NBA Finals Game 1: GSW vs BOS

[HiRez]

Draymond shouldn’t shoot at all, Iguodala should play not much and not shoot and not play with multiple non-shooters. Poole should play less if he can’t be a positive force, Moody should play some and we need GP2 if he can go. Wiggins can play a few more minutes as well.

[Impuniti]

Draymond shouldn’t shoot at all, Iguodala should play not much and not shoot and not play with multiple non-shooters. Poole should play less if he can’t be a positive force, Moody should play some and we need GP2 if he can go. Wiggins can play a few more minutes as well.

Iggy and Dray should never play with each other. Especially vs a team like Boston. I seriously have to question how many drugs this amazing coaching staff was on to play both of them at the same time. Any schmuk around here knows that, so do all these smart guys fumble the bag so spectacularly?

I'm not saying that's the reason they lost, there were a few. But this mistake is inexcusable because of how dumb it is.

[Impuniti]

With the way the celtics are making him work on defense, im not sure quantity over quality is the best idea. If steph goes 40, he cant always be the primary aggressor, he'll be gassed.

Common sense is not playing well to this crowd rn

If they saw the 2 min splits per shift on Steph they wouldnt be saying this.. its just baffling though. They act like its a video game

The #1 player in terms of movement on offense. #1. In the league. Let's run him for 40 minutes though, play right through that ankle roll, and who cares if he cant create as much separation and his percentages plummet? We have to do it

Again, if you are aligning on Tim Kawakami with anything that requires critical thinking, you're not playing the odds

I agree, people need to relax. Steph wanting to play more makes sense, that's why you have a coach.Keep him at 38MPG and figure out rotations that someone that isn't a complete idiot wouldn't put out. Then make adjustments from there.

[FNQ]

With the way the celtics are making him work on defense, im not sure quantity over quality is the best idea. If steph goes 40, he cant always be the primary aggressor, he'll be gassed.

Common sense is not playing well to this crowd rn

If they saw the 2 min splits per shift on Steph they wouldnt be saying this.. its just baffling though. They act like its a video game

The #1 player in terms of movement on offense. #1. In the league. Let's run him for 40 minutes though, play right through that ankle roll, and who cares if he cant create as much separation and his percentages plummet? We have to do it

Again, if you are aligning on Tim Kawakami with anything that requires critical thinking, you're not playing the odds

I agree, people need to relax. Steph wanting to play more makes sense, that's why you have a coach.Keep him at 38MPG and figure out rotations that someone that isn't a complete idiot wouldn't put out. Then make adjustments from there.

If we're going by raw numbers, and sticking to Kerr's sub plans, I'd be doing my best to keep him at 34 as a marker, while allowing him to get to 36 by extending one shift, IF the situation calls for it.

8:30
7 minute rest to include quarter break
8:30

Looking at the shifts he's played through the season, that's going to get you max Steph Curry, and typically minutes past 7 in his shifts start seeing diminishing returns.. a trend that's gone on long before this season. Now there are of course variables - if someone else gets hot and Steph doesnt have to run the offensive gauntlet each possession, you can probably add time to him without issue.

But the one thing you cannot do is run him into the ground when he's the one guy doing good work. That's how you not only physically exhaust someone, but you just beat them down mentally. Tired Steph hero-ball does not work. If they want him on court for 40 minutes then you have to play him with a hot Klay, Wiggins, or Poole and let him stand in the corner, taking one defender out of the play for a while

If the fanbase here *really* wants to get crazy, instead of doing something that likely won't work... bench Looney, start Poole. Oh noez, the defense.. I know. But if we don't get someone going offensively early that isn't Steph, we're going to have a problem. Have Dray run the offense and keep Horford or Time Lord on the perimeter with him.. and then attack and kick, because Horford/Time Lord is going to collapse into the middle (they sold out for this routinely) and that means one of Curry, Klay, Poole or Wiggins is going to get, at least, a decently open perimeter shot.

You beat the Celtics by the drive and kick, and 4 of our players (Curry/Poole/Dray/Wiggins) should be able to do enough on the drive to make it work

[Scotty2Hotty]

There's no way the celtics continue to hit 50% of 3s. Horford and white having career nights on the same night from 3. Like come on.

This. Who hits their first seven 3’s in the 4th Q of a playoff game? Dallas? Nope. The 2018 Rockets? Nope. The Warriors in the last 8 seasons? Nope.

The Celtics shoot the 3 very well, but that 4th Q was an anomaly.

[Big J]

Common sense is not playing well to this crowd rn

If they saw the 2 min splits per shift on Steph they wouldnt be saying this.. its just baffling though. They act like its a video game

The #1 player in terms of movement on offense. #1. In the league. Let's run him for 40 minutes though, play right through that ankle roll, and who cares if he cant create as much separation and his percentages plummet? We have to do it

Again, if you are aligning on Tim Kawakami with anything that requires critical thinking, you're not playing the odds

I agree, people need to relax. Steph wanting to play more makes sense, that's why you have a coach.Keep him at 38MPG and figure out rotations that someone that isn't a complete idiot wouldn't put out. Then make adjustments from there.

If we're going by raw numbers, and sticking to Kerr's sub plans, I'd be doing my best to keep him at 34 as a marker, while allowing him to get to 36 by extending one shift, IF the situation calls for it.

8:30
7 minute rest to include quarter break
8:30

Looking at the shifts he's played through the season, that's going to get you max Steph Curry, and typically minutes past 7 in his shifts start seeing diminishing returns.. a trend that's gone on long before this season. Now there are of course variables - if someone else gets hot and Steph doesnt have to run the offensive gauntlet each possession, you can probably add time to him without issue.

But the one thing you cannot do is run him into the ground when he's the one guy doing good work. That's how you not only physically exhaust someone, but you just beat them down mentally. Tired Steph hero-ball does not work. If they want him on court for 40 minutes then you have to play him with a hot Klay, Wiggins, or Poole and let him stand in the corner, taking one defender out of the play for a while

If the fanbase here *really* wants to get crazy, instead of doing something that likely won't work... bench Looney, start Poole. Oh noez, the defense.. I know. But if we don't get someone going offensively early that isn't Steph, we're going to have a problem. Have Dray run the offense and keep Horford or Time Lord on the perimeter with him.. and then attack and kick, because Horford/Time Lord is going to collapse into the middle (they sold out for this routinely) and that means one of Curry, Klay, Poole or Wiggins is going to get, at least, a decently open perimeter shot.

You beat the Celtics by the drive and kick, and 4 of our players (Curry/Poole/Dray/Wiggins) should be able to do enough on the drive to make it work

Yea starting Poole is not a bad idea. We need to get open shots. The only open shots we had were the Curry ones where Boston stupidly was playing drop coverage on him. Otherwise it seemed like we had guys draped all over us all game.

[Onus]

Common sense is not playing well to this crowd rn

If they saw the 2 min splits per shift on Steph they wouldnt be saying this.. its just baffling though. They act like its a video game

The #1 player in terms of movement on offense. #1. In the league. Let's run him for 40 minutes though, play right through that ankle roll, and who cares if he cant create as much separation and his percentages plummet? We have to do it

Again, if you are aligning on Tim Kawakami with anything that requires critical thinking, you're not playing the odds

Someone from Poole, Klay, Wiggins is going to have to pick up their play on the offensive end. Probably going to have to be Klay or Wiggins. Once you put a shot blocker in front of Poole he get negated.

Wiggins did fine aside from a couple open missed 3s.. the problem is the rotation relative to the defense being played. Like even if I wanted to be a devil's advocate for the rotation, I can't. There's nothing there.. its putting the players in a terrible position, so much so that the fans here want to turn Curry into a below efficiency scorer towards the end of his shifts just to hit a round minute mark because other players do it and he'll have an entire day off to recover

But the Poole/Klay/Iguodala/Dray pairing is especially interesting because it reeks of old school coaching. Despite the numbers, Kerr used this quartet under the assumption that Poole and Klay could score enough and Dray/Iguodala/Poole could create enough. Well, Iguodala can't create, Poole is a low IQ decision maker, and Dray was used off ball.

Make that make sense, because I can't.

If someone actually thinks Poole is Curry-lite then it makes sense because Curry can carry those guys on offense. But since Poole is not Curry-lite it doesn't work. Iguodala hasn't played in a long time and Draymond is just a complete negative on offense now. It's crazy how much Draymond has aged. And really with so many teams playing 5 out offense it's been negating Draymond's greatest defensive qualities of playing both the ball and and the roller. He just can't make it up on defense anymore with more ground to cover.

[Onus]

Common sense is not playing well to this crowd rn

If they saw the 2 min splits per shift on Steph they wouldnt be saying this.. its just baffling though. They act like its a video game

The #1 player in terms of movement on offense. #1. In the league. Let's run him for 40 minutes though, play right through that ankle roll, and who cares if he cant create as much separation and his percentages plummet? We have to do it

Again, if you are aligning on Tim Kawakami with anything that requires critical thinking, you're not playing the odds

I agree, people need to relax. Steph wanting to play more makes sense, that's why you have a coach.Keep him at 38MPG and figure out rotations that someone that isn't a complete idiot wouldn't put out. Then make adjustments from there.

If we're going by raw numbers, and sticking to Kerr's sub plans, I'd be doing my best to keep him at 34 as a marker, while allowing him to get to 36 by extending one shift, IF the situation calls for it.

8:30
7 minute rest to include quarter break
8:30

Looking at the shifts he's played through the season, that's going to get you max Steph Curry, and typically minutes past 7 in his shifts start seeing diminishing returns.. a trend that's gone on long before this season. Now there are of course variables - if someone else gets hot and Steph doesnt have to run the offensive gauntlet each possession, you can probably add time to him without issue.

But the one thing you cannot do is run him into the ground when he's the one guy doing good work. That's how you not only physically exhaust someone, but you just beat them down mentally. Tired Steph hero-ball does not work. If they want him on court for 40 minutes then you have to play him with a hot Klay, Wiggins, or Poole and let him stand in the corner, taking one defender out of the play for a while

If the fanbase here *really* wants to get crazy, instead of doing something that likely won't work... bench Looney, start Poole. Oh noez, the defense.. I know. But if we don't get someone going offensively early that isn't Steph, we're going to have a problem. Have Dray run the offense and keep Horford or Time Lord on the perimeter with him.. and then attack and kick, because Horford/Time Lord is going to collapse into the middle (they sold out for this routinely) and that means one of Curry, Klay, Poole or Wiggins is going to get, at least, a decently open perimeter shot.

You beat the Celtics by the drive and kick, and 4 of our players (Curry/Poole/Dray/Wiggins) should be able to do enough on the drive to make it work

The biggest problem with this is Poole actually kicking. He doesn't see Williams in time and Williams just stuffs him. But in theory yea we know Williams is rotating to the rim, just need to find the open guy and swing and someone should get an open shot.

I don't think we can play 2 no offense players against the celtics - Iguodala, Dray, looney. If we do they better cause a ton of havoc defensively because otherwise they are shutting us down if there's 2 of them out there and no curry. I think this is where GPII comes into play because he would be added to the no offensive players but he creates turnovers especially with all the loose ball handlers on the celtics.

[WarriorGM]

Common sense is not playing well to this crowd rn

If they saw the 2 min splits per shift on Steph they wouldnt be saying this.. its just baffling though. They act like its a video game

The #1 player in terms of movement on offense. #1. In the league. Let's run him for 40 minutes though, play right through that ankle roll, and who cares if he cant create as much separation and his percentages plummet? We have to do it

Again, if you are aligning on Tim Kawakami with anything that requires critical thinking, you're not playing the odds

I agree, people need to relax. Steph wanting to play more makes sense, that's why you have a coach.Keep him at 38MPG and figure out rotations that someone that isn't a complete idiot wouldn't put out. Then make adjustments from there.

If we're going by raw numbers, and sticking to Kerr's sub plans, I'd be doing my best to keep him at 34 as a marker, while allowing him to get to 36 by extending one shift, IF the situation calls for it.

8:30
7 minute rest to include quarter break
8:30

Looking at the shifts he's played through the season, that's going to get you max Steph Curry, and typically minutes past 7 in his shifts start seeing diminishing returns.. a trend that's gone on long before this season. Now there are of course variables - if someone else gets hot and Steph doesnt have to run the offensive gauntlet each possession, you can probably add time to him without issue.

But the one thing you cannot do is run him into the ground when he's the one guy doing good work. That's how you not only physically exhaust someone, but you just beat them down mentally. Tired Steph hero-ball does not work. If they want him on court for 40 minutes then you have to play him with a hot Klay, Wiggins, or Poole and let him stand in the corner, taking one defender out of the play for a while

If the fanbase here *really* wants to get crazy, instead of doing something that likely won't work... bench Looney, start Poole. Oh noez, the defense.. I know. But if we don't get someone going offensively early that isn't Steph, we're going to have a problem. Have Dray run the offense and keep Horford or Time Lord on the perimeter with him.. and then attack and kick, because Horford/Time Lord is going to collapse into the middle (they sold out for this routinely) and that means one of Curry, Klay, Poole or Wiggins is going to get, at least, a decently open perimeter shot.

You beat the Celtics by the drive and kick, and 4 of our players (Curry/Poole/Dray/Wiggins) should be able to do enough on the drive to make it work

I was all in favor of the different Steph rotations during the season even when in some regular season games Steph ended up playing 40+ minutes simply because it would be preparation for the playoffs. Maybe something useful could be learned. Apparently nothing much useful was learned.

Also the thing that really draws attention to the way Steph was played in this game is not the minutes per se, it's the way Steph was taken out when he was hot. That's the real frustrating part and it is a pattern with Kerr. What's the joke? The guy who can best stop Steph is Kerr. Basketball is a game of runs and momentum. Steph from the way he plays you can tell is very aware of that. Kerr not so much. Yes he'll call timeouts but letting the hot hand loose to rain destruction? It seems that's something he hasn't quite figured out yet.

[Onus]

I agree, people need to relax. Steph wanting to play more makes sense, that's why you have a coach.Keep him at 38MPG and figure out rotations that someone that isn't a complete idiot wouldn't put out. Then make adjustments from there.

If we're going by raw numbers, and sticking to Kerr's sub plans, I'd be doing my best to keep him at 34 as a marker, while allowing him to get to 36 by extending one shift, IF the situation calls for it.

8:30
7 minute rest to include quarter break
8:30

Looking at the shifts he's played through the season, that's going to get you max Steph Curry, and typically minutes past 7 in his shifts start seeing diminishing returns.. a trend that's gone on long before this season. Now there are of course variables - if someone else gets hot and Steph doesnt have to run the offensive gauntlet each possession, you can probably add time to him without issue.

But the one thing you cannot do is run him into the ground when he's the one guy doing good work. That's how you not only physically exhaust someone, but you just beat them down mentally. Tired Steph hero-ball does not work. If they want him on court for 40 minutes then you have to play him with a hot Klay, Wiggins, or Poole and let him stand in the corner, taking one defender out of the play for a while

If the fanbase here *really* wants to get crazy, instead of doing something that likely won't work... bench Looney, start Poole. Oh noez, the defense.. I know. But if we don't get someone going offensively early that isn't Steph, we're going to have a problem. Have Dray run the offense and keep Horford or Time Lord on the perimeter with him.. and then attack and kick, because Horford/Time Lord is going to collapse into the middle (they sold out for this routinely) and that means one of Curry, Klay, Poole or Wiggins is going to get, at least, a decently open perimeter shot.

You beat the Celtics by the drive and kick, and 4 of our players (Curry/Poole/Dray/Wiggins) should be able to do enough on the drive to make it work

I was all in favor of the different Steph rotations during the season even when in some regular season games Steph ended up playing 40+ minutes simply because it would be preparation for the playoffs. Maybe something useful could be learned. Apparently nothing much useful was learned.

Also the thing that really draws attention to the way Steph was played in this game is not that the minutes per se, it's the way Steph was taken out when he was hot. That's the real frustrating part and it is a pattern with Kerr. What's the joke? The guy who can best stop Steph is Kerr. Basketball is a game of runs and momentum. Steph from the way he plays you can tell is very aware of that. Kerr not so much. Yes he'll call timeouts but letting the hot hand loose to rain destruction? It seems that's something he hasn't quite figured out yet.

The team for all the praise of being high iq, just stopped looking for Curry when he was hot. It was so odd.

[HiRez]

The team for all the praise of being high iq, just stopped looking for Curry when he was hot. It was so odd.

It’s just a matter of small details. Like remembering you have the greatest shooter in the history of basketball on your team. And remembering all the way from a few minutes ago.

[FNQ]

You dont "learn" how to play 40 minutes. You don't. Players calibrate their shots for playing full speed at an NBA level. The best players dont even master this - Curry's the greatest shooter of all time and he goes through prolonged slumps because he can't always calibrate perfectly

[cpower]

vs Bucks
G2 W (20/43 = 48%)
G4 W (14/37 = 38%)
G6 W (17/43 = 40%)
G7 W (22/55 = 40%)

vs Heat
G2 W (20/40 = 50%)


vs Warriors
G1 W (21/41 = 51%)

if we can make adjustment defensively we should be ok...or if Kerr just let them shoot..just look at the bucks series. its gonna get ugly..

[Big J]

The key is who you let shoot them. White, Horford & Marcus Smart aren’t going to keep shooting this well. If they win with those guys shooting that well we just shake their hands and say good job.

[and1GS]

Feel like this could have been a post in one of our many other overreaction threads....

[cpower]

The key is who you let shoot them. White, Horford & Marcus Smart aren’t going to keep shooting this well. If they win with those guys shooting that well we just shake their hands and say good job.

no, but Pritchard and Williams were taking turns shooting the ball. They have enough shooters who can get hot at any moment

[Chris Porter's Hair]

You dont "learn" how to play 40 minutes. You don't. Players calibrate their shots for playing full speed at an NBA level. The best players dont even master this - Curry's the greatest shooter of all time and he goes through prolonged slumps because he can't always calibrate perfectly

I also think it is suspect that people seem to think, "Other players play more than 40 minutes, so Steph can too." Maybe he can, maybe he can't, but it is a bit of apples and oranges. I strongly suspect those other players don't run non-stop the way Steph does, and I think there is even data to back that up. Part of why he's so effective is that he never stops moving. I'm pretty sure he could play more minutes if he spent a bunch of them standing in the corner with his hands on his knees watching other people dribble around. I really have no idea how much longer he can realistically sprint around during a game, even if it is only for 4-6 more games.

[Chris Porter's Hair]

The key is who you let shoot them. White, Horford & Marcus Smart aren’t going to keep shooting this well. If they win with those guys shooting that well we just shake their hands and say good job.

no, but Pritchard and Williams were taking turns shooting the ball. They have enough shooters who can get hot at any moment

Well, Williams only took one three all game. So maybe they took turn shooting the ball.

[Big J]

The key is who you let shoot them. White, Horford & Marcus Smart aren’t going to keep shooting this well. If they win with those guys shooting that well we just shake their hands and say good job.

no, but Pritchard and Williams were taking turns shooting the ball. They have enough shooters who can get hot at any moment

We limited Pritchard & Williams to 4 three point attempts...

[Big J]

Curry is 34 years old and he's added extra weight to his frame this year. Playing him 40 minutes would be a bad idea unless it's an elimination game.