Game 39, Cavaliers at Warriors, 5:30 PST, Klay Klay Klay!!!

[and1GS]

Alright, re-watched the game late last night and here are all my Klay specific takeaways. Haven't read this thread so apologies if it's a re-hash.

It's important to add an overall caveat to my thoughts first. I am blown away he didn't bomb and end up with 0 points on 20 shots. The amount of anxiety and pressure heaped on him for this must have been incredible. I have next to no concerns about Klay moving forward and think almost all of the flaws boil down to first game jitters.

THE GOOD
Overall...he's back. That was really impressive. He was definitely pushing, but looked fluid and didn't seem to have lost a step on D. They are obviously trying to give him a break on that end a bit as Wiggins or GP took point of attack, but I didn't see anything to be concerned about. If this was game 1 after 2 years off we should be extremely encouraged.

He took every shot you'd need to see from him and hit at least one of each. Movement looked good.

He's already adding a huge dynamic of forcing defenders to pay attention to more than just Steph. Combine that with having Wiggins or Poole out there and Steph could be getting more freed up moving forward.

The dunk. WTF.

THE NOT SO GOOD
Maybe it has been so long since I've watched him, but I literally never remember Klay taking a turnaround fadeaway from the midrange and he took maybe 4 or 5 last night? He also dribbled far more than I've ever seen him. I'm hoping it's more of a remembering his role/what he's great at situation rather than an 'evolution' because those terminated dribble turnarounds are low percentage and offense killers.

Dribbled into trouble a few times and terminated his dribble, then had to heave a bad look. Not very Klay like.

Seemed to have a little trouble re-integrating into the offensive (but not defensive) scheme. Got 'in the way' a couple times when we're used to him being a fulcrum of that motion offense.

Really jittery on defense combined with a bad call or two. This is one I'm not concerned about as it's more of a time thing, but what sticks out to me is when he went to close out at the left 3pt corner and got blown by easily. It was more technique than athleticism, but he's certainly no stopper yet.

THE KERR

Love the 1/2 screens.

I think he has a really tough problem to solve moving forward with rotations. I won't say it was a disaster this game, but we couldn't really get Wiggins or Otto the space they needed to be impactful on offense. I do think a lot of that is not having Draymond, but some of the blame is still on Kerr for over-rotating on defense first lineups.

[GSWFan1994]

Hey, who remembers “I just want them to be kinda solid until Klay comes back.”

Well noted!

[Samurai]

THE NOT SO GOOD
Maybe it has been so long since I've watched him, but I literally never remember Klay taking a turnaround fadeaway from the midrange and he took maybe 4 or 5 last night? He also dribbled far more than I've ever seen him. I'm hoping it's more of a remembering his role/what he's great at situation rather than an 'evolution' because those terminated dribble turnarounds are low percentage and offense killers.

Dribbled into trouble a few times and terminated his dribble, then had to heave a bad look. Not very Klay like.

Seemed to have a little trouble re-integrating into the offensive (but not defensive) scheme. Got 'in the way' a couple times when we're used to him being a fulcrum of that motion offense.

As far as all the dribbling, we have to remember that he hasn't played within a passing/motion offense in over 2 years. Much of his rehab time has been spent doing individual drills which include a lot of iso drills. So I think it's only natural that he would be more comfortable right now going iso rather than all the moving for catching passes. The more he plays in this offense, I think we will see more and more of the catch-and-shoot Klay return as he regains familiarity with that aspect. But having Klay as a bit of an iso threat can be helpful for a team that really doesn't have anyone besides Wiggins and Steph that can reliably create their own shot.

[parsnips33]

Man it was great to see him out there again. And he looked better than I expected. Really excited for our first game with Steph/Dray/Klay all together again

[Warriors Analyst]

Alright, re-watched the game late last night and here are all my Klay specific takeaways. Haven't read this thread so apologies if it's a re-hash.

It's important to add an overall caveat to my thoughts first. I am blown away he didn't bomb and end up with 0 points on 20 shots. The amount of anxiety and pressure heaped on him for this must have been incredible. I have next to no concerns about Klay moving forward and think almost all of the flaws boil down to first game jitters.

THE GOOD
Overall...he's back. That was really impressive. He was definitely pushing, but looked fluid and didn't seem to have lost a step on D. They are obviously trying to give him a break on that end a bit as Wiggins or GP took point of attack, but I didn't see anything to be concerned about. If this was game 1 after 2 years off we should be extremely encouraged.

He took every shot you'd need to see from him and hit at least one of each. Movement looked good.

He's already adding a huge dynamic of forcing defenders to pay attention to more than just Steph. Combine that with having Wiggins or Poole out there and Steph could be getting more freed up moving forward.

The dunk. WTF.

THE NOT SO GOOD
Maybe it has been so long since I've watched him, but I literally never remember Klay taking a turnaround fadeaway from the midrange and he took maybe 4 or 5 last night? He also dribbled far more than I've ever seen him. I'm hoping it's more of a remembering his role/what he's great at situation rather than an 'evolution' because those terminated dribble turnarounds are low percentage and offense killers.

Dribbled into trouble a few times and terminated his dribble, then had to heave a bad look. Not very Klay like.

Seemed to have a little trouble re-integrating into the offensive (but not defensive) scheme. Got 'in the way' a couple times when we're used to him being a fulcrum of that motion offense.

Really jittery on defense combined with a bad call or two. This is one I'm not concerned about as it's more of a time thing, but what sticks out to me is when he went to close out at the left 3pt corner and got blown by easily. It was more technique than athleticism, but he's certainly no stopper yet.

THE KERR

Love the 1/2 screens.

I think he has a really tough problem to solve moving forward with rotations. I won't say it was a disaster this game, but we couldn't really get Wiggins or Otto the space they needed to be impactful on offense. I do think a lot of that is not having Draymond, but some of the blame is still on Kerr for over-rotating on defense first lineups.

Klay took plenty of mid-range fades in the past. More of them came off of one dribble than they did multiple dribbles, but the overdribbling probably has something to do with Draymond's absence.

I welcome Klay taking more mid-range shots off the dribble. Klay is tall enough to get his shot off against most defenders in the league, health and explosiveness provided, and when he's hot, the quality of defender is practically irrelevant. The Warriors need someone to take and hit tough, contested 2's when the offense gets scouted or goes late in the clock in the playoffs. Klay is as good an option as any because he's taller than Steph and because he won't face those same hyperaggressive doubles teams that Steph does.

[and1GS]

Ya you're right, I think what's throwing me off is the multiple dribbles or him accidentally terminating then taking a bad look instead of passing out. That's likely a comfort thing.

Watch on YouTube

[Scoots1994]

Considering the last 2 years and the pressure I think it was a GREAT first game back. I think the issues are all likely to be fixed very quickly as he integrates into the team and he can "just play".

[tarantism]

73-9 still in play. Just saying.

The thing that strikes me the most seeing Klay back out there is the outstanding depth of this team. Steph/Klay/Wigs/Dray/Looney with Poole/GP2/Porter/Iggy/Beli is an outstanding 10 man rotation, and that's even before you get into the youth (Kuminga/Wiseman/Moody) and solid plug and play vets who can at least give you minutes (JTA,Lee).

I mean, wow. That's 15 NBA players right there, all of whom can give you 15-25 good minutes on a given night. I don't think any team in the NBA boasts that kind of depth right now.

[parsnips33]

Considering the last 2 years and the pressure I think it was a GREAT first game back. I think the issues are all likely to be fixed very quickly as he integrates into the team and he can "just play".

For real, I was super impressed by him. Sure there were some uncharacteristic mistakes but mentally he was pretty well composed considering all the pressure and expectations around his return

[HiRez]

Hopefully Klay can give us a boost for a tough stretch of games coming up. We have the Grizz, then a day off, then Milwaukee and Chicago back to back, all on the road. Yuck.

[HiRez]

73-9 still in play. Just saying.

The thing that strikes me the most seeing Klay back out there is the outstanding depth of this team. Steph/Klay/Wigs/Dray/Looney with Poole/GP2/Porter/Iggy/Beli is an outstanding 10 man rotation, and that's even before you get into the youth (Kuminga/Wiseman/Moody) and solid plug and play vets who can at least give you minutes (JTA,Lee).

I mean, wow. That's 15 NBA players right there, all of whom can give you 15-25 good minutes on a given night. I don't think any team in the NBA boasts that kind of depth right now.

It does look like impressive depth, but that bench was really awful the last game, shooting 37% overall and 15% from 3, and they weren't much better than that in the previous Pels game shooting 21% from 3. Oh, or the Dallas game before that where they went 1/12 (8%!) from 3. Without Steph and/or Draymond, our offense is a bit of a mess, they look like they don't have a plan out there, struggle to get into a rhythm in half court, and try to force some really ugly desperation passes.

Supposedly the Kings are making Haliburton available "for the right deal", which I'm assuming is too rich for our blood, but damn I would like to get him, he'd be a perfect backup to Steph with a bridge to taking over, whereas I'm still real iffy on Poole being able to fill that role.

[svart]

i am not a true believer of the +/- cult.

And GB, together with the game threads from here in the last few months deserve The KOUA for the entire career.

The game at the Grizzlies on Jan 11 is sort of a big game. The Grizzlies are the hottest team in the league. The Warriors and Suns are the league leaders. I think Stevie Adams is out with covid which helps. Looney looked great tonight but I never saw anybody make Bogut look weak until Stevie Adams made Bogut look weak in the 2016 playoffs. Bogut might have been playing injured. Adams was also making Draymond look weak.

Even without Adams the Grizzlies are tough to guard and they are playing good defense. We may need Draymond. I don't know what Draymond's injury is like.

Big game deserves at least a mediocre game thread. But the game thread needs to be made 4 hours in advance of the start of the game or Ducler will make a generic game thread. Ducler is making the game threads for every team board that is late in making their own threads.

I meant some of the posters in the game thread, not the threads itself.

[cpower]

the less Curry playing with Poole the better...Klay is just a much bigger threat from three. one of our problems is to force playing Curry with Poole Dray and Looney and he got no space to operate anything.