PJ did exactly what you are suggesting here, and he got called for a foul. I won't panic with Durant's play. Some wide open looks by Klay & Young were the difference in my opinion. You just can't have those gimmes and expect to beat this GSW team.
you can't guard KD. he's the only reason why we wouldn't beat the warriors in 5, or anyone else in the league for that matter. you have to beat him up and be physical with him off ball and get him out of his comfort spots offensively. tuck can do that but kd will shoot over him at which point you kinda gotta live with that. they lowkey won with KD iso ball. our bench has to equal or outproduce KD+ their bench. we didn't get that tonight. clint has a decent chance but then our rim production would be severely lacking and put way too much of an onus on harden and co to stay in front of their man.
But it was kind of a ridiculous one, near the end of the game. KD just forcing the refs to make or break and it worked. If we had that kind of intense defense the entire game, I'd feel much better about this, loss or not.
Maybe start possessions with Clint matching up with KD. I'm not sure how much of a difference it would make on rim protection, since Draymond plays a lot on the perimeter anyway.
you can't guard him since he joined GS because you can't breathe on him. when GS came back from down 3-1 vs OKC they were able to body him up and make him put up shots while being hip checked. witness the late foul call on tucker tonite after the clean strip -- unfukingbelievable
w's would scheme and adjust to run more screens off ball for curry and klay and make harden play defense and fight through screens. KD has gotten much better at playmaking, they can use iggy/draymond to find guys cutting to the rim also. it's just a tough matchup. i think you can run capela at the beginning of the game against KD when harden, etc are fresh and can stay in front of their man, but i don't think it'd last over the course of the game when our guys get tired from carrying the offensive load. and i'm also not sure clint can do that for more than a quarter. simply put, we need our role players to step up offensively and hit shots. it helps our defense overall, slows the pace down cause the warriors have to take the ball out the basket, etc...
There is no defense, he’s the second best player in the world. Top 5 players don’t have any defense when they’re on. Capela, Tucker and Harden all played exceptional defense on the post against him. Just gotta hope he misses next game, and honestly if he’s not hitting, Curry probably will.
Yep, common knowledge would be to try and double but they have way too many shooters/playmakers. Obviously can’t leave Curry or Klay and if you send help off Draymond or Iggy those are the two you want shooting but they won’t cause they have the ability to put the ball on the floor to penetrate and collapse the D even further to get an easy layup or find open 3 for Curry/Klay. I think our best chance is to hope Luc can bounce back and simply hope to contain KD. Maybe send a double here and there but only from the weak side (so KD doesn’t see it) just to keep him honest but full time double team is a bad idea. If it’s not KD there’s 3 other guys that can kill us just as effectively. On a side note please do NOT put PJ Tucker on Durant anymore. I mentioned it going into the series his strength and physicality is not effective when Durant has a 6 inch advantage. Tucker should have one job and one job only. Be physical with Klay and try to shut him down. He shouldn’t guard anyone else.
We did ok on him . IMO our d did not lose us this game ... it was our offense . Failing to convert at the rim and letting the warriors get out in transition was the difference .
Bad O leads to bad D. Harden shot the ball terrifically, which masks some major problems with our offense in this game. Very little flow, and too much over-dribbling without proper awareness of the shot clock. We need to be better at getting our main weapons the ball off the move, rather than pass them the ball 30 feet from the basket and expect them to make a play off the dribble against their defenders.
Honestly, was anybody on him? I don’t remember. All I remember was he had wide open look after wide open look.
I know it’s been said 1,000 times, but I don’t think I’ll ever get over Durant joining the Warriors. To quote a friend, “it was the single most cowardly move in the history of the NBA.” His move during a one-year anomaly in the salary cap has ruined the competitive balance of this sport for the next five years, especially if the rumors are true and guys like Klay take a discount to keep the team together. It isn’t fun and it makes me miss David Stern. He would’ve invented an arbitrary rule to break the team up.
Yes we had some issues with that ... but i expect harden and Paul to perform well when they get the switch of their choice . I agree , asking Ariza , PJ , or Luc to create off the dribble is asking too much ... but it's not too much from Gordon . And he didn't deliver ( in terms of being aggressive and making the right plays ) for the first 3 quarters . That was the main issue . Our offense flowed fine in the first up until Gordon came in ... and then we made another run in the second q when we had both James and Chris in . Gordon just stunk . And not having that secondary playmaker killed us because it would end up in situations when our non-creators had to try and do something . The warriors D is legit . I don't expect to score like we did vs min or Utah . Our offense was palatable overall ... but certain slow spots ( due to lack of a second creator and when Clint isn't in , vertical spacing ) killed us . You are right harden shot a bit better than expected ... but maybe he can keep it up
