1/27 Game 43 Lakers (23-23) @ Warriors (19-23) 5:30pm on ABC

[Crazy-Canuck]

Also checked out DJM's game more in depth recently.. the off-ball stuff is severely overstated. That team is a defensive mess.. that said, he's highly susceptible to backdoor plays, which can be really exploited in the Warriors current system. But you don't have an extremely high tip% if you're a bad off-ball defender, and he does have that

How does he have only 1 more steal and 4 more blocks than Trae Young despite playing 5 more games and over 100 more minutes. What does he even really do on defense when his main role they traded him for was for defense and the team is somehow worse than last year even when Trae has improved?

When your entire defensive repertoire is to gamble because you can't defend, you tend to get stocks. That's why I think blocks and steals are overrated.

If you play good positional defense and get a stop. That's good defense. But no counting stats.

If you sell out for steals and blocks thus leaving the rest of your team hanging, that's good defense for fantasy leagues. But bad for your team.

We see this all the time. We get 7fters with happy feet jumping and biting on shots to get a block. They might try like 10 times, give up 16 pts, but get that 1 blk and people will rave about defense.

It's why most defensive stats don't tell the actual story, it just tells the story you want to tell.

[ShayDee]

Also checked out DJM's game more in depth recently.. the off-ball stuff is severely overstated. That team is a defensive mess.. that said, he's highly susceptible to backdoor plays, which can be really exploited in the Warriors current system. But you don't have an extremely high tip% if you're a bad off-ball defender, and he does have that

How does he have only 1 more steal and 4 more blocks than Trae Young despite playing 5 more games and over 100 more minutes. What does he even really do on defense when his main role they traded him for was for defense and the team is somehow worse than last year even when Trae has improved?

When your entire defensive repertoire is to gamble because you can't defend, you tend to get stocks. That's why I think blocks and steals are overrated.

If you play good positional defense and get a stop. That's good defense. But no counting stats.

If you sell out for steals and blocks thus leaving the rest of your team hanging, that's good defense for fantasy leagues. But bad for your team.

We see this all the time. We get 7fters with happy feet jumping and biting on shots to get a block. They might try like 10 times, give up 16 pts, but get that 1 blk and people will rave about defense.

It's why most defensive stats don't tell the actual story, it just tells the story you want to tell.

Ok so whats the deal, is he not trying hard or is undersized for his position? How will he change if he gets here and still has to guard the same players he is guarding in the hawks?

Steph at this moment is playing worse defense than Trae young and the whole team has regressed. Idk how Murray will solve anything

[CDM_Stats]

Also checked out DJM's game more in depth recently.. the off-ball stuff is severely overstated. That team is a defensive mess.. that said, he's highly susceptible to backdoor plays, which can be really exploited in the Warriors current system. But you don't have an extremely high tip% if you're a bad off-ball defender, and he does have that

How does he have only 1 more steal and 4 more blocks than Trae Young despite playing 5 more games and over 100 more minutes. What does he even really do on defense when his main role they traded him for was for defense and the team is somehow worse than last year even when Trae has improved?

The reasons above stand, but also.. its not true. The Hawks were 26th when they acquired him. They were 22nd last year, 27th this year. Because SGs dont exactly move the needle for team defense. And as said the last time you brought this up, bringing in an on-ball PG for defense and then playing him off-ball for the first time in his NBA career probably wasnt a good idea to begin with. But as I said, his off-ball defensive issues have been overstated, and using a team metric when said team is playing Jalen Johnson, Bogdanovic and Saddiq Bey in the PF slot doesnt hold a ton of water. I also dont think much of Capela or Okongwu defensively but thats a whole other issue.. that team is a mess. Lots of talent but none of it jives with the rest.. they are going to need actual impact defenders at the 4/5 or I dont see them doing anything anytime soon

Where exactly has Trae improved btw? His steals are up, but actual defensive metrics are still falling, which is insane because eventually there has to be a bottom

[Crazy-Canuck]

How does he have only 1 more steal and 4 more blocks than Trae Young despite playing 5 more games and over 100 more minutes. What does he even really do on defense when his main role they traded him for was for defense and the team is somehow worse than last year even when Trae has improved?

When your entire defensive repertoire is to gamble because you can't defend, you tend to get stocks. That's why I think blocks and steals are overrated.

If you play good positional defense and get a stop. That's good defense. But no counting stats.

If you sell out for steals and blocks thus leaving the rest of your team hanging, that's good defense for fantasy leagues. But bad for your team.

We see this all the time. We get 7fters with happy feet jumping and biting on shots to get a block. They might try like 10 times, give up 16 pts, but get that 1 blk and people will rave about defense.

It's why most defensive stats don't tell the actual story, it just tells the story you want to tell.

Ok so whats the deal, is he not trying hard or is undersized for his position? How will he change if he gets here and still has to guard the same players he is guarding in the hawks?

Him guarding the ball with dray and wiggins as help would make a world of difference. (With loon/capela)

If it's him guarding the ball with klay and jk as help would make no difference. We'd still get exploited.

[Hoopstar23]

at this point Curry cant be mad... this is what he asked for, to run it back one more time back in the summer... he made his bed now he has to lay in it

[CDM_Stats]

Ok so whats the deal, is he not trying hard or is undersized for his position? How will he change if he gets here and still has to guard the same players he is guarding in the hawks?

Steph at this moment is playing worse defense than Trae young and the whole team has regressed. Idk how Murray will solve anything

The idea would be that he's the primary POA defender like he was in San Antonio where his defensive numbers were excellent

If he's the POA defender, that would mean Wiggins and Draymond would be together off-ball. And then it comes down to finding the 5th man. Looney thrived in that role when he knew who he was playing with and they trusted each other, but it might be hard to ring that bell again. Kuminga might be worth the effort, but his off-ball defense is actually atrocious and he'll need to get contested rebounds. Moody maybe, but then the team is undersized. TJD maybe, but he's given an awful lot of credit for the little impact he brings. Still, if you want a less smart but more athletic Looney type that can run the rim, sure...

Or if the Hawks trade Capela, that could work. His defense is kinda average but that might be enough

We've already been down this road man.. this exact conversation

[vvoland]

Yeah. You put in TJD or Looney. You make them MAKE a shot. It's just too easy to get a mismatch. And of course, they got that with Podz guarding Lebron. I just can't imagine another coach choosing 3 guards in that situation.

What's hard is that they got the Lakers to call a timeout. They showed their hand and then made zero changes afterwards. Of course they are going to draw up play to get Kuminga off of LeBron. All AD had to do was stay out of the way and stand still to take Green out of the play.

Imagine that play if they had TJD on AD, Green on LeBron, Kuminga on Vanderbilt, Podz on Russel and Curry on Reaves.

Instead of Podz on LeBron you end up with Kuminga on LeBron. Instead of LeBron splitting Kuminga and Podz you have him trying to split Kuminga and Green. Instead of Green trying to block the shot at the end you have our best shot blocker in TJD.

Kerr showed them a 3 PG lineup. They called timeout and of course they drew up a play to expose it. What were they expecting?

Thanks for breaking it down. Kerr just made it way too easy for them. He now isn't just running 3 guard lineups for offense -- he's literally doing it with the game on the line, the last possession, up by 1, and playing defense. What other coach would do this? In fact, I think a lot of coaches would be fired immediately for such a poor decision.

100%. In a season of terrible losses, this is the first that made me go to realgm

It seemed insane at the time, seems even more so in hindsight. I had to check cleaning the glass in case my eyes are lying. The curry/joseph/podz 3 man unit has a defensive rating of 134.4. that's in 31 possessions, if you exclude the players that were injured or fouled out at the time (moody, gp2, klay, wiggs, cp3). in 15 possession, the 5 man unit that was out there for the "stop," has a defensive rating of 186.7.

It seems like kerr decided to a. play the 3 smallest players available to him against a pretty big lakers unit and b. decided to not double on the catch w/ less than 5 seconds left? Those both seem like huge mistakes in a season full of awful coaching decisions.

At least kerr called time out in all 3 late game situations tonight: 14 sec in the 4th; 11 sec in 1st OT; 12 sec in 2nd OT. On the one hand, it seems like maybe he's finally understanding that this team isn't good enough to wing it late in games but on the other, he's shown 0 consistency with any strategic decisions this year, from starting/closing lineups, to late game offense, to fouling (or not) up 3, etc.

Having taken a pretty big dump on kerr, and despite having issues with his late game rotations going back to ezeli in the finals, even if you could fire him or he decided to 'retire' tomorrow, I have no idea who would be a better coach. I certainly don't think Kenny Atkinson will be an improvement. Nurse in the off-season, Kerr moves up to management, MDJ as Myers direct replacement may have been the move but I think most of us thought the core, Kerr included, should get another crack at it.

[floppymoose]

I'm typically fine with the refs, even in games where most of the board is up in arms. But tonight was a bit much even for me. Apparently it bothered Kerr as well:

“Our guys did everything they needed to do to close that game. They executed beautifully on offense and they were scraping and clawing defensively...give Lebron credit, he made the move at the end to draw the foul and then shot their 42nd and 43rd free throws and knocked them down. So give them credit.”

Watch on YouTube

[Sandy333]

Great contest today, from the referreing perspective that. Referre favorite Lakers vs Referre pet hate the warriors. Finally the refs take it in thier own hands with a foul call at end. Ironically it was a call for the warriors which was overturned.
It is clear no from apart from Thompson and to a lesser extent steph can make a open three for warriors.

[jozef]

Don't cry about free throws, Steve. Warriors choose a small team and Lakers choose big team.

[Romulus]

Don't cry about free throws, Steve. Warriors choose a small team and Lakers choose big team.

When the lead broadcast crew is calling out how bad it is…that’s not good. But two illegal defenses, lane violation and an inadvertent whistle has to be some sort of a bingo.

[floppymoose]

Yeah, my problem with the reffing isn't the free throw disparity. A finesse offense team that plays smallball defense will always have a big FT disparity against a team with dominant bigs like the Lakers. My problem was with the actual calls being made.

[Crazy-Canuck]

The good news is that kerr might have found a starting unit.

They had a net rtg of 31 and a raw +/- of 16 which is a BIG improvement over what kerr has trotted out there recently.

[Romulus]

The good news is that kerr might have found a starting unit.

They had a net rtg of 31 and a raw +/- of 16 which is a BIG improvement over what kerr has trotted out there recently.

Kerr never "finds," anything. He never sticks to anything. I've never seen a coach go away from what works like he does.

[Crazy-Canuck]

I never even noticed this.

Read on Twitter

[Mambomuziki]

The good news is that kerr might have found a starting unit.

They had a net rtg of 31 and a raw +/- of 16 which is a BIG improvement over what kerr has trotted out there recently.

Kerr never "finds," anything. He never sticks to anything. I've never seen a coach go away from what works like he does.

What baffles me is: Are all the coaches on that bench that bad. There is no one that can say something?
On another note! The FIBA World Cup, Kerr had Spo, Ty Lue and some really good coaches and they still fumbled.
Whats going on?

Sent from my Pixel 7a using RealGM mobile app

[EvanZ]

Draymond was +31 last night. The second best +/- last night Klay at +2. That is insane.

[Onus]

I never even noticed this.

Read on Twitter

The refs were senile last night. That ref that thought Klay was out of bounds. Just lol. He literally was pointing at the 3 point line and was drawing it. Lmao

It must be all those times we showed up the refs and now the refs just hate us.

[Onus]

Draymond was +31 last night. The second best +/- last night Klay at +2. That is insane.

It’s a shame we don’t have a faster looney on the bench or stashed in the g league anywhere.

[Onus]

Ok so whats the deal, is he not trying hard or is undersized for his position? How will he change if he gets here and still has to guard the same players he is guarding in the hawks?

Steph at this moment is playing worse defense than Trae young and the whole team has regressed. Idk how Murray will solve anything

The idea would be that he's the primary POA defender like he was in San Antonio where his defensive numbers were excellent

If he's the POA defender, that would mean Wiggins and Draymond would be together off-ball. And then it comes down to finding the 5th man. Looney thrived in that role when he knew who he was playing with and they trusted each other, but it might be hard to ring that bell again. Kuminga might be worth the effort, but his off-ball defense is actually atrocious and he'll need to get contested rebounds. Moody maybe, but then the team is undersized. TJD maybe, but he's given an awful lot of credit for the little impact he brings. Still, if you want a less smart but more athletic Looney type that can run the rim, sure...

Or if the Hawks trade Capela, that could work. His defense is kinda average but that might be enough

We've already been down this road man.. this exact conversation

Just have jk be poa and get a big that can shoot