high leverage basketball against the Lakers in the first round and then most likely the Clippers in the second round, or would you rather face the Rockets in the first round and then the Lakers in the second round. I think

we all would agree. I think most people that I speak to would agree that the Clippers are a better team, a more dangerous team than the Rockets. And so yeah, you can kind of draw that out. But Ultimately, if you can avoid that game, if you can avoid what you just went through tonight, I could have gone the other way just on a couple plays here and there, right, And that's why the Warriors wanted to win that game on Sunday so bad. That's why you want to avoid

that situation. I talk all the time when you ended, when you end up in a close gain, there is always the possibility that a bad call could go against you, and tonight it happened twice down the stretch for the Warriors, and they managed to overcome it. But like, that's exactly why that situation is so stressful, and that's why every game matters over the course of the regular season as you try to dig yourself out of that specific situation. But I want to talk a little bit about Jimmy Butler,

and so we are changing our Microsoft segment. We've been doing it based on overcoming adversity over the course of the last couple of months, but we're focusing it more on the player of the week now and we're going to focus that on Jimmy. Welcome to Course Correction brought to you by Microsoft. Just like star players and teams navigating performance hurtles. Business decision makers today are under immense pressure to get things right. They must rise to the aka,

turning challenges into opportunities. Microsoft empowers these visionaries with AI solutions, simplified cloud and data management, and trustworthy responsible AI. When you're in the NBA, you have your own hurdles to face. In this segment, we will highlight the player of the week that has risen to the occasion when his team needed him. Whatever challenge you're facing, Microsoft empowers you with

the expertise to say bring it on. This week, we're discussing Jimmy Butler in his massive night to help the Warriors escape the plan. I talked after the Clippers game about how there were some silver linings obviously right, and one of the biggest ones there was, you know, Steph looks amazing, but also Jimmy, who had not really done a lot of volume scoring for the Warriors over the

course of the stretch post deadline. It was a lot of like just connective, additive stuff, stuff that wasn't necessarily going to show up in the box score, but that was clearly helping the team on both ends of the floor. But the championship ceiling that this team has if there's one there, and we're going to talk a little bit about that after we get done with this game. But with if that championship ceiling is there, it depends on

Jimmy also being a volume scorer. And after he was a very effective volume scorer in that Clippers game, did it again tonight. Thirty eight points, seven rebounds, six assists, led a dominant stretch early in the game to explode the lead. While Steph Curry was off the floor. He got to the free throw line eighteen times. Just was awesome in this game. I want to zoom in specifically on Jimmy's ability to get to the foul line for

a second. I've talked a lot about this, and I always have to like kind of like split these two concepts because my attitude towards them is very different. Like foul grifting as a league wide problem not something I love. I would like it if the game of basketball was primarily rewarding players for making basketball plays. But as long as it's allowed, grifting is a very important skill element. Now, just like any skill, you can lean on it too much.

There are passers that lean on their playmaking too much and don't look enough to be aggressive as scores. There are big power players, think like a Pala Bancaro or Joe El Embiid, that sometimes will rely on their jump shot too much when they have gifts that will take them downhill towards the rim. Embiid Enharden over the years relied too much on their foul grifting at the expense

of their ability to weaponize their other skills. But foul grifting is a very important skill to generate offense in this league. Jimmy Butler does it, in my opinion, in a more esthetically appealing way because it's less of like some of the really janky stuff. And what he'll do is he'll just take like little bizarre angles towards the basket, where like instead of driving at an angle to where he can more easily get a shot off, he'll drive at an angle that is more aggressive towards the rim

defender and actually just designed to get a foul. He'll take off at a weird spot, like he'll take off a little bit earlier, he'll take off a little bit late. He'll tweak his angles and tweak his takeoffs to get guys to just jumping land on top of his shoulders. It's a very impressive gift that he has to get defenders out of position and to get to the foul line. And this was a Warriors team free All Star break that was twenty third in the NBA in free throw

attempts per game. And Jimmy has just added this entire other element to this offense. And you don't win that game tonight if Jimmy Butler doesn't bring that element. It came as part of a super versatile attack and on both ends of the floor. He was excellent on defense in this game, tied up Zach Edy a bunch of times underneath the basket. On offense, not just the grifting to getting to the basket consistently as a cutter and

as a slasher. He was attacking Santi al Dama and Zach Geedy all over the floor doing a ton of damage. Incredible night from Jimmy Butler when his team desperately needed him. Thirty eight seven and six like playoff Jimmy has been around with like the Warriors have actually played about five straight like true must win games here to end the season. But that one and the one on Sunday are your

too true. Like that result directly swings where you're at in the playoffs, and Jimmy's just been fantastic in both games, and I think that bodes really well for the Warriors in the big picture.

little bit here. I was really impressed by the way that he just showed some resilience with the way he dealt with memphisis physicality, just like everyone's been doing to Steph for fifteen years now, ten years now, twelve years now. Just was grabbing and holding him off the ball every single time that he's trying to get open on screening actions and stuff. And this has been the game plan

against Steph forever. It's a very good game plan to use when you get in the postseason because basically every star when you get into the postseason is playing basketball. With a defender that has two hands on him. It's just super super physical, whether it's on the ball or it's off the ball. And one of the things that Steph did late in the game that I thought was really smart is he started to use that physicality to

his advantage. Hit two big threes down the stretch, and the first one was a play with John Conchard with about six minutes left, where he was kind of setting John Conchard up right around the elbow for him to

come off of a screening action. I think with Looney if I remember correctly, along the left wing, and if you watch, Steph like kind of sat there and set his man up and did a textbook set your man up for a screen and kind of push off kind of thing, just walked into Conchar's chest and then just gave him a little shove as he took off. And that's the thing. These games are super physical. They are bloodbats.

This is a contact sport were the defense is going to be allowed to do a lot of shit to you, but you're also going to be allowed to do a lot of shit to the defense. And I thought it was awesome that instead of succumbing to the physicality Steph brought the physicality at the tail end of the game. It was just a little tighter on his screening actions, a little more physical on his off ball defender, shoving off, getting that separation and getting some clean looks for himself.

And then the last one was just that classic corner drop off action hit Draymond right as Steph is sprinting off of that cut off of the left wing to the left corner. Two clean looks, and then adds in just for fun, a classic Steph flair, that triple pump fake move that he uses on Scottie Pippen Junior to

hit the shot. I think he finished with thirty seven tonight on a night where it looked like he didn't have it early in the game, and that just goes to show you, like these it's a marathon, not a sprint.

the puzzle in that particular game. Now, the Warriors put themselves into a tricky position by committing a couple of silly fouls down the stretch and gifting the Grizzlies with some free points and some sloppy turnovers, and they just ended up in a situation where it was a little closer than it needed to be. But when push come to shove and it came time to solve the puzzle, the Warriors were able to solve the puzzle. I was very impressed overall with Golden State's defense during the early

portion of the game. I thought they lost control of it a little bit. It's always hard to like restart the motor after you let it shut off, and I think that they fell victim to that a little bit. But early in the game, I was really with the Warriors just physicality. Ball pressure forced a lot of turnovers.

Grizzlies really lost control of the transition game early as they just succumb to the ball pressure, rushed made some sloppy errors passing out of those traps, passing out of that ball pressure, and they gave up a bunch of fast break opportunities the other way. The Warriors finished with twenty seven points off of memphis twenty turnovers in this game and in general too. Just that speeding up of the perimeter players has a lot to do with the

Warrior's ability to cover ground on the perimeter. I was prepping this morning for the Clippers Nuggets series. I recorded the previews for Denver LA and for La Minnesota this morning. They are both coming out tomorrow, so you guys will get full series previews on those two tomorrow. Series previews for both of the two seven matchups. I'm recording those tomorrow. They'll be going up on Thursday, as we released them

throughout the week. But as I was prepping for that Clippers Nuggets series, I was digging into some statistics involving the defenses in how many wide open threes they allow or unguarded threes as they call them on Synergy, and Denver predictably was bottom five in allowing unguarded threes. As I've just been talking a lot about their pick and roll defense and how they've really struggled with at the level coverage and giving up those two on ones on the weak side, and how they just end in open

threes all the time. Well, guess who has the second best defense at not allowing those unguarded catch and shoot threes. The Golden State Warriors. And you know one of the you know we always debate like the concept of like eye test versus digging into these like catch all metrics and how do you properly evaluate a player. Well, sometimes there's both. Sometimes you have a clear thing that shows up when you're watching the film, and then the numbers

also clearly demonstrated. I have talked all year about how the Warriors have been the most impressive closeout team that I've watched, and their ability to get out the perimeter from having a foot in the paint, to chase a defender off the three point line or to make him rush his release and to cause that to be a lower quality attempt. And that is just on display in these early games from Golden State. Here at this point in the postseason, they are flying around. They look really

really good on defense. As a Laker fan, I'm thankful that we won't have to see those guys until an extra round against Houston. So let's talk about Houston for a minute. This is a kind of an interesting matchup. If you would have asked me after the Laker game if Golden State would dispatch if Houston relatively quickly, I would have said yes. I would have said they would have gotten rid of them. This is the fifth consecutive, like really important game that the Warriors played where they

looked a little shaky. They came out of the Laker game and went into that Rockets game and Jimmy and Steff both struggled. They lose, and then they goed into the Spurs game and they play well enough to win, but then they make execution mistakes down the end and they lose. And then they go to Portland and they win. But then they have this home game against the Clippers

and they lose. And then they have this game against Memphis at home and they're trailing in the fourth quarter, and it just they just lacked some of that like oomph that they had in.

against these really higher quality opponents to be effective. But the rest of the roster has been really inconsistent, and that is a trend that scares me a little bit as the Warriors head into the postseason. Houston is a very difficult matchup for Golden State, just in terms of the types of athletes that they have. Of grabbing and holding his staph tonight, It's gonna be a lot more of that over the course of the next two weeks,

except for it's gonna be bigger and better athletes. It's not gonna be Scottie Pippen Jr. It's gonna be Dylan Brooks. It's gonna be a Men Thompson, it's gonna be Tari Eason. It's gonna be big, strong, super athlete every single possession for that entire series. And you know from the dynamic that took place out of the game last Sunday that emy Udoka views it as a weakness for this team. He've used it as like we get physical, they start crying.

That's the way he views it. And so you know that he's preaching that if you don't think im Udoka has been saying over and over and over again to his guys, this team doesn't want to play physical basketball, we can beat them up. I guarantee you that's what he's been saying. I guarantee you. If the team had a watch party tonight, he was pointing to him and saying, look at this. We can do a better version of

this when we face them in that series. And so again, I think that's going to be really the big swing in the series is Steph specifically how he handles that physicality. Doesn't take a lot of critical thinking to say that he needs to be better than he was last week on Sunday, right, Like, he can't average three points a game against Houston, that's not going to work. STEP's going

to have to be more effective than that. But I'm actually going to point a little bit towards Jimmy Butler and a role that Jonathan Kaminga could have in a series like this. In that type of series, you need your athletes. As you saw tonight, Jimmy just has this ability to leverage his size and strength to be successful in that environment. I talk about this all the time

with Kawhi, with Lebron, with Luca, with Jimmy Butler. When you get into an environment where physicality is rewarded, the bigger, stronger athletes tend to go up a level, and Jimmy Butler is just such a great asset to have in

that setting. But when you're going against Houston, you're going to have some physical advantages in the form of being able to get Jimmy the ball through screening action with Steph, either advantage as they put two on Steph, or switches where Jimmy can go at a Fred van Vliet where Jimmy could go at even like an Amen Thompson. Jimmy has a strength advantage there, and so weaponizing that throughout

the series is going to be huge. And this is why I think Jonathan Kaminga is going to be a player that Steve Kerr is going to have to give a little bit more opportunity to. As we head into that series. Jonathan Kaminga is an APEX athlete. Among APEX athletes, he is one of the few guys that is going to see the APEX Houston athletes in front of him and be like, I can still go around and over the top of these guys.

the half court. If we see the defense we saw in the first half tonight and for stretches against the Clippers on Sunday, if we see that defense engaged in the half court against Houston, they should be able to shut them down. And again, when it comes down to series picks, I always say the same thing, which team do I feel like can make each other's units more uncomfortable?

Is the Warrior defense more capable of making the Rockets offense uncomfortable than the Rockets defense can make the Warriors offense uncomfortable. That is a dynamic because I think this Warriors defense is truly special. I think they are capable of doing more damage to Houston's offense. And so I'll be picking the Warriors to win that series. But it's gonna be a pain in the ass. It's gonna be two really tough weeks. It's gonna be a lot of

physicality on Steph. You saw Steff get a little banged up tonight. He's grabbing at his tailbone, he's grabbing at

his thumb. It's gonna be that kind of series. And so execution, avoiding the late game mistakes from tonight, avoiding the late game mistakes from the San Antonio game, making sure that you deal with this team quickly is going to be important because if you get rid of them in five games, that's where you could buy yourself four to five days off and give yourself a much better chance to be physically prepared for a series against the

Lakers or against the Timberwolves. This is a series that if you let a drag and it goes to six games, it goes to seven games, that's where it could end up being a series that wears the Warriors down in a way that the progressive fatigue just gets too much to handle over the course of a four series playoff. Front gonna be an interesting series, though Again, as I said, I'm going to be working on that preview tomorrow.

a few times. Every time he caught anything around the basket, he was getting stripped down low like big Man one oh one, stuff like don't hold the ball down by your waist in front of you, like every smaller player

is just gonna go grab it. Just they're in a situation where they just don't have the pieces necessary in the front court to be a good defense, and so it already is an uphill climb for John Moran, and Desmond Bay and they had a little nice run there in the second half, but they weren't able to keep up with Jimmy and Steph and when you factor in the weakness of that defensive front court, it was just too much for them to overcome it and get anything

out of Jaron Jackson in this game. I think it's really important for Memphis to have some serious conversations after this season about their core foundation as of the roster and what types of players they're building around, because right now, it's like Moranton Bain is a good backcourt, but how is Moranton Bain ranking among back courts in the NBA? It's is it top is it top seven? Is the top eight? I mean, we can dig into that this summer, but that's not a very that's not exactly an elite

defensive backcourt. And then you go on that on the wing position, you've never been the same since you've lost Dylan Brooks. Yeah, Jalen Wells had his moments this year, but he's just not the same type of imposing athlete. Jared Jackson can't defend a rebound well enough at the five to be a five, so you have to play him at the four, which means you have to end up playing him alongside this other front court player, and that other front court player they have to play him

alongside just isn't good enough right now. And so I think the Grizzlies have to have some really tough conversations with themselves this summer about the way their roster is constructed. All right, let's get Jackson out here. Let's take about ten fifteen minutes of questions, and then we will be done for the night.

with the type of grifter that Jimmy is. You know, you do that against a guy that's more of just a straight power player. Zach can just kind of anticipate, beat him to spots, force him to shoot over the top. But Jimmy's one of those guys where it's like, as soon as Zach just gets a little bit squirrely with his footwork and gets out of position one way or the other, Jimmy's just taken a weird driving angle and

drawing a foul on him. But I think the idea was probably mostly geared around baiting or praying on Jimmy's unwillingness to take jump shots. I think they thought if Zach edy was on him and he was playing off, maybe he would just be willing to pass instead of just taking the easy jumpers that he was given in But I thought even Jimmy hit enough jumpers to kind of keep them honest in that regard. He hit a

little jab step three in the first half. I thought that little baseline step back he hit and crutch time was super important too.

We've got enough fair amount of COMMINGA questions. So I know we talked about him a little bit already, but let's follow up here. Uh hey, Jason loved the show. Why is Steve Kurs sticking with Moses Moody in the starting lineup when he's a massive three point slop of the past ten to fifteen games. Why not play Kaminga in that spot? And I think we can sort of just expand it too. I mean you already touched on

him having a role in this Rocket series. But another question we got was about what it will be challenging for Kaminga to reintegrate himself back into the rotation after he's got a couple of DMPs. It's it is a weird spot I think for Kaminga and the team in general.

looked like he got fouled on it too. The idea there is like, let's let's get back to like the core concept because even beyond the starting lineup, it's going back to the press conference where Steve Kerr was it was it after the I think it was after the Blazers game, might have been after the Spurs game, but he basically said, like the Kaminga, Jimmy Butler, Jerrymunt Green lineups just can't play. And I think it's a couple

of different things. One the role on defense that you want Cominga to play as this like on ball defender.

floor as Moses Moody. No, he's actually one of the worst players on the team in that specific role. And is he as good as as Moses Moody as like just a knockdown corner three point shooter, even though Moody's going through a cold spell. I would argue Diminga is

equally as flaky in that type of role. And so honestly, within the context of the starting unit or within the context of Jimmy and Draymond being on the floor, Kaminga's just not good at the types of things they need with that type of group, right, And I do believe that you're going to need him, especially in the Houston series,

in different types of lineups. So like put him out there in a lineup with like Quinton Post, with Jimmy and Jonathan Kaminga and have him like kind of like you know how, like the Jimmy group was super successful in that like late first quarter, early second tonight but then kind of lost steam in the late third early fourth tonight. That's where it's like, Okay, Jimmy had it going in the first shift there, didn't have it going

in that second half shift. Having the ability to go to another like real downhill threat that can generate some offense but has some spacing because Quinton Post is like a legit knockdown guy. Like that's the difference. The difference between Quinton Post and a traditional spacing five is like if it's a traditional spacing five, if it's Nikolavusovitch, for instance, you're like, let's see him make a couple before we

even do anything. Quinn Post is like a legit awesome shooter, Like if you leave him open, you're gonna get burnt. Zachi ed he lost him twice in transition early in this game, and he just nailed both of them. You can't give Quinton Post open looks. He will the spacing enough to where Jonathan Kaminga has some more driving lanes when Draymond's out there, when Jimmy's out there, when Kaminga is out there, there's just a lot of ability to pack the paint, not enough IQ to actually pick it

apart appropriately, it's just not the right fit. And so I don't think Frankly, to answer the question, I don't think there's any case for Kaminga to start these games.

And I'm so in agreement about Quintin Post. I mean, I think he's been just so awesome and it's it's gonna be really I think it's gonna be crucial in this series for against the team that plays two bigs a lot.

can we can play off of it. Like that's my thing, is like, especially for the Houston series in particular, like don't just play him and then play Warriors basketball and have him pee down his leg again as he doesn't know how to play Warriors basketball. Put him in a situation where he can play Jonathan kaminga basketball. Jonathan's really good I shouldn't say really good, but he's really capable as like a face up.

the league. I've heard a lot of former NBA players weigh in on this sort of lack of practice time issue.

different than it was all these years ago. And so it's hard for me to say exactly in terms of like what of those is a legitimate injury versus just like a rest situation. And I think it probably has a little bit to do in terms of the more serious injuries, like the season ending type of stuff that we've seen a tick up a little bit over the last couple of years. I think it just has to do with how spread out the game is, Like you just have to cover so much more ground these days.

There's more possessions in a game. You're sprinting more in transition in a game than you ever have been before. You're covering ground in rotation more in a game than you ever have before. There's just a lot of sprinting folks and then coming to a complete stop as fast as you possibly can, and then changing direction and going the other way. Like all of you guys who play basketball. No, you do that a few times, your feet start to hurt.

Now imagine doing it for an eighty two game regular season. You can imagine how you might start breaking down.

I don't know if you guys have been watching Yannis as of late, but like, Giannis is fucking crushing it, man, and like legitimately taking a leap as a playmaker before our eyes, and there's like a there's a legitimate basketball case to make right now that the Bucks are better just giving the ball to Yannis than running the offense they've been running with Dame, which is just how insanely

good Yiannis has been. So I would vote for Yannis as a second round matchup against the Cavs as a series that I would like to see.

they end up getting to the conference finals. With the finals, it's just the narratives around the thunder are just they're just so fun.

series long, you can lose. And there's some truth to that. But the counter is is that when you run a bunch of drop against Steph Curry, there's always the potential that he could get flaming hot, and he did in the one game where they could not afford for Steph Curry to get flaming hot, which was in Game four, and it beat them, And so I was like, that was really my only exposure to emy Udoka As a

chess match coach. I think Steve Kerr is one of the best chests match coaches in the league, as having rooted against him in a playoff series many times, I just think he's really good at picking up on the trends of the series, identifying what's working and adjusting accordingly. He'll bail on their emotion offense and lean on high pick and roll for Steph if that's what the series calls for. He is a very malleable coach when he

gets into the postseason. So my instinct is to say that Steve Kerr has a tactical advantage and that he may Udoka is mainly going to be an influence on the series in terms of just trying to get the Rockets to beat the shit out of the Warriors on every single possession. But we just don't have a ton of data points with emy Udoka as a tactician.

thinks is right. And I feel like a lot of coaches will just stick to what their their thing more than what actually might be the best thing to win to win.

top of screens. Because in theory, if you can stay attached over the top of a screen against a non shooter, so against pick and pop, you're conceding open threes on the kickback, but against a Looney, against a Draymond, against a screener, that's not going to be a like a really deadly shooting threat. As long as you can stay attached over the top, it doesn't really matter how bad the drop coverage big is, because you're not going to

get any separation in the mid range. He's going to funnel you right into the size at the rim where it gets tricky is for Golden State if they can set really good screens. So like how the game, how the series is officiated in terms of the types of screens that Draymond and Luonie are allowed to set is going to be important. And then the second piece of it is the zone looks. So I think we can

all agree. One of the issues that's kind of popped up for the Warriors over the course of the last couple of weeks has been shooting.

with Steven Adams on the floor. They've been running variations of it with Jalen or with Jabari Smith as they're under the rim guy where he kind of like comes up out of the out of the paint a little bit more, and then they'll run versions of it where Steven Adams just sits underneath the back, but they're gonna have to beat that with high level playmaking sequences or.

Brooks shoots fifty percent from three? You know, Like like like Jalen Green is a weird wild card in the sense that he is a guy that takes like eight nine crazy difficult pull up jump shots a game, and like he'll have games where he has thirty seven and you lose. I've been on the other side of that in a game the Lakers lost in Houston earlier this year. Like there's a there's a lot of of of wild cards here. The Rockets are not a two seed by accident.

They're a damn good team, but the Warriors are smarter. The Warrior are more skilled. The Warriors are more experienced. As long as they can hold onto the rope and win the execution battle, I think they have a really good chance to win that series.

I was trying to get Sam Vasini on the show. We had something worked out, but he's actually in the States right now doing a bunch of he's like super connected in the league and doing a bunch of stuff where he's been unavailable. So not going to be able to do the Sam Vassini Contender rankings this year. So I'll just do a shorter version of it for the channel and then right around the corner from the playoffs. Can't wait. It's been a blast. It's going to be

a crazy two months. I appreciate you guys for supporting us. We will see you tomorrow.