Hoops Tonight - Warriors Preseason Reaction + NBA Power Rankings: Will Steph Curry, Draymond Green & Warriors repeat?

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hundred gambler dot net in West Virginia. YEA, all right, Welcome to hoops Tonight, presented by FanDuel here at the volume. Happy Friday. Everybody, congrats on making it to the weekend. I woke up and I watched some NBA basketball this morning, some real recent NBA basketball Warriors versus the Wizards in Japan. We have two Warriors related videos coming out today. This morning, I'm gonna do about ten minutes or so give or take on that preseason game and just some of the

takeaways that I had from it. I had to watch that game anyway, because it was a you know, for our Power Rankings videos, we've been doing deep dives into offensive sets and defensive concepts and all these different things. And with everybody, I've had to use last year's footage and in some cases have had to go back multiple

years to when guys were healthy. And so obviously, with this being the Warriors at number one today, I had the fortune of being able to look at today's footage and actually look at what sets they plan on working on this season. So all of that XS and ohs stuff I'm going to save for tonight's video again that usually will come out around eight or nine o'clock Eastern time. Tonight, we'll be doing a full deep dive into everything I expect from the Warriors this season. I wanted to focus

on three main concepts from this preseason game. One explaining the poor shooting, because I don't think it's overly complicated to looking at how good they already are on the defensive end of the floor, and specifically a look at Moses Moody and Jonathan Cominga. And then, last but not least, James Wiseman twenty points and nine rebounds. A great start to the preseason for him. We're going to dive into all of that. I am going to reference a bunch

of plays today, as you guys know. When I do my little intro at the start of the show, I talked about how you guys should follow me on Twitter because that's where I can use NBA footage, not allowed to use it on YouTube. Well, I cut together a few minutes of specific clips from this morning's game and I did a voice over over them, explaining different things

that stood out to me. There's some stuff with Wiseman, some stuff with Moody and Cominga, some stuff with some specific sets that they're running, than a handful of Wizards items in there as well. You're gonna find that on my Twitter feed at Underscore Jason LT. You guys know the joke before we get started. Subscribed to the volume's YouTube channels. You don't miss any more of our videos.

Follow me on Twitter, as I said, and last but not least for whatever reason, you guys miss one of these videos and you can't get over to YouTube to finish them. You can find them wherever you get your podcasts. Under Hoops tonight. So to start the poor shooting so and it was more than like beyond atrocious. Uh, Andrew Wiggins, Moses Moody, Jonathan Cominga, Steph Curry, and Jordan Pool combined to go six for thirty five from the field. That's

just sevent So. I had a couple of Warriors fans say, like, oh, don't cover this game. It was ugly. Don't worry about it. I I'm not stressed about shooting percentages this early on. Um, the number one thing in my experience playing basketball, the number one thing that matters with shot making is getting your legs underneath Like it's it's really that simple finishing

around the rim. It's how strong are your legs as you're going through contact, elevating when you're in catching shoot situations after you just played really hard defense, or after you just ran off of a couple of screens, or you have the basketball in your hands and you're making a move and you're getting to a spot. It's all about elevating and getting good lift. If you get good lift, you have a much better chance of making your shot.

During the the beginning part of training camp. Every single year that I played basketball, that first month, your legs are destroyed. Why. Because they're trying to build you up and get you ready for a regular season. I've been talking with my high school kids, we've been doing our preseason workouts for the last month or so. I've been telling him, like, now is the time to be pushing yourself because they start late. They don't even start tryouts

until early November. Get through that wall now, so that when you're when you're getting ready for tryouts, you've got your legs underneath you. But so many of these guys, I mean, it's a long season. It's a nine month season for teams that intend to contend for the championship. So there's just a lot of basketball and they're taking on a lot on their bodies right now, and generally speaking, it can take a few weeks, sometimes even a little

bit longer to really get your legs underneath you. So I'm not the least bit surprised that they shot poorly, and I'm not concerned about it at all. Um, the

defense already looks sharp. You know, Lebron has a saying that he shares with his uh, you know, close circle and his teammates all the time when they're talking about, you know, partying or things like that, he always says, keep the main thing, the main thing, Like, no matter what we're doing, we can have fun, we can have these side ventures, we can do all these things, but no matter what, the main thing is the main thing. And for lebron's just referring to basketball, but for the Warriors,

that's defense. Like we always think of the Warriors as a fluid offense, a team that runs things the right way and plays a very you know, player movement, um, you know, body movement type of offense. But the reality is his defense has always been their main thing. Last year they were sixteenth in offense and they were second in defense. And the defense looks really good already. So I wanted to do a deep dive from the film.

And I've got some clips from this, like I said, that's in my Twitter feed that you guys can find at Underscore Jason LT. But right now, they've got to replace the Gary Payton the second minutes and the out of porter junior minutes. My guess is Dante DiVincenzo will fill one of those roles. He looked okay today. Uh, he's coming back from an injury, so it'll take a while for him to really get back to what he was.

But one of those roles are gonna need to get filled by either Moses Moody or Jonathan coming I think that's a big part of why they didn't pay Gary Payton. I think that's a big part of why they let Auto Porter go. It's simply put, these are those guys. These are the future. These guys are the guys they've invested draft picks in. These are the guys that they've invested their future, and they need one of these guys

to blossom. And right now it's kind of like a little bit of a toss up because they both have completely different strengths right now. I think I think Golden State trusts Moses Moody way more offensively right now to play within their system, just taking the right shots, furthering

the advantage, attacking closeouts, making the right play. I think they view Jonathan Cominga as a head defensively, and I think that that stands out on tape Moses Moody is a little bit top heavy, big wide shoulders, not super quick right now, but he does have some strengths, and so I think they're there. I think their hope is that Moses Moody kind of figures things out defensively, because I think he makes the most sense fitting with them.

Uh my, field, My, what I put in my notes as Moody's trial by fire because my feel from what I saw in today's preseason game. They put him out there and guess who they had him guard right away, Bradley Beale. It was like, look, man, we need you to be able to defend quick players, big players, every archetype of player in a playoff series. Let's see what you get. Let's start right now. It's literally in September, and let's see if we can have you ready by April.

And you know, it was funny. On the first couple of possessions he was guarding Bradley Beal, he got beat off of the dribble. There was one where he was kind of chasing over the top and it was a dribble handoff and as Bradley Beal just kind of stopped and looked at the rim for a second, Moody lunged kind of to his left side and Bradley got some downhill penetration, and then there was a second dribble drive where he got some penetration. After that he held his

own a little bit better. Again, He's never gonna be quick enough to just stay with those guys sliding his feet if he's gonna apply ball pressure. Every defender needs to find out what their individual strengths are. Moses Moody has long arms, and so the big thing that's going to take an adjustment for him this season is understanding that it's okay for him to give a little bit of ground because he's got long arms to make up

on the contest. And so from that standpoint, it's gonna be it's gonna be good for them to continue with that trial by fire. Throw him on bad on difficult matchups as much as possible during the regular season, especially quicker players, because I think will actually do okay against stronger players, and lean into that for eighty two games. Let him take his lump. He's gonna beat barbecued several times, and that's okay. But you've got to lean into that because they need to be him to be that guy

that they can play in the playoffs this year. Um, I thought Jonathan Jonathan Comingo looked great defensively he uh, um gosh, what's the shooter uh that that plays for Washington.

I'm blanking on it right now, Uh, Corey Kissberg. So he was guarding Corey Kissberg and just giving him a nightmare time chasing him over the top of screens, and like that was the number one thing that stood out to me on tape from Jonathan Cominga this morning is just how good he is already at chasing over the top of ball screens and off of drible handoffs and off ball screens and things along those lines. That's not easy as a big guy. I've said this a lot

on the show. The type of body type that performs best in in chasing over ball screens, on off ball screen and things along those lines are usually short, stubby guys with low centers of gravity that are difficult to knock off their spot and they blow up screens just by being physical running through and uh Comingo is doing a really nice job of taking long lunging steps over the top and giving a little bit of separation, which is natural. But then recovering. With his athleticism, you could

tell he was in court Kispert's head. There were two plays in particular where he was curling off of dribble handoffs, and on both of them he kind of pump faked on the jump shot because he was scared Comingo was coming worked further down the lane, and on one play he forced to turn over, and on the other he kind of like smothered him on a pull up jump shot that he ended up air balling. He's ahead defensively right now, but once again, it's the same stuff with

Jonathan Comingo. On offense. He overpenetrates too much and then he gets into the thick of things and then he tries to force passes, but people are hanging on your arms and stuff, and he just results and turnovers or difficult things along those lines. Right now, he just needs to kind of understand. I think. I think right now on the offensive end, he's got further to go than Moody has to go on the defensive end. So I think he'll be the one that ends up being the

guy that they'd really try to cultivate more. But I mean, he's he's still a tantalizing prospect. I just think he has further to go. A couple of minutes on James Wiseman. Um the good stuff. His length around the rim gives Golden State a dynamic that they really haven't had. He's already using verticality really well. He's snuffed out several attempts around the rim, which is good because most young bigs

fouled too much. That's kind of like a predictable thing for for young bigs and for him to kind of figure out that, like, hey, I have frequently long arms. I'm seven ft tall. Let me just stay in there with my arms up, and these dudes are already gonna have enough trouble trying to finish over the top of me. Um. He's playing with a lot more physicality defensively. Offensively, He's got a long way to go with physicality, and we'll

talk about that in just a second. But like on the defensive end, I noticed him embracing the contact aspects of defense a little bit better. There was a play where Bradley Deal was dry ving to the left. I think it was right before the end of the first quarter, and I'll have this play in my in my video breakdown as well. That you'll find on my Twitter feed.

But Daniel Gafford is is ducking in under the rim and shoving James Wiseman under the rim, which is a typical attempt by offensive players to clear out the paint so that their player can elevate up and finish. And to James Wiseman's credit, he just kind of shoved Gafford in the back and pushed him off of him and then went and met Bradley Bull at the rim and blocked him and and I was like, wow, Like there you go. He's embracing the physicality a little bit more. Again,

like physicality goes both ways generally speaking with officiating. If one dude is inflicting his physicality on you, you are allowed to meet that with equal and opposite force. That's why I always get on Lebron fans who complain about him not getting enough foul calls. I mean, the dude plays bullyball. The refs are basically are are explaining their whistle with a trade off, like Lebron is gonna be bully, We're gonna let these guys hit him back. That's basically

how it goes. And that's the thing like if you see a guy trying to meet you with physicality. UM on the offensive end or on the defensive end, Hit him right back. Basketball's a contact sport. Go for it, Um. His hands around the rim on offense were really impressive.

There were two plays in particular, Jonathan Cominga drive on the left baseline and then a player where Draymond kind of got dead ball on the right wing where he picked up his dribble and he was kind of caught with nowhere to go, where Draymond just kind of threw alb pass over the top and Wiseman like pinned the guy down, caught it, and then finished with the left

handed hook. There's another one, like I said, the Comingo one where he kind of shoveled a difficult pass in traffic in the lane and Cominga caught it and drew a foul. His hands are good around the rim, and that's gonna be really good with this particular team. The one thing I want to see him work specifically on is being more physical with his jump pook. We talked about this a lot in our summer league breakdowns of of Comingo. But if you remember of Wiseman, but if

you remember I talked about how on jump hooks. You want to initiate contact first and go towards the rim, and if you fade away. It's one thing if you're fading away when you don't have a physical advantage, but when you're f away when you have the physical advantage, you're just making a shot more difficult than it needs

to be. There was a play mid second quarter where he caught the ball right abount, right around the charge circle or a little bit further out, maybe like six seven ft and he had a shorter defender on him, and instead of turning with physicality for his left handed hook, he kind of turned out away from the basket and made it like a dramatic fading hook and he missed it. I just like him to see be have him initiate

contact before he does that. Um. One last thing, so there was a pick and roll play where Steph and James Wiseman ran pick and roll from the top of the key out of the five outset, which we're gonna talk about more in our Power Rankings video. But he gets a dunk, a lob dunk from step classic pick and roll ball screen. Steph comes off guard, chases over the top, big steps over to Karl Steph. Steph just throws a hook lob passed up above the rim. Wiseman

gets it and dunks it. On the very next possession, Kyle, they ran the exact same play and Kyle Kuzman had to tag out of the week side corner to stop that lobb to Wiseman and they ended up getting a wide open three for drama agree and although he missed it. Those are the kinds of dynamics with vertical spacing with Wiseman that's gonna add an interesting dynamic to their to

their offense. There were some sloppy turnovers. There was a player where Steph cut back door and James Wiseman uh through a bad pass when he wasn't open and threw it out of bounds. There was a pick and pop with Stephen Wiseman out of their five out or Steph tried to throw a looping pass back to Wiseman popping into the three point line and it got deflected and turned over. There, So a little bit of sloppiness there with the Steph Wiseman dynamic that was there two years

ago too. They just need more reps. They just these guys need lots and lots of reps to get used to each other, and they're different play styles because the kind of stuff they're gonna be running with those two is very different than what they've been doing in general with Golden State over the years. But yeah, so, uh, don't freak out about the poor shooting. That's normal at this point in training camp. Defense looks good, that's great.

James Wiseman looked awesome, that's great. Uh, Moses Moody and Jonathan Cominga have a difficult season ahead of them, but I think that they're targeting Moody is the guy. And then all the footage of the things that I'm talking about will be on my Twitter feed. You can check that out there. Uh. Today we're gonna be covering everything

about the Warriors. Why I have them number one, what they accomplished last year statistically, what changes they made to the roster this offseason, what their depth chart looks like right now, what they like to do on the offensive end of the floor, And to spend a good amount of time just kind of breaking down what their sets look like so you can have a better understanding and

how the Golden State offense works. Talk about some of their offensive metrics from last year, looking at what they do on the defensive end of the floor, how they came back to beat the Boston Celtics with a defensive effort. Then what their best case scenario is, their worst case scenario, and their X factors. So every conceivable angle of Warriors basketball we're going to cover in this season preview today. You guys know the drill before we get started. Subscribe

to the Volumes YouTube channels. You don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at Underscore Jason lt S, you guys don't miss any show announcements. That's also where I put NBA footage because I'm not allowed to use it on YouTube. I did a three and a half minute long video this morning that broke down some of my favorite takeaways from that preseason game this morning.

You can find that on my Twitter feed. A bunch of those plays I specifically referenced in the uh full YouTube video that we did earlier this morning and then last but not least, for whatever reason, you missed one of these videos and you can't get back over to YouTube to finish them, we do have them in podcast form wherever you get your podcasts. Under Hoops Tonight So why do I have the Golden State Warriors at number one. I don't necessarily think they're the most talented team in

the league. I think that the Clippers and the Celtics both just have just barely a little bit more talent. Golden State is one of the most talented teams in the league. But I do think in terms of two way players, the Clippers and Celtics have just a little bit more talent, just barely a little bit of an advantage there. But the Golden State Warriors are the best collection of talent, coaching, a modern basketball approach that works today,

attention to detail, experience, and tenuity in this league. And that's why I have them at number one. It's all of those things combined. As we learned from the Boston Celtics last year, having the most talented team in the league doesn't translate necessarily to good basketball. If you're sloppy, you know, if you're not well coached. And we spent a lot of time on that yesterday. You can find that in the number two video. A lot of Warriors talking there as well, as we were going over the

NBA Finals quite a bit um. But I wanted to take a couple of seconds on a few of those concepts. So when we're looking at talent, like I said, the Clippers and Celtics might have a tiny bit more, but not much. Steph is the only real superstar on the roster, but Clay Draymond, Andrew Wiggins, and Jordan Pool are all stars in their roles, meaning their impact on winning mimics that of a star, just in a different type of role than we're used to seeing for most stars. Everyone

in their rotation is a good basketball player. What does that mean means they're well rounded. It means they're not specialists. They're not guys that just shoot threes or just play defense. They all do everything. They all can defend multiple positions, they all can pass, they all can dribble, they all can shoot. That well rounded versatility is what you need to succeed in this particular system. One of my favorite things about Golden State is I think their player development

understands the right things to work on. You guys know the things that I preach on this show all the time. And I was actually having a conversation with sam As Fondieri from Light Years, and I know a lot of you Warriors fans listen to him. Great guy. Got to meet him in person when we were in Vegas for

Summer League. But we were talking about the player development in Golden State and he talked about how the two things that they preach the most are pull up shooting in terms of development, and perimeter contain on the defensive end of the floor, like sliding your feet and containing the ball. What do we preach about all the time

on this show, like those are two? Pull Up shooting is the is the number one skill to beat most coverages, because most coverages are designed to take away the easy things and lead at the expense of leaving open the more difficult things like pull up jump shooting, for instance. And then on the defensive end of the floor, containing the basketball is the key to make any defensive scheme work.

We're gonna talk a lot about that today. The point is is their player development in Golden State teaches the right things and so as a result, they've got a team full of really well rounded basketball players, and that's a huge part of why they're as good as they are. Coaching. Steve Kurrent Erik Spoelstra are the two best coaches in the league in my opinion, they understand what works best in the modern NBA on both ends of the floor.

So many coaches around the league have a very traditional approach. We talked about this a lot with Mike Budenholzer and what he's what he's what Darvin hamm is bringing to the Lakers. We talked about this a lot with the Lakers in general, with the way they're constructing their roster with small guards and and big athletic players as opposed to wings that can defend multiple positions and play a

more versatile style. The Golden State Warriors from the top down are targeting the right types of players that succeed in the modern NBA, and then their coach, Steve Kur is teaching them to play a modern style. We're gonna talk a lot about that today, particularly as it pertains to their five out offense, which we'll talk about quite a bit um their uh They're malleable with their defensive and offensive approach. They're willing to make adjustments. There's not

a lot of pride there. Like they like a ball movement player movement offense right well. In the NBA Finals against Boston's drop coverage, Day leaned heavily into high pick and roll, trying to get Steff off the dribble, jump shots. Jump shots. Why because that's what the Boston defense was giving. That's that's Steve Kerr not being stubborn and understanding that his job is not to coach the Warrior's offense in a vacuum. His job is to coach the Warrior's offense

against that specific opponent. And like I said, they preached the right things perimeter contained player movement versus ball movement. A lot of teams around the league will pass the ball well, but they don't keep their bodies in motion as much as Golden State does. Their attention to detail in every aspect of the game is as good as you'll find around the league, if not the best. When we get to a defense section, wait till you guys, wait till I read to you guys the defensive metrics.

I've had, you know, five or six defensive metrics that I've targeted as indicators of coaching, and the Warriors are near the top and literally every single category. So hats off to Steve Kerr. That's a huge part of why I'm so confident in them. Experience. This is the idea of understanding how to win basketball games. We could talk about talent all day long. We can talk about schemes all day long, advantages, you know, mismatches in a playoff series or whatever, or skill sets. We can talk about

that kind of stuff all day long. But basketball games are usually one in those details. And that's not just Steve Kerr. That's Clay Steph and Draymond and all the guys who've been around all these years that have felt the pain of loss enough times and understood what it took to win enough times that they know that those details are what wins games more often than not. And this will be a theme throughout this entire season as

we're covering in the league. Containing the basketball on the perimeter like sliding your feet, extra effort and rotation, reboundings like boxing out, crashing the glass, getting to loose balls, transition defense, burning back and getting matched up, talking to each other, Understanding the flow of the game like never getting too high, never getting too low, responding well to runs, staying on the gas when you get a lead, and then closing out games when it's a four point game

with four minutes left. You can win a lot of basketball games just by executing like every possession down down the floor, running the right set, getting the right shot in defending well, yes, some shots are gonna go in and some shots are gonna miss, but if you execute well at the end of games, you're going to win most of the time. The Warriors have a great deal of of experience. They understand how to win basketball games, and that's a huge part of why I have them

at the top. The Warriors have been there and done that so many times that I just trust them everything. Going into that NBA Finals series against Boston, everything was pointing me towards Boston from matchup matchups around the floor in terms of the physicality the perimeter players. I thought Jalen Brown and Jayson Tatum would able to get to their spots pretty easy against that group. And I still

picked the Warriors. You know why all of those things because I knew the Celtics were a little bit better, but I knew they weren't as good as a basketball team, because being a basketball team is all of those things that I just laid out and then last but not least, continuity. And I spent a great deal of this a time on this on Warriors Media Day, so I'm not gonna go too bunch further. Locker room chemistry. Those guys are

like brothers. They have clear understanding of roles. It's easy to plug new players in, and they have basketball chemistry. They have a good feel of where they're gonna be on the floor at any given time. And last, but not least, understanding their schemes. Steve Kerr has a complicated scheme. They run more sets than anybody in the league. So if you have the same guys there for that long, they all know the offense, and so to me, they're

a clear number one. And I don't think even though we have a top tier with Milwaukee and Boston and the Clippers and the Warriors, there's one team that separates themselves and all of those categories in its golden state. That's why I had them at number one. So last year they were fifty three and twenty nine. They won the championship. They were sixteen an offense and second in defense.

Steph Clay and Draymond only played in one forty two of two hundred and forty six available games, so they were not dealt a very good handed cards last year either. All three of them were still ramping up in the Denver series. Steph was just coming back from a foot strain, uh footsprain, Draymond Green had been working his way back from a back injury, and then Clay Thompson was just back to playing NBA basketball for a couple of months.

Um So, just a really impressive season all around. The this offseason, they lost Auto Porter Jr. And Gary Payton the second The interesting thing there is if you look at their on off numbers from the playoffs, they were dominant with Gary Payton on the floor and they were

actually negative with him off the floor. So he was a plus minus hero in the playoffs because of what he did defensively and the little ways he found ways to be dangerous on the offensive ended floor, whether that was knocking down the occasional corner three or running pick and roll with Stephen rolling to the basket, cutting to

the basket, offensive rebounds, things along those lines. They're gonna need to find some buddy that can replace that role him in Outo Porter Jr. They did add Dante de Vincenzo, who I will who I think will help JA. Michael Green I'm less excited about, but you know, I want to see how things shake out a little bit more. But they're gonna need one of Cominga or Moody to blossom into a reliable playoff player this year to replace

Gary Payton. A second, looking at the depth chart at the guard position, Steph Curry and Jordan Poole on the wing, Clay Thompson, Andrew Wiggins, Jonathan Cominga, Dante DiVincenzo, Moses Moody, ja Michael Green, and Patrick Baldwin Jr. I'm not gonna talk much about Patrick Baldwin Jr. Tonight because I just need to watch a lot more of him before I can have an opinion. You guys know me, I'm not going to really talk about something if I if I

don't know enough. And then Big Draymond Green, James Wiseman, and Kevon Looney um so talking about the offensive end the floor, they ran a couple of non five out sets in that preseason game. And I'm thankful at the preseason game because all these other teams, I had to go into old footage to try to do the best I could to figure out what they run on offense. I got actual stuff that they're running from this training camp,

which was which was helpful. And informative here. So they they ran a horn set where James Wiseman and Draymond bracketed around Steph and that ended up kind of breaking down and then uh, Wiseman ended up getting a seal because it ended up in a switch and Monty Morris was on him. They also ran a random four outset where Steph was at the block and it was a classic screen the screen or set like Steph backscreen for

Andrew Wiggins. Monty Morris like just barely hesitated as he went to help on the Andrew Wiggins screen, and then Steph immediately came off of a second pin down and got a wide uh not a wide open, but a pretty decent look at three. But other than those two sets, almost everything they ran the entire game was five out. That means guys in the two corners, guys on the two wings, guy at the top of the key. Now the difference, you guys know, I love five out basketball,

talk about that all the time on the show. But there's a big difference between the way the Warriors run five out and the way the rest of the league runs five out. First of all, the Warriors run sets out of five out like the a lot a lot of teams. Five out is a spacing concepts. It's more just this is how we situate the floor, and we just need somebody to beat somebody off the dribble so that we can start our driving kick and start to

start to get good stuff out of that. But the Warriors are are running sets, and I mean, I mean they're running sets almost every time down the floor. They run more sets than anybody in the league, and it's not even close. About three out of four times when they come up the floor they're running a set, and even on that fourth time, they're running some kind of action, maybe just a high ball screen or something along those lines.

They don't just play pickup basketball. They run organized basketball. I saw a stat earlier the uh the best metric that I've seen that kind of tracks this kind of thing is number of shot attempts that you take off of screens. The Golden State Warriors took about eleven shots per game off of screens, and the second place team in the league was the Portland Trailblazers with six. So so, literally, the Warriors run almost twice as many sets per game as the rest of the teams in the league. Other

teams you see near the top. They're like teams like Miami. They run a lot of sets too, But the Warriors run sets more frequently than any team in the league. Why do they do it five out Because most teams run sets they want players around the block like horns or four high or four low, because they want their bigs around the screen. The reason why they run everything on the perimeter is because the Warriors players have gravity.

We've talked about this concept before. When Stephen Clay and Jordan Pool are running off the screens, one of the most frequent defensive breakdowns is multiple defenders following them. But those two defenders are going away from the basket that's

taking place outside of the three point line. So in the same way that five out offense is designed to build driving lanes for driving kicked teams like the Clippers and the Celtics, for the Warriors, it's actually meant to open up cutting lanes and slipping lanes and roll lanes. So like a lot of their actions are you know, dribble handoffs or all screens, but it's designed for Draymond or Looney or whoever it is, to slip those actions when his man offers help as Steph or Clay's coming

off that screen. It just has so much open space around the basket for them to slip and roll into and have space to finish around the rim. And then the fundamental concept in five out, and this is the same for driving kick teams as well. It's just harder

for you to cover ground in rotation. So if I'm in a four out one in and I beat my man off the dribble, or I hit a pick and pop slipper like a guy slipping to the basket, the health defenders that one in and he's already there because the four out one in the inside guys probably gonna be on the opposite block and what we call the dunker spot, so his defender is gonna be standing right

under the basket. Because as far as the NBA is concerned, as far as the rule goes, you can be in the paint if your arms length away from your defender right if you're like within legal guarding distance of your defender. So I can stand directly under the rim because my guys in the dunker spot, I'm in legal guarding position now turning and I'm helping as guys are driving right into me. But what if instead of him being in the dunker spot, he's in the opposite corner. Now I'm

in a bit of a predicament. I have to like step into the lane and then step out of the lane, and then step into the lane and then step out of the lane. A lot of really good offensive players will time their drives or time their slips or cuts right as you're lunging out of the lane, which is what opens things up around the basket. Or if you do have to help, you have to abandon your man in the short corner now and now that short corner

is open. Just covering ground and rotation and actually offering helps side defenses ten times harder in a five out scheme than it is in a four out one in or a three out two in schemes. So that's why the Warriors do it, That's why the rest of the league does it. But the key difference is that the Warriors will do it with the intention of slipping and rolling and cutting rather than UH necessarily driving to the basket.

So they opened up the game with a five out double dribble handoff with Jordan Pool coming out of the left corner. UH Loony and Draymond both uh I went to go set the screen. There was a dribble handoff Jordan Pool him off. If he actually ended up getting a wide open twenty foot or at the top of the key, he just missed it. They ran this particular action a bunch, the double dribble handoff coming out of

the corner. They had a really interesting counter there where if the guy in the corner, so like a lot of teams will see this action coming right and so they top side. So like, if I'm guarding Jordan Pool and I know he's coming off of that double dribble handoff going this way, I might literally just get entirely in his way, so he has to go through my chest. Well,

in that case, they just cut out. And when they cut out, what will happen is the first screener will just turn and he'll come off the screen instead, and they'll run something out of that. So it's like kind of like a read and react system. There's they've got baked in counters from when you try to jump in front of their place, which is the way smart offenses run.

And it was really impressive to see that this morning from the Warriors UM they also uh They also like instead of a dribble handoff version of that play, they run a past version of that place. So like just two guys will go screen for Steph Curry coming out of the corner, and then they'll pass it to him as he's coming off of that screen. They had one of those in the first half where they hit Draymond slipping, so Draymond was the second screener. Steph caught the pass

right as he was coming off Draymond's man. I think it was Christaps Porzingis in this case hedged out on Steph. So step just throwing easy little drop pass into the pocket and Draymond went up and made a layup. They ran a lot of double high ball screens, so they'll

have Steph bring it up on the left wing. They'll have one guy in the left corner and then the guy at the top of the key, and then the right wing will be Wiseman and and and Draymond or Draymond and and Looney and they'll both come over and

set that double screen. Anytime we talked about double pick and roll, as you guys know, one guy will typically roll to the basket, the other will pop to the three point line because both bigs will typically drop and usually you get open stuff around the top of the key. They also ran just some basic high pick and roll with Wiseman um usually Steph coming out of the wing,

Wiseman top of the key. They would set it. They have Draymond on the on the right wing or in the right corner away from the ball as far as he could be, and then two shoters in the corner and the wing, and then just run regular pick and roll. They got a lob dunk out of that immediately on the next possession. After the lob dunk, Draymond was in the right corner and Kyle Kuzman had to tag the roller,

which opened up a wide open three for Draymond. So basic, kind of like give and take of help defense when you start to have success in the paint. But they just run a ton of stuff every time down the floor, usually some form of double screen, either a double ball screen, a double drible handoff, or double a double off ball screen.

But it's all designed to get that initial advantage of usually a guy slipping to the basket or cutting, and then from there they just play basketball, Like if Draymond slips down the lane and he doesn't have a lap, he might kick it out to the guy in the corner and then they play their driving kick. So they will play driving kick whether you do it out of uh sets rather than doing it out of initial advantage creation. And it makes sense because you know this is not

a huge, physically imposing ball handling team. You know this isn't this isn't Kawhi Leonard and Paul George coming at you every possession, so you're not worried about getting bludgeoned by driving. These are smaller, skinnier players that operate off a screen. So it makes sense that a team like the Clippers would beat you with dribble penetration and then a team like the Warriors would beat you with sets.

But then once that initial advantage is created and they get into rotation, then it's just driving kicked basketball and everyone's kind of doing the same thing at that point. Um Looking at isolation, they were the most frequent isolation team in the league, but the eighth most effective. This is just about being picky about when you isolate. Steph averaged one point two points per possession and isolation, which is literally outstanding. But he only ran a hundred and

seventeen of those possessions all season. That's because he's picky. You usually will only do it if he gets a big on a switch. Again, that's just about being smart, understanding what your strengths are and being picky about things that you're that that you don't want to do is often, and then leaning into your strengths. This is a great off screen team, That's why they lean heavily into that. Um. They had the third most efficient can roll ball handling

trio in the league. Uh, this is about pull up jump shooting. Like we talked about earlier, pull up jump shooting is the best way to beat most pick and roll coverages. Jordan Pool and Staff were both in the eighty five percentile league wide as pick and roll ball handlers, which is awesome. They were the sixth most frequent dribble handoff team and tenth most efficient. Clay Thompson was pulling

the most way here. He was at one point zero two points per possession and dribble handoffs, which was the seventy four percentile in the league. No NBA team cuts to the basket more than the Warriors do. They register twelve cut possessions per game at one point three points per possession, both awesome. To give you comparison, the MAVs and the Sixers register about half as many cut possessions per games. That just kind of gives you some perspective

on how frequently they do that. Um, they, like I talked about earlier, already mentioned this that they run almost twice as many off screen possessions as as the rest of the league eleven for them. The Blazers were in second place with six. Again, this is just one of the man any indicators, and you could just tell by watching the Warriors play that this is the case. But this is one of the many indicators that they run

more sets than the rest of the league. Most of the teams that I encountered during this series, they would run sets to start quarters. They would run stets out of basically dead ball situations like made free throws or or like out of time outs, things like that. But in the actual flow of the game, the vast majority of these teams are just running the ball up the floor and running a high pick and roll or picking on a matchup and trying to get into their driving kick.

The Warriors run sets live ball dead ball whatever about the possessions. From what I can tell by watching, that's a stat that kind of shows, uh, it shows an example of how that gets quantified. It's just harder to defend player movement than stagnation. That's just a basic concept

in basketball. If you bring up the ball and and you just get to your spacing and one guy starts to work off the dribble, the other four guys are standing, and if I'm guarding a Warrior's team, were on every possession there's three or four interchanges and in an action being run, it's just more fatiguing physically to try to guard a team like that. And I think that's one of the biggest playoff advantages. The Warriors almost always go

up too oh in a playoff series. It's uncommon for them to drop one of their first two playoff games, and a huge part of that is their offensive system is so different from the rest of the league that teams get caught off guard early in playoff series. It takes a little while to adjust. Speaking of adjustments there, Steve Kerr's willingness to adjust is one of the things I appreciate about him. He's not stubborn, even though he has a strong basketball belief system. Off the dribble shooting

verse Boston is the best indicator of this. So during the regular season, the Warriors attempted about twenty two pull up jump shots per game, but they were playing against the Boston Celtics team that was very good defensively and that switched a lot of off ball actions, particularly ones that regard to guard. So as a result, like because they were dropping running drop coverage against ball screens or other things that involved the big man, um, Steve Kerr

leaned heavily into pick and roll. Why because he's got Steph Curry, the best off the dribble shooter of all time, and off the dribble, three point shooting is one of the best ways to beat a drop coverage, especially one like the Celtics where the big man was was lagging too far back. Well, they went up from twenty two pull up jump shots per game in the regular season to pull up jump shots per game in the Celtics series.

That's an indicator of how they were willing to adjust their offensive approach to match the actual need of what they needed to beat that Boston defense. Another example of this willingness to adjust was against the Calves in two thousand fifteen when Um, when they were trapping the staff high pick and roll and they just got into They just just spamed high pick and roll, hitting Draymond as the slipper, Uh slipping to the basket and then him

hitting on Dregudal in the corner. Again, that was not a team that just spamed high pick and roll in the regular season. That was just something they did as an adjustment to beat a specific matchup. No, there's no value in being stubborn. All that matters is winning the basketball game. And I trust Steve Kerr to make those adjustments. Um, Steph, Sometimes things just don't go right in the playoff series and you need a heroic effort to carry you. And

that's Steph in Game four of the Finals. Like, sometimes you're down two games to one and the physical matchups aren't really going your way, and you're on the road against a really talented team, and you just need some guy to reach down and pull out an all time great NBA playoff performance. And that's what Steph did in Game four of the Finals. This is why we were we talked so much about best player in the world.

This is why we talked so much about top tier superstars in the game of basketball just matters more than a dozen other sports. As we go back in champions Steph last year, Jannice the year before that, Lebron the year before that, Kauai, then Stephen Katie, then Stephen Katie, then Lebron, then Steph, then Kauai, then Lebron, then Lebron.

You get the point, you need one of those guys, and the Warriors have one of those guys and Steff, and then, like we talked about earlier, the players surrounding Steff are all good basketball players. They all are versatile. They're not sp shlists moving to the defensive end of

the floor. Um their scheme, they switch one through three or one through four, depending on whether or not they have one or two bigs on the floor, and then they drop with their bigs, but they don't switch in discriminately. They're they're picky about it to try to avoid mismatches. The vast majority of NBA teams try to attack step as much as possible. And Steff is a good defensive player. We're gonna talk about that in a minute, but it's

mainly for fatigued purposes. It's it's not like, oh, it'll be easy to score on Staff. It's if we attack Steph all game long, we might be able to wear out his legs and he might miss some jump shots on the other end of the floor. Well, Warriors, the Warriors will do things like pre switching as they make adjustments in series. They will put step on matchups where they don't like to use them in ball screens. A

great example of this is that Maverick series. Early in the series, Steff is guarding Reggie Bullock and they kept doing like quick picking pops with him with Luca, and it was just challenging, uh for Steff to guard those actions. So they like switch that and put I can't remember

exactly what put him on um. It might have been Dorian Phinney Smith, I can't remember, but they put him somewhere else, so I think it was DFS because they put him there because Dorian Phinney Smith is not as good as a pop like movement shooter and so those little pick and pop actions weren't working as well. Those are just little xs and those things and adjustments that the Warriors will do to stop teams from targeting Staff again. For the purpose of saving him the fatigue that's caused

from it um metrics from last year. This is insane. If you guys remember the things that I talked about, that talked to me, that teach me about how good a coach is and how good his attention to detail is. Defensive rebounding, how well they do dribble contain, um points in the paint allowed, and defending the three point line, understanding the most valuable shots, transition defense, those are the

things I look at. Well. Not only were the Warriors second in defensive rating, they were six in defensive rebounding percentage, so they were a great defensive rebounding team. They were third in steels that's associated to dribble contain. We're gonna talk about that in a minute. They were fourth and paint points allowed. They were sixth in transition defense according to Cleaning the Glass, and they were fourteen and three

point defense. So of the five key metrics that I tracked the most associated with coaching, they were top six and four of them, and they were top half in the other with fourteenth and three point defense. And to be I it's just really difficult to do both if you prioritize the three point line, you're naturally going to give up more stuff in the paint. So Steve Kerr just he understands what works in modern NBA defense. He coaches it really well. The guys are bought in. They um,

you know, their stars death. The biggest credit I offered to Steff is is that he just tries hard on defense every single night, even though he's only slightly above average. Just that effort goes so long towards setting the tone for the rest of the roster. The last thing I wanted to talk about, as it pertains to the Warriors on the defensive end, is the value of dribble contained.

And so I wanted to start with the finals here so early in the series, to go down two to one, and Warriors fans, some Warriors fans like, oh, they're just making all the threes or you know, over helping too

much or whatever it was. Yes, they were making a lot of threes, and yes the Warriors were helping too much, which was allowing the Celtics to get into their dribble contained But the main reason why was the Celtics were getting great dribble penetration and they were getting great dribble penetration because it's Marcus Smart, you know, Jayson Tatum, Jalen Brown, and Derek White that are getting into the lane a lot,

and their difficult matchups to handle. But what really happened over the course of that series is at the end of the series, mainly Clay Thompson and Andrew Wiggins, but also some Draymond Green and Gary Payton, they just started containing the basketball. Clay Thompson did an amazing job on Jalen Brown towards the end of that series of sliding his feet, taking that contact in the chest and turning

Jalen Brown into a pull up jump shooter. And then Andrew Wiggins obviously, like I talked about how I think Jayson Tatum is the best perimeter defender in basketball, Andrew Wiggins is right there. It's like those two guys and McKay Bridges and uh and like Ben Simmons that I put I put in that tier. Andrew Wiggins is right there, and the job that he did on Jayson Tatum containing

that ball handler was so important. Now this is where the turnovers and the steels come into play, because think of it like this, if I don't have to help because you're containing the basketball. Now I get to be a normal guarding position. What's normal guarding position depends on who your guarding, but typically that means I'm far enough away that I can help, but close enough that I can recover if there's a shooter there. Translation, you're in

the passing lane. Okay, you're kind of like a little bit of distance off of your man, looking at the ball, looking at the man, ready for the past to come

out so you can close out or play the passing lane. Well, what ended up happening a lot with the Celtics is as Clay Thompson and Andrew Wiggins and Gary Payton and and Draymond Green contained the basketball, those guys would drive into the lane a little bit like get to the sixteen seventeen feet, get cut off, and then panic and look around and no one's open, and no one's open because they're not helping, and they're not helping because you're

containing the basketball. And so then one ends up happening is you panic and you just throw some stupid pass that looks open and it's not. The next thing you know, they're running the other way. And there's other stuff. There was some sloppy ball handling. You know, Tatum got picked at half court a few times. There was some sloppiness

in there. But a lot of those Boston Celtics turnovers were fueled by Clay Thompson, Draymond Grand, Gary Payton, and Andrew Wiggins just containing the basketball so that no one else had to help. And when no one else had to help, no one was open. And so when they were throwing those passes, they're throwing them into dangerous passing lanes and they're turning them over. That dynamic swung the series.

The Celtics went up to one because they were getting dribble penetration, and then they lost three straight because they no longer were getting dribble penetration. And that's a ton of that credit. I want to heap on the Warriors perimeter guys for just sitting in a damn stance, sliding your feet and taking that contact in the chest. It's just good basketball. Again, this is a huge part of

player development. I thought it was really interesting and I talked more in detail about this uh in the preseason breakdown that I did. But Moses Moody and then putting him on Bradley Beal in that preseason game today them saying like, look, man, if you're going to be someone that we can depend on in a playoff series, we need you to be able to contain the basketball. I think they're gonna throw him all sorts of difficult matchups early in the season just to kind of build that up.

And he's gonna have to learn a unique way, a unique way to play defense because he's not as fast. He's gonna have to give more ground and make up with his length um as more of like a positional defender as we always talk about. But I'm really curious to see how Moses Moody handles those matchups over the

course of the season. But internally, organizationally, the Warriors are always hammering home that concept of perimeter contain everything else in defense works better when you contain not only did the turnovers like we were talking about, but then you stay out of rotation. So like, if if I give up a straight line drive, my teammates gotta cover for me, so I've got to sprint over to some other spot on the floor to get the next guy. And is if we stay out of rotation, it's just less running.

So it's like if one guy does his job. Containing the basketball makes everyone else's job more physically easy. It's also easier to rebound because in rotation you get cross matches. When you get cross matches, you have little guys on big guys, and when little guys are on big guys, the big guy usually gets a rebound. So just just in general that that UH dribble contained concept is so important and the Warriors are great at It's a huge part of why they're so successful defensively. So what's the

best case scenario for this Warrior's team? Don't need to spend too much time on that. There are more talented version of last year, so they should repeat if the young guys developed worst case scenario. Obviously, injuries are always a problem with these teams. UH. An injury to someone like a Clay or a Draymond or step would be

pretty catastrophic, especially if it was steph Um. If they fail to replace that Gary Payton the second rule role, that could be an issue when they get to the later rounds like the conference finals and finals, just when they're playing more talented teams. UM. If that happens, they could potentially lose to one of the top tier teams and like the conference finals, but to me, they're the

clear favorite in the league. Biggest X factor. This is the first time I've done three guys instead of one, but I put Wiseman, Moody cominga they let OUTO Porter Jr. And Gary Payton the second go because these guys are supposed to fill those roles. If for Wiseman in particular, it's a tricky dynamic because they don't really need him in the rotation when they're healthy. Looney and Draymond proved last year that they were enough, but it's obviously a

little bit extra depth there. But because he's that third big in a league that's going away from Biggs, it makes his role a little bit somewhat inconsistent, a little bit clunky. His ability to shoot the three should help in theory there a little bit, but his his role is going to be inconsistent throughout the year. I'm a little bit worried about. So he's the one guy that would keep an eye on um because that can mess

with the young player's rhythm too. But he needs to play more physical on both ends of the floor, which we talked about in detail in this morning's video. So I won't go any further, but he needs lastly, he needs to embrace the little things to earn a playoff spot in this rotation. They he went for twenty and nine this morning. That's great. I think he's a guy who could average twenty and ten in the league for a long time. But on this team, they don't need that.

They need him to be a version of Looney that has some vertical spacing and some perimeter spacing. That's what they need from it. They need defense. They need him to be a functional cog in the Golden State machine offensively. So if he embraces those little things, he will claw out a rotation spot because he's talented enough. But if he doesn't, and he worries about a shot too much and he doesn't embrace the little things, he could be one of the guys that could squeeze out of the

rotation towards the end of the year. Then with Moody and Cominga, it's offense defense. I think Moody is already at a point where they trust him offensively, but I don't think he's good enough defensively, And I think Cominge is already a point where they trust him defensively. But they don't trust him offensively. I actually think Comminge has got further to go on the offensive end then Moody

does on the deep fensive end. So Moody is the guy that I look at as a guy that I think we'll get more and more minutes as the season progresses. Like I said, tough matchups early on in the year to test his defensive metal. He's the guy that's gonna be uh that that they end up depending on in a playoff series and all likelihood. I'm not gonna elaborate too much there because I talked about that a little bit this morning. But yeah, that's all I got on

the Warriors for today. Have a lot of Warriors basketball this week. Um. We will be back on Monday with another seven games worth of preseason content. We're also gonna do some gambling stuff over the next couple of weeks, so like over unders and m v P First Team

All NBA Coach of the Year, that kind of stuff. So, uh, lots of film breakdown, lots of you know, NBA futures and stuff over the next couple of weeks, and then we're what two two and a half weeks away from regular season basketball, So it's gonna be a marathon not to sprint a lot of basketball. But I appreciate having you guys along for the ride. As always, I sincerely appreciate your support and now we'll see you next time. The volume