Hoops Tonight - Mavericks-Warriors Reaction: Steph Curry & Golden State hold off Doncic & Dallas

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show for you. Tonight, the Dallas Mavericks, who had won like a million games in a row or something, went on the road into Golden State, and the Warriors put together a really impressive and specifically interesting defensive effort to beat the Dallas Mavericks and end the winning strict We're gonna break that game down from the perspective of both teams, and then we'll get out of here for the night. You guys are the joke before we get started. To

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least keepdropping mailbag questions in the YouTube comments. We're gonna be hitting a few more mailbags over the course of this week. All right, let's talk some basketball. I thought this game in particular was a super interesting demonstration of these strengths and the weaknesses of this Warrior's roster. And the main weakness as of late is the Warriors just haven't been a very good offense since the All Star Break. Steph is really struggling. That's pretty much the primary driving

force of it all. We've known for years now that Steph doesn't really have a reliable secondary creator pretty much this year and last year, and so when this team doesn't get superstar level production out of step they just haven't been as good offensively. And since the All Star Break, not counting tonight, he's averaging twenty two points six points per game shooting just forty one percent from the field and thirty six percent from three obviously not bad numbers,

but certainly not good by Steph Curry standards. And then

tonight goes five for eighteen with just thirteen points. And so the Warriors offense has a tendency to stall out from time to time, and they've been pretty mediocre since the All Star Break, And I think part of the issue there too is teams have figured out that there's not a particular, you know, threat, a consistent threat off of Steph, and so you can get away with throwing the kitchen sink at him and kind of rotating out of There's also some guys with the Warriors that are

either inconsistent shooters or hesitant shooters, meaning guys that are like easy to chase off the line just by offering a token closeout at right, and so I think that's been part of the issue with some of their offensive stuff. That said, they've been a really good defense post All Start Break, and the reality is they just have awesome defensive personnel. Now Draymond Green's back consistently, they have tons of team speed. I think it's the biggest strength of

the roster. If you look at the front court guys like Draymond Green and Trace Jackson Davis, those guys compared to other guys who play the five, are super super fast, right, they're top tier speed athletes at their specific position group. Right, go to the wing, Andrew Wiggins, Moses Moody, Jonathan Kaminga. These are all top tier athletes in terms of speed

and mobility on the perimeter for their specific position group. Obviously, Jonathan Minga right right now is dealing with some knee tendonitis, so he didn't play tonight. Then at the guard position, Gary Payton brings a great deal to speed, and even the guys that are not necessarily top tier athletes for their position are super scrappy and are good defensive players who know how to defend it within his scheme, so

they're very good defensive team. But that speed is definitely the strength of the ross for That's six guys in their rotation who are legitimately excellent speed athletes for their specific position group, which sets the stage for this particular matchup.

So Luca's been torching absolutely everybody so far. To start this I say to start throughout this season, but especially as of late in this particular run, he just had an absolute wrecking ball game against the Houston Rockets where he embarrassed just about every single perimeter defender and frontcourt

defender on that team. He's just been killing everybody, and you know every I wanna start with Andrew Wiggins because I think he is the key to everything you saw tonight from Golden State in the sense that obviously, uh, Golden State was having success doubling and rotating out a doubling, trapping hard helping on Luca's offensive attacks. Right that that's

the team wide scale. We're gonna get to that. But one of the things you'll see a lot is when Luca doesn't want to deal with the trap, he'll just go one on one the ball at the floor. And the vast majority of primary defensive options to guard Luca to start games are not guys who can guard Luca, and so he'll just go to work and he doesn't

have to call for a ball screen. But Andrew Wiggins, dating all the way back to the Western Conference Finals in twenty twenty two, has been on the short list of players who can actually do a pretty solid job

on Luka Danci. He's quicker than him. He's bigger, and he's big, not bigger than Luca, but he's big and strong enough to hold his ground well enough to make Luca's bully ball attacks more difficult, and specifically he makes some more card He's really good at applying full court ball pressure on Luca, just making things difficult on him all night long. Now, Andrew Wiggins also had an amazing offensive game. He had twenty three points, hit a couple

of huge above the break threes. He is starting to get that kind of like second side clear, the you know, just let me go to work kind of thing going on. He's making aggressive moves at the rim and creating offenses and secondary option and honest, Wiggins to me, really he's at some ugly moments. But really, for the last couple of months, I've been really impressed by by Andrew Wiggins in general. I think he's more or less starting to gain ground on the player that he used to be.

And but that's just on the offensive side of the ball. On the defensive side of the ball, the job he does on Luca essentially removing go one on one as an option because Luca doesn't want to just go one on one against Wiggins, so he has to kind of call that screen up to try to get freed up from him so he can go to work elsewhere. That is what allowed Golden State to do the blitzing trapping

in the hard helping that they were doing. They were in a position where Andrew Wiggins made it so that Luca was most frequently calling for a screening action from there, what's Luca gonna do. He's gonna bring a lesser defender up into the action. Like in the game he was trying to target Brandon pit Ziemski because he's got a size advantage on him, right, So like he's not calling Draymond up into the action. He's going after one of

the lesser defenders. So in that case, you've got Draymond on the back line as well as all of that

speed that we were talking about. And so Golden State uniquely kind of presents the personnel both at the point of attack with Wiggins to make ice straight ioball not really much of an option for Luca, and in the speed in the defensive IQ that Draymond brings to the table, as well as the speed on the rest of the roster on the back line, to be able to effectively double trap, blitz and rotate out of it right, and that to me was kind of like where this game

kind of turned. Because there were some ugly stretches for Golden State, specifically when they were struggling offensively. We talked earlier they can go cold offensively from time to time, and when they hit those rough stretches offensively, Dallas was able to get out in transition and just throw ahead kick ahead passes to Daniel Gafford or Luca would be able to get a decent matchup in transition or get a like a defender on his heels and he'd be able to get to a quick step back jump shot.

I'll be able to quickly attack the basket and make a good play. He was able to take advantage of the helter skelter kind of like early offense situations they could get as a result of Golden State's bad offense, and that's how they blew the lead to end the first half, and that's how they nearly blew the lead in the fourth quarter. As a matter of fact, one of the biggest shots in the game in my opinion, after Dallas tied the game. I think it was at

ninety two if I remember correctly. But that little like in and out and men baseline jump shot that Klay Thompson hit that went in and out on the rim that went back in. That was a huge shot, not only because it broke the tie, but it allowed Golden State to set their defense. I cannot wait to see the data from this particular game because my guess is there's going to be a gigantic chasm between Dallas's offensive efficiency in the half court versus their offensive efficiency when

they got out into transition. If for those of you guys who follow me on Twitter, tomorrow morning, I'll pull that date. I checked it right before we went live, but it hadn't updated yet, So we'll get into that tomorrow morning on my Twitter feed. But like I mean, I'm I'm excited to see what that difference was, because the reality was, when they got into the half court, Golden State didn't just guard Dallas well, they guarded them super well. They were able to make the lesser offensive

players for Dallas try to make plays. And there are a couple of guys on Dallas, whether it's PJ. Washington or it's Maxi Kliba or it's Derek Jones Junior. There are some guys that they have in the rotation where if you get the ball to end up in their hands, they can be you know, it's like that late corner three that PJ. Washington took. It's like, yeah, on paper, looks like a good look. PJ. Washington has been an

iffy catch and shoot player for Dallas. So like of all the options that Dallas presents there, you know, Golden State did a good job of forcing the lower level options, the lower value plays to be what Dallas had to resort to at the end of the game. Now there's some luck in there. I thought Luca and Kyrie both got wide open threes at the end of the game that ended up missing, and so obviously there's a certain

element there. But for the most part, during that stretch when Golden State had as in the half court, they were able to get the ball out of Luca's hands and they were able to rotate effectively out of it. There's two big offensive defensive plays that I wanted to hit from that late stretch of the game after Golden State took the lead. Obviously, I just mentioned one where they trapped Luca and the ball got worked around to PJ. Washington in the right corner. Just a great example of

that scheme forcing the lowest value shot for Dallas. Second one I wanted to talk about was the Draymond Green play, the insane Draymond Green play, the block on Gafford and the saving bounds that ran out the other way and resulted in Draymond getting to the foul line and kind of sort of ice the game. Dallas ended up making some big threes late that sort of threatened, but they they never had the ball with an opportunity to tie or take the lead, so they didn't quite get to

that point. The biggest play of the game in my opinion, So Luca brings about the floor and he ends up calling for a screen from Brandon Pitzemski's man. So Zemski ends up switching on to Luca, and it's not a hard blitz, but Andrew Wiggins, who's guarding Kyrie irving on the left wing, he or on the right wing, excuse me, he ends up digging down way down to the nail. Okay, So when Luca goes to drive on Brandon Pazemski, he's driving right in Andrew Wiggins's effectively a double. Again, it

wasn't all blitzing. Sometimes it was blitzing. Sometimes it was double teaming on an iso. Sometimes it was just really hard help. In this case, Brandon Pizemski on an island against Luca funnels him towards the Wiggans side. Wiggins is down in the lane hard nail help and contains Luca. Luca makes the kick out past to Kyrie. And there's two defensive plays at this point that demonstrate the strength

of Golden State's defensive personnel. So first, Andrew Wiggins sprints out to the three point line and chases Kyrie Irving off the line. Just not many athletes that can effectively double essentially at the nail but also chase an excellent catch and shoot player in Kyrie Irving off the line. So Kyrie rips through ends up beating Wiggins off the dribble. To be expected, he was hard doubling and he had to hard close out. He did his job, though, chased

Kyrie off the line. From there, Draymond Green steps up from underneath the basket and offers a contest on Kyrie, which forces Kyrie to dump it off to Daniel Gaffer. But it turns out Draymond Green, who's also a top tier speed athlete at his specific position group, is fast enough to guard Kyrie at the kind of like right at the semi circle charge circle area and recover back down to Daniel Gafford and make that ridiculous block against

a much bigger player. How many times did you see tonight Daniel Gaffer just kind of catch an offensive rebound er a kick ahead pass over everybody and just go up and dunk it. That is not an easy player to meet with verticality, and Draymond did and managed to save the possession and managed to get to the foul line of the other end of the floor. But again, that is the unique trait that Golden State has defensively.

We talked a lot about Golden State's ability to contend entirely has to do with the offensive end of the floor. This is a team that can defend well enough to make a deep playoff run, potentially defend well enough to win a championship. The question marks are on the offensive end. They have that type of personnel. Luca got a switch onto a guard in Brandon Pitzemski, who's a good defender but is the best option that Golden State presents in

that situation. But then they had the personnel to be able to effectively double Luca out of that matchup while not conceding an easy shot, in fact, not even conceding a shot. They blocked the shot. That is a unique trait that this team brings to the table. And so, like, when I actually think about what it takes for Golden State to become a threat at this point, it centers around rounding out the rest of that group, this defense, plus Wiggins being the consistent offensive threat that he's been,

plus Steph Curry getting back to form. Now we're talking about a legitimate playoff threat. But there's some question marks there. We're going on, you know, over a month now, where Steph has not been consistently good. So that's the first thing that has to get rounded out. And then Andrew Wiggins has had a tendency to kind of ebb and flow and fade depending on where he's at mentally in any particular game. And so like that's gonna be the question mark because whether or not they can round that

stuff out. But I genuinely believe that that defensive potential that they have is unique, and if they can just get to the point where they are a consistent half court offense like they were earlier in the season, that's where I could see them becoming a legitimate playoff threat. I also wanted to shout out the bench group. I thought Chris Paul and Brandon Pitzemski did just an unbelievably amazing job carrying the offense during those middle portions of

the game. That was actually when Golden State built up the leads to be able to withstand those runs that Dallas made against the Against the Golden State starting group, Chris Paul just being aggressive as a scorer and looking to take the pull up jumpers that were available to him, hit several big ones, especially in that third quarter run

that they went on. Brandon Pitzemski, I thought he just played a really smart floor game, was super active on the glass, had a couple of really nice passes, had a huge kind of like side step three on the right wing in the second half as well. Big time performance from that bench group. Big win for the Golden State Warriors on the Dallas Mavericks front. I do think that this presents an interesting example of the best way

to guard Dallas. So, for instance, Phoenix, Phoenix is going to go out there with Usef Nurkic and Grayson Allen in all likelihood, and they'll have small ball groups that may have Grayson Allen and Eric Gordon on the floor. But regardless who it is, their off ball talent is

just insanely good. And so when they can get Bradley Beal, Devin Booker and Kevin duran out there, any two of those guys out there at any given moment, they can get you in rotation kind of like Dallas was existing in tonight offensively, but it's rotation with guys that you simply cannot leave open. Crayson Allen's gonna make that shit

every single time. Eric Gordon's gonna make it right. They're gonna if you chase him off the line, they're gonna pump bake and they're gonna be able to make a play. And by the way, a lot of times it's Kevin Durant off the ball, a lot of times it's Bradley Beal off the ball, a lot of times it's Devin Booker off the ball. But you're in a situation where their off ball talent is so incredibly good that Like when Phoenix really gets going in their driving kick offense,

they can be devastating. Dallas has some guys where it's like, if you get the ball in their hands, it can be a little sketchy sometimes. Baxal Kleiba, his jumper comes and goes. PJ. Washington, it comes and goes, and more often than not, it's not been there this year. Right there, Jones Jr. He has this thing that he can do. He can slash off the wing, he can cut. He's actually a better spot up player than the shooting numbers

would would lead you to believe. But he's a guy that like when teams, especially in like a playoffs style defensive effort that Golden State brought tonight, those guys are gonna have to make shots. Here's the counter to that. Though matchups are everything, how many teams truly represent the speed that Golden State does. Because as good as Golden State's defense is, like we talked about, I'm not sure their offense is good enough to get them to the

Promised Lamp. Some of the teams that are above Golden State, though, are they good enough? Are they good enough defensively to actually justify that type of scheme, that's the question because like again, it's like you run into this situation where it's like, Phoenix is the team that's best equipped to beat Denver because of Nurkic and his ability to kind of bang bodies with Nicole Jokic, and because of their ability to spread you out and drive and kick you

to death. But is Phoenix good enough to beat the Clippers? Is Phoenix good enough to beat doubts? Right? Like, that's the thing with these matchups. When you get past that Denver tier, it's like, yeah, there are certain teams that are better than others against certain types of opponents, But what if you never have to face something like that? Like,

that's the thing. I would argue that Golden State probably brings the best combination of positional speed up and down the roster to be able to double and rotate out

of the LUCA double teams. But what if Golden State loses in the playing tournament and that just is not a problem, right because like a team like Denver, they have outstanding defensive personnel at two positions Contavious Cabo Pope and Aaron Gordon, But the other guys they kind of need to be in a situation where they can load up and play roles on defense, but when they get spread out, they can struggle, kind of like Phoenix has done to them, right, And so that's the thing that's

super interesting as you start to look down the West at matchups, is like, yeah, Golden State showed tonight that with the right type of personnel and the right scheme, you can really bog down Dallas's half court offense. But are the teams Dallas gonna play along this run? Are they actually fast enough to do that? And that remains to be seen, And so I think that's gonna be

super interesting, really entertaining game. I loved just the way that Dallas kept fighting in that game, especially after they ran into that buzz saw in the mid late third quarter, kept the game interesting. Really do think Dallas is good. I'm not as high on them as everybody else is around the league, but I thought that was a really interesting game that showed the strength, the strengths and weaknesses of both rosters. All right, guys, that is all I

have for tonight. We're gonna be back tomorrow morning. We're gonna talk about Joel Embiid's return to play tonight against the Oklahoma City Thunder might hit one other game from tonight's slate, and then we'll do a mailbag and then we'll get out of there. That's gonna be relatively early in the morning, so drop some mailbag questions here in the YouTube. Comments will hit those tomorrow. Is always as sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting the show, and we

will see you next night. The volume