Hoops Tonight - Warriors-Knicks Reaction: Steph Curry goes off, Golden State stays hot in win

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You're at the volume. Happy Thursday, everybody. Hope all of you guys are having a great week. Got a fun show for you guys tonight. We're reacting to the Warriors going into Madison Square Garden and getting a much needed win against these shorthanded New York Knicks. For those of you guys waiting for a reaction on heat Nuggets, I am staying up to record that later tonight. It will be on the feeds first thing in the morning tomorrow,

just hitting Warriors Nicks in tonight's show. We're also gonna have a mailbago in the show that I'm recording for the Heat Nuggets games. So make sure you drop some more YouTube drop some more mailbag questions in the YouTube comments for this video. You guys know the Joe before we get started. Subscribe to our brand new YouTube channels you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore json lt so you guys don't miss show announcements as well as the film threads that

I do in the morning. Also, don't forget about a podcast feed wherever you get your podcasts under Hoops Tonight. It's also super helpful if you leave a rating in a review on the podcast feed. In the last but not least, like I mentioned earlier, keep dropping mail back quietquestions in the YouTube comments. All right, let's talk some basketball.

So this is kind of a funky game, right because both teams obviously are more perimeter oriented, tons of athleticism, guys dealing with front court injuries right, particularly with the Knicks. It's kind of a weird game because there's just a ton of speed on the floor, a lot of play in transition, both teams really aggressive, crashing the offensive glass from the perimeter. Is kind of like a funky example

of what a modern basketball game looks like. Lots of movement, shooters, guys flying off the screens, dontete e. Vincenzo is shooting the ball so well this year. He's kind of playing for the Knicks a lot like Stephan Clay do for the Warriors, just flying off of wide pinned downs and coming up firing if he gets an inch of space. And the story of the game was the lineup changed from the Golden State Warriors as a result of Andrew Wiggets being gone on a a leave of absence for

personal reasons having to do with the family matter. You know. Is interesting because I saw when I saw the report,

I was at first, I was like, I saw it on Twitter, and I immediately thought like, oh, is someone talking about what happened last year, Like, what is the deal? What's going on? Because it's kind of similar timing too, And when I saw that it was happening again, I'm like, oh no, Like this could not be worst timing for

the Warriors, right, Like they're in a predicament. Both the Warriors and the Lakers would desperately like to get out of that nine in ten spot because if you're in the nine in ten spot, you got to beat whoever the other seed is, and then if you happen to win that game, you have to go on the road for a single elimination game against a really good team, a team that could be anybody, right, it could be the Pelicans, it could be the Kings, it could be

the Mavericks, could be the Suns, it could be some really good teams that you have to go on the road for. So every single one of these games is vitally important. In addition to that, Andrew Wiggins has been hooping. He's been playing the best basketball that he's played since he left the team last year on a personal leave

of absence. Excellent on the ball defense, He's been shooting like forty eight percent from three over this stretch where the Warriors are eleven and three in their last fourteen games, although twelve and three now after beating the Knicks, right, he had been averaging like one point three steals per game,

shooting like fifty two percent from the field. Wiggins was really starting to get it going, and so immediately I'm like, Okay, this is kind of discouraging, right, you know, But one of the advantages is the Warriors have a guy that is a talented young player that kind of is a reasonable facsimile of what Andrew Wiggins brings to the table. Not the level of offensive player that Andrew Wiggins is

capable of being. And I know Andrew Wiggins has had his lolls offensively, but he has the ability to attack matchups and has been shooting the ball well, shot the ball really well the year they won the title, right, And maybe Moses Moody doesn't bring all of that, But what Moses Moody does bring is really physical on the ball defense, really good ball pressure with length, plays super hard,

just can be a wrecking ball on the ball. And I thought that was the story of this game, because you know Step Step and we're gonna talk about him in a minute. You kind of expect that, right, But one of the big swing factors in this game is Moses Moody did an unbelievable job on the ball against Jalen Brunson. From the opening tip, first possession, He's sitting back about ten feet off of Brunson as he's coming

across half court just watching the ball. Brunson goes to make a little kind of like a swing pass to the to a guy kind of flashing up high. Moses Moody just jumps the passing leg, gets in there, gets down the floor. You also saw a lot of the switchability of the Warriors early on in this game, because Kaminga and Draymond can also play really well on the

ball even against guards. Like think about how insane that is as a versatility for a defense that you're three or four and you're five are all like credible on the ball. Defenders against guards, guards, wings, whatever you need.

That's a real asset to have. There were multiple possessions at the beginning of that game where you have a transition cross match and Kaminga ends up on Jalen Brunson and does a really good job. Or maybe Moses Moody does get caught on a screen, and so Draymond Green goes with the switches out onto Moses Moody, peels off and switches on to the big man. Now Draymond Green is forcing Jalen Brunson into a really difficult fadeaway jump shot that he ends up missing from the opening tip.

They were all over Jalen Brunson, giving him hell. I talk about this all the time, but like so many people have turned basketball into a game of luck and like just the shots go in or they don't. And there is certainly an element of that when it comes to the game of basketball. But you do control your destiny so much more on that front than I think people realize. And they just made Jalen Brunson's life hell

from the opening tip of this game. And I do think that that is directly responsible for the type of offshooting night that he had. Now, Jalen Brunson's also capable of overcoming that, we've seen him do so. But you know, it's kind of like what happened to the Warriors when Steph at his cold night against the Nuggets. When you play excellent defense and you swarm a star, there's a chance that he might have an off night. And if you get and he's far more likely to have that

type of off night. If you bring that defensive intensity from the opening tip, you prevent a player from achieving rhythm, You prevent a player from feeling comfortable. When a player is comfortable and in rhythm, he's far more likely to get to his spots and take and make his his superstar shots right, the shots that any defense is going to be willing to concede at the expense of taking

away the more the easier shots right. And then from that defensive intensity from the tip, they were getting out in transition like crazy. Now it was a little sloppy. It was actually crazy because they went up twenty to four. I think they started fourteen to zero, right, But even in that span, like guys were smoking layups. Brandon Pitziemski missed an early layup, Jonathan Omega missed an early layup, Moses Moody missed an early layup right at the rim.

Like there was that easily could have been, you know, twenty eight to four or something significantly worse. But they bought themselves a huge margin for error from there by coming out the opening tip with an intense ball pressure, intense help and recover situation. There was a possession early in the game where Moses Moody's on the ball, Draymond

Green comes up to the level of the screen. There's an over the top past to Isaiah Hartenstein Draymond Green sprints back into the paint and forces Isaiah Hartenstein to come way out to the left hand side on his layft. Jonathan Kaminga comes off of precious Achua in the left corner, just comes flying in and smacks the ball out of there, and the Warriors are running back in transition like that

is swarming. That's two on the ball and Draymond's still getting back into the play forcing a guy to change his shot where another athlete could come in and clean up the mess. It was a dominant defensive effort from the opening tip and then in the half court. One of the things that was interesting is the Knicks Tom Thibodeau is not hedging or showing on any of the Warriors off ball actions. What that means is you can imagine a guy setting a screen, STEP's coming flying off right.

The big man for you New York was sagging back to watch for back cuts and slips things along those lines, which means Steph, if he can get free on that screen, is going to have an opportunity to take a movement three. And I thought say An Gunni did a really nice job of calling this out in the broadcast, but Dante DiVincenzo in particular, who drew the Steph Curry assignment. He kept trying to jump the passing lane. So, like, imagine

the screen's here and Steph's come and flying off this side. Well, if you chase behind, you force Steph to take a tougher shot. And the tougher shot is he's got to stop his body when he's moving full speed laterally to rise and fire. Right. But if you jump the gap, Steph can actually kind of step behind the screen, and

it's more of a straight up and down shot. Now, if you gamble that and you get a deflection or you get a steal, there's obviously an advantage there, but it's a risk, and if you happen to miss the basketball, you actually leave an easier shot for Steph. Steph was the one carrying the half court offense in the early stretch of the game, just by taking advantage of the knicks not showing or hedging and just beating Devincenzo in these off ball screening actions. And we talked about this

after the Nuggets game. But like, Steph has a really tough job. He's been in a little bit of a slump, right, and a lot of this just has to do with the reality of the of the way this rosters put together. They started three twenty one year olds tonight, right, and so when you got three twenty one year olds that all have strengths and weaknesses, right, and at this phase in their careers, teams are good at kind of identifying their weaknesses and kind of putting them into tough spots.

And so, even though the Warriors have been good offensively in the aggregate because of the success they've had in transition off of their defense, during this fifteen game stretch, in the half court, there's a lot of emphasis on Steph Curry having to create everything, right, and so a lot of the slump is like a little bits just he has a really tough job. A little bit of it is just the way the defenses are loaded up on him. And you know, those superstar shots, those tough shots,

they can come and go from time to time. But it was only a matter of time before Steph would break out of that, and he broke out of it tonight. Now, the Warrior the Knicks did make run, right, you know, they had some success against the Warriors bench group, particularly in the second half, but the Warriors responded to every single run the Knicks made. I thought Moses Moody once again made several key plays on the defensive end of the four down the stretch. So the Knicks get it

to five. Late in the game, there's a timeout, Moses Moody makes three gigantic defensive plays. He blocks Alec Burks on a pull up jump shot in the mid range. Then he stonewalls Jalen Brunson on first of all, on the block of Alec Burks, debucks Alet Burks. It leads to a fast break opportunity where Jonathan Kaminga gets an and one. So we're literally talking about called Alec Burks's shot.

You know, on average about one point per shot in terms of shot value, and you run out and you get I think Kaminga ended up missing the free throw, so it was only two, but a three point swing in a big moment of the game, down to five, Like if he doesn't make that defensive effort and Alec Burks makes the shot, all the sudden, we have a one possession game and instead we're setting up the defense

again up by seven. It was a gigantic defensive play on the next possession he stonewalls Jalen Brunson forces it into forces him to get rid of the basketball, which leads to a late clock situation. They get another stop, they go down to the other end, and I think that was the play where Brandon bit Ziemski ends up getting the and one and all of a sudden, the

Warriors are up by nine. So again, like literally a five point game could have swung in a really ugly direction for the Warriors, but Moses Moody's on ball defense two massive plays got the Warriors going in transition, and then an opportunity to make a basically a dagger type of play in the half court to put them up by nine. Then there's like one or two possessions later.

Brunson tries to take Moses Moody again, and this is when he smoked that little step through kind of floater left it like way short off the right side of the rim, and then he starts complaining to the refs, and like that is the textbook dead giveaway for a defensive player having frustrated an offensive player is when he starts to complain to the refs and Moses Moody just his length, his physicality, his relentless ball pressure on this

particular play where he stonewall Brunts and he went underneath the pick and met him on the other side, which takes a great deal of effort. I just it was. It'd be very difficult to overstate how important Moses Moody's on ball defense was in this game, from the opening tip to helping them build that initial lead, to breaking the game open after the Knicks got it down to five.

Just an unbelievable night from Moses Moody. This is a big part of why I've been harping so much on the Warriors overhelping, which has been, in my opinion, the primary culprit of their fourth quarter defensive struggles and some of their situation struggles. The Warriors have good defensive personnel on the perimeter, Like the Warriors have weaknesses, right, but that's not one of them. Like when you get down, as soon as you get down from the top of

the league, every team has strengths and weaknesses, right. Look at the Pelicans. They've got all this length and athleticism at the perimeter, but they're kind of weak at the point of attack with CJ. McCollum, and they're kind of weak on the back line with Zion and jonnisvalencunis right, you'll get the Lakers. It's like offensive skills not an issue for them. The Warriors have some offensive skill issues from some specific position groups. Lakers don't have that issue.

But what they don't have is any guys who can guard on the perimeter consistently well. Right, So like now the Warriors, it's like they can struggle, you know, with some interior size stuff, right, Yeah, they can struggle with offensive skill in some position groups, but they do have a plethora of guys that can defend on the perimeter

against a bunch of different archetypes of players. And so for them, it actually makes more sense to leave guys on an island, trust their ability to contain the basketball, stay home on the perimeter, not always you know, bringing the screen defender way out high and letting the role man get behind and constantly having to defend pick and

roll three on two, leaving the skip pass open. Like, it makes more sense for them to play a little bit more of a modern defense where you stay home on shooters and trust your perimeter defenders to kind of force guys into tough shots. Because again, like a driving layup is a high value shot unless the perimeter defender is riding his hip and is following him too the basket. All of a sudden, now we're talking about a layup that might be worth maybe a point per possession, maybe

a little bit less. Against really long athletes like Golden State has, it's actually more important to stay home and compete on the defensive glass. I want to look at their numbers, because it's been two or three games since I checked it, but that lineup when Wiggins was in there, Wiggins coming a Draymond, they had struggled a little bit on the defensive glass. Last I checked a few games ago, they were below seventy percent in defensive rebound percentage. That's

also an overhelping thing. When you bring two guys to the basketball, you don't have matchups on the weak side to finish plays off on the defensive glass. And so I think I just want to see the Warriors kind of lean more on the strength of their defense, which is their perimeter players, and use that to structure a defense that allows them to contend better in help situations and on the glass by trusting those guys to do

their jobs. The last guy I wanted to talk about in the Warriors front was Jonathan comingia A twenty five points, eight rebounds, two steals, and two blocks just was unbelievable in this game. I went on. I went on the game in San Francisco earlier today and I was talking with the guys about Jonathan Kminga, and we had talked about the deadline and how the Warriors didn't do anything, and how I said, you know, it just made sense at this point to keep Jonathan Minga because of his leap.

And it's been kind of an interesting journey watching his

this recent phase of his leap, because as I mentioned, he had never had back to back twenty point games before, right, and then he has like seven of them in a row. There's a stretch where the league basically like was like, let's see what you can do on an island, and it turned out pretty quickly that no one could guard him on an island. And then over the course of the previous seven games, Kaminga's scoring took a little bit of a dip. He went down to about fourteen points

per game. His three point shot started to struggle. But if you guys have and we've talked about this on the show, teams were starting to realize, we can't leave this guy in an island. We have to send late help, especially after he puts the ball on the floor, and particularly towards his left hand side, because that can be

where he has some struggles. And to Jonathan Kiming his credit, excuse me, to Jonathan Kiming's credit, he handled that really well during that stretch before that, from the start of the twenty game streak to the start of this last seven game stretch before the Knicks game, he was averaging

about two and a half assists per game. In the seven game stretch, he's he was averaging four assists per game, and I want to say like one point seven turnovers or something, He's like two point five assists a turnover ratio. That's that's big time for twenty one year old who's like seeing aggressive coverages for the first time in his

NBA career to like to legitimately pick teams apart. We pointed out examples like from the Pipper's game when he was getting a double team in his face and like making like looking a defender off to the top of the key and then making a skip pass to Brandon Pazemski on the right wing, like he's he's making a lot of a really high level reads with some of the double teams that he's getting, and then you end up in a night like tonight against the Knicks where

he gets a lot more on an island opportunities and he just goes back to barbecuing everybody. Twenty five points and eight rebounds. Had some big on the ball possessions on Jaylen Brunson had some big help side defense possessions. I said this in the radio hit today. But like Jonathan Kaminga, is On is on a star trajectory. If you're ranking guys that are like below the age of twenty two in the league as prospects, he's pretty high

on that list. Like is he in that wemb tier Probably not, like definitely not, but but he's in that deer right below that right like the guys that do legitimately have star potential. The guy reads the floor well. He's an excellent on the ball defender. He has to be a good off ball defender as he just gets better at like kind of remaining focused and doing his job within the defensive scheme. He can get defenders out of position and get to the foul line. He doesn't

really seem to have. There's there's not really an archetype of player that's given him trouble in terms of a one on one defensive assignment. He's just this guy's the limit for this kid, and I thought he was a huge,

a huge element of their victory tonight. Like it was ironic to watch after all the talk about the two phases of the of the Warriors over the last few years, that we had a lineup tonight, the starting lineup of Stephen Draymond, the two pillars of the franchise, with three twenty one year old kids that are playing off the ball or three I'm not sure if they're all twenty one, but they're all young, three really young players that are in that starting lineup, and all three of them made

huge plays today. I thought Brandon Pizemski made a bunch of key passes in this particular game and was good defensively. We mentioned Moses Moody and his defensive effort, and then I just talked about Johnathan Kamingo, like the kids. They're grown men, but kids relative to the rest of the y. They did the job tonight and they got the job done.

Big win for the Warriors, and I believe, if I'm not mistaken, there are now tied in the for that nine seed with the Lakers, I think not by win percentage, but where they are in terms of games. Back on the next front, again, really difficult to have any sort of meaningful conversations about the Knicks when you're down three starters that are all in the front court. Whenever injuries hit one core position group, you can have massive issues.

It's kind of like what the Lakers have been dealing with, Like when you lose Camraddish and Jared Vanderbilt to injury and then there was a stretch there where Max Christy sprained his ankle, It's like it's like that's already their weakest position group and now they're down three guys. It just it can cause a lot of problems. Same thing goes for the Knicks, like you get Like I thought, Jerico Sims had some real nice stretches on the offensive

end of the floor tonight. I'm really impressed by his feel in the short role, in his ability to quickly make decisions and make that next pass in those four on three situations. But he's really struggling on the defensive end of the floor right now, and liked it. Got out of position a lot and drop coverage in some

situations that was causing problems. And that's the thing, like you're just gonna have some limitations there when you have your three starting bigs out at three starting forwards, three, four and five out of the lineup. The last guy wanted shout out on the Knicks with Duce McBride. I thought he was His activity playing passing lanes, getting out in transition was really important in the little mini runs that the Knicks made to try to get this thing close.

But right now they're just trying to patch together wins and it's just really difficult to do when you have guys in and out of the lineup, and when you're missing core position groups like that. Also a boy and mcdonovitch, just like you can just tell he's this close to kind of getting his rhythm there. All those threes he missed in that fourth quarter, they were all dead on

straight and just long. That to me is like a good sign that he's getting it dialed in, and like it's different game if he makes a couple of those shots, right.

So I'm not worried about the Nixon the big picture. It's just a really really difficult situation that they're right now, and it's going to be really difficult to learn anything about them over this stretch. All right, guys, that is all I have for tonight. As I mentioned, I'm saying up tonight to cover nuggets heat. I will have that up on the feeds first thing in the morning. As always, I appreciate you, guys. I will see you guys. The volume