The win on the road in New Orleans last week was a nail-biter that had Draymond Green at the free throw line, up 110-108, with two seconds remaining. He made the first, missed the second, but he got the offensive rebound, with some notable effort from Brandin Podziemski in the process. Green then went 1-for-2 from the line again to seal the deal, 112-108.
It wasn’t widely reported, but in the locker room after the game, Stephen Curry spoke to reporters from China’s Tencent as well as Kane Pitman of ESPN Australia/New Zealand.
In the middle of an answer to a reporter’s question, Draymond blurted out from the other side of the room, “Hey Steph, if I made the free throw, I was gonna do Night-Night.”
Curry burst out in laughter and took his time to enjoy that one, finally saying, “I can’t wait for that one. The first one of that is gonna be phenomenal.”
Actually, Dray busted out the Night-Night in the recent win over OKC. This article’s pic has that one in the upper right-hand corner. But yeah, look out for the Night-Night if he clinches the game with a shot.
Now, I don’t really like to write meme-y articles here at LGW, so of course I have more — way more — than just reporting on one sound bite.
2-2 week that was “sort of” road trip (three on the road at LA, NOLA, San Antonio with a home game vs Atlanta stuck in between), do I look bothered like the rest of Warriors Twitter/Threads/BlueSky/YouTube? Again, it doesn’t matter what thumb-typing platform it’s called, people who are are stressed out about something in their lives are gonna use their phones to complain and retransmit their angst. I already saw it on every platform after the loss to the Spurs. You cannot tell me otherwise.
Thumb-typing complaint after complaint doesn’t make the root issues go away for any given angry fan, but it sure does feel good to that guy for a few minutes, to blame someone on the Warriors online, who can’t defend themselves. We’re not about that. If we’re pretty much always having gratitude for the whole squad and the opportunity to watch basketball played at the most elite level on Earth, then we’re kinda always marveling at every facet of the game.
Me and my 1% of 1% on our YouTube channel, we are so immersed in the behind-the-scenes, in awe of this creation by James Naismith, that we don’t even have time to be upset about anything, let alone focus on results — which is a symptom of an over-analytical mind stuck in survival mode. We’re having too much fun with the process — of being like the 19th man on the squad, a fly on the wall.
And along the process of going .500 on the most recent road trip, James Harden, Stephon Castle (no surprise this young star went off, check what Victor Wembanyama said, below), Wemby, Chris Paul and Tyronn Lue sure heaped a lot of respect and praise for the Dubs and our GOAT. Just follow the transcript below or watch the compilation video.
Wembanyama even called Steph’s desire to win “immortal” — that’s not only from the translation service I use, but also tweeted out by a French reporter who was on the scene in San Antonio two nights ago (full transcript below).
Behind-the-scenes reporting rules, my friends… 💪
00:00 STEPHEN CURRY, POSTGAME NEW ORLEANS: …way back, but we like the position we’re in now and it’s a different team, so —
00:04 DRAYMOND GREEN (FROM ACROSS THE LOCKER ROOM): Hey Steph, if I made the free throw, I was gonna do Night-Night.
00:09 I can’t wait for that one. The first one of that is gonna be phenomenal. But yeah, just trying to play good on both ends and give ourselves a chance.
00:17 Dray said that he would do the Night-Night. Is there any type of copyright on that in this locker room with you? Would you allow that?
00:23 There is a copyright for sure. But there’s a grace period for certain guys and he definitely qualifies.
00:31 JAMES HARDEN (PRACTICE IN LA BEFORE GSW-LAC): I mean, I’m one of the most confident guys that we have in this league. But now probably won’t catch Steph. And I don’t think anybody will, honestly, just because — and Steph started and — he just, I don’t know man, he can shoot the shit out of the ball. And, granted, a lot of these guys are on our list are catch-and-shoot players, right? So they came off pin downs, they were spot shots or whatnot. Now in the games evolved, guys like Steph is coming off pin-downs. He’s creating off iso’s, he’s coming off pick-and-roll. So there’s so many different variables to be able to shoot the three and make shots and do it at an efficient, high level. So somebody has to play — have an unbelievable career to shoot the ball well and make a lot of threes. And, I mean, if it happens, it’s going to be when we’re not here anymore. So that’ll be in there for a minute.
01:38 HARDEN POSTGAME LA: Speaking of the 2009 Draft class with you and Steph, all the wars that you guys have gone against one another for 15 years, do you ever find yourself at times on the court, or maybe during a timeout, reminiscing about how long you guys have been going against one another?
01:50 Our entire career for real. I really feel a type of way about him just because they got the best of us in prime years, when we were competitive and we had real chances to reach the Finals and compete for a championship for it. They had a dynasty over there, which is one of the greatest dynasties of basketball I’ve ever seen. So for me, it was trying to get past them that whole three-, four-year extent that they had. And it was damn near — it was frustrating because I felt like I was doing a lot more than a lot of people could do, and not individually, but it is what it is. But just to see the greatness that evolved and that’s transpired throughout our entire careers is — hopefully, true basketball fans can understand it and appreciate it.
02:43 TYRONN LUE, POSTGAME LA: And they’re a tough team. You run around splits, cuts. Draymond’s a 6’6″, 6’7″ point guard who’s been in this offense for 13, 14 years. And so they know how to play the game. And so to hold this team at 99 points defensively, that says a lot about what we’re doing. We’re scrapping, we’re competing and just gotta win games ugly. It doesn’t matter how, you gotta win. We just gotta win games until we get No. 2 (Kawhi Leonard) back.
03:10 In that fourth quarter, they tried to get the ball out of James’s hands. But you see Norm go relocate, top of the key for three. He did it twice, knocked down two big ones. Can you talk about his movement without the ball and him being on the same page with James to be able to find the open spot to get the jump shot?
03:23 Yeah, I saw it at halftime. We saw it at halftime. When we had the iso, we had the matchup that we wanted. Like when James drives, the big’s coming over, that little man’s cracking back. So we had to make sure Norm was lifted and pulled behind every time because there’s no way Draymond can help on James and then the lob to Zu (Zubac), to be able to take it away. And so we’ve been on James a lot about the pull-behinds being open. And so he made it like two or three times a night. And so we said, “You can do it.” He said, “I could do it in isos, but not pick-and-rolls, which he always got something. But that was a good execution. Like, we saw it and we definitely executed that down the stretch. And Norm made two big threes.
04:02 MITCH JOHNSON, POSTGAME SAN ANTONIO: How much of the defense affected Steph Curry and how much was him just being off a little bit?
04:09 Yeah, he missed some shots he makes every game, so I thought we did a good job of making it tough on him. I wouldn’t dare to say we did anything to take him out, but I thought we did not give them opportunities to make easy shots in the fourth quarter.
04:26 What is unique about guarding Curry as opposed to some of the other stars you’ve had to guard this year?
04:32 STEPHON CASTLE: I mean, probably the most unique thing is his movement off the ball. I mean, CP (Chris Paul) was saying it for the last couple of days. I mean, the play doesn’t start until he passes it. So just being able to chase him around those screens, it’s hard to do. They have great screeners. They work on that. They cut off of it. So I mean, it’s hard to guard, but that’s probably the most unique thing about it. I mean, most stars, they did it off the bounce, come off ball screens, but he’s coming off pin downs, elevators, stuff like that. So it’s a lot harder to guard.
05:01 Did you do anything to prepare for that? Did you watch more film on him?
05:05 I mean yeah, but I mean, at the end of the day, I mean, you still gotta go out there and play. I mean, you could watch all the film in the world and he can still go for 40. So just trying to change my tracking on him. When he’s getting off ball screen, trying to get on the outside of the screen, don’t get hit by the screen. Just do whatever I can to chase him off the line and just trusting in our bigs to help.
05:31 You mentioned playing against guys you’ve been watching since you were a little kid. I guess Curry has been in the league probably since you were around kindergarten. Like, do you ever allow yourself a moment just to think, “Look at who I’m guarding. Look, he’s right here.” Any moment like that or are you just–
05:48 I mean, the first couple possessions, yeah. You’re a little starstruck. But I mean, at the end of the day, we’re still trying to win a basketball game. I mean, he doesn’t really care about who’s guarding him at the end of the day. So, I mean, me being scared to guard him or shying away from him because he’s a player that I’ve liked to watch when I was younger, I mean, I said earlier, that’s just doing myself a disservice and really our team. So, I mean, just going and going into those moments, just relying on the film that I’ve watched, relying on our schemes. Just relying on my confident defense that I have myself, and my teammates having me.
06:25 So what does that do for your confidence on your personal confidence on defense to know that you helped hold one of the greatest shooters of all time, 3-for-10 from behind the arc.
06:35 Oh, I mean my confidence on defense is, it’s always high. It doesn’t really get shaken by makes, makes or misses, but to do that to a guy like that, I mean, it definitely raises it a little bit, I’ll say that.
06:49 Is there a trick to get, I guess, getting Steph Curry off his spots, the way it seemed like Steph Castle was doing tonight?
07:00 CHRIS PAUL: He missed. Don’t bank on that being the case every night, you know what I mean? They, I mean, he’d be the first person to tell you, no excuses or whatnot. We knew they were coming off a back-to-back. We just wanted to try to make it as tough on him as possible. So we all know what he’s capable of. But Steph Castle did an amazing job on both ends tonight.
07:23 Late in the fourth quarter, when it’s you and Castle putting the ball up and you hand that ball off to him, are you thinking he’s going to pull it up from that far deep, or — ?
07:32 I don’t know. Today he was on, I don’t know, he had something going on. He was — I could feel it. I mean, I think everybody could feel it. He was super locked in. So, I mean, and I have a blind trust in him, as I’ve said many times. He’s playing like much more experienced than he is. I don’t know where that comes from, but it’s a good thing that we can trust him like that blindly in the fourth quarter.
08:04 (Question in French for Wemby about Steph Curry)
08:13 VICTOR WEMBANYAMA: Of course, he’s a very inspiring player and what makes me — of course, growing up, his whole game, the way he moves on the court, it was — it was incredible. But recently, what is remarkable to me is especially his desire to win, which is a bit immortal. He doesn’t play just to play. He’s competitive. He’s at the top of the conference. And there you go, we have the impression that he still want to get that, he still want to go get the rings. And then even in 2022, it was I mean, I saw the Finals live, it was — that’s it, we see that he’s hungry.
🫶💙💛