I’m starting to like Jimmy Butler’s postgame “recaps” in front of the mics the best. When asked by Danny Emerman of The SF Standard — whom he joined this week (congrats!) from Bay Area News Group, who have deployed high school sports writer Joseph Dycus as their new Warriors beat writer — about his experience leading the 2022 Play-in Miami Heat to the Finals, Butler responded:
I’ve always been one to think that, whatever squad that I’m on, we always have a chance. I know whatever squad 30 on, whatever squad 23 is on, always got a chance, so I’d only like to think that all three of us together have a really good chance. We want to not be in the Play-in. We’re playing to not be in the Play-in ’cause we’re gonna win the last four, so that’s that, but we got a job to do anyways and that’s to win a championship no matter what seed we are.
That’s the simplest bottom line and he’s not one to be distracted by everything else happening in the standings, either, adding before that, “I don’t care. We know as long as we win our games, then everything take care of itself. You win, good things happen. You don’t, you know what happens.”
The demeanor on the podium certainly revealed that the Houston Rockets had gotten one on our Warriors, deservingly so with how physical they played. Here’s a compendium of the non-calls for one Wardell Stephen Curry, though:
And you had Curry flipping headlines on their heads, instantly lightening the mood when asked about the verbal altercation with Ime Udoka while they were walking to their respective locker rooms from around the painted area in front of the Warriors bench: “He had made a reservation at International Smoke,” Steph said, grinning. “And then he canceled it and so I was kind of upset with him and we went back and forth on that.”
Draymond Green reacted by chuckling into a heap, his head buried on the table.
“You like that one?” Curry added.
“Plug!” Green responded.
“Your turn,” quipped Monte Poole of NBC Sports Bay Area, referring to Meski SF, a new Afro-Latin fusion restaurant Draymond opened, literally officially on Saturday:
“Yeah, I know, you in the business now,” said Steph, genuinely happy that Monte gave Dray the chance to mention his new venture. “Yes!”
“He didn’t show up to Meski, either, so we was hot,” said Draymond, answering the call.
“Yes, sir,” said a beaming Curry, putting the final stamp on it.
And this was after Steve Kerr said, “You just quickly move on, so I’m gonna go home and I’m gonna watch the White Lotus and then I’m gonna get on the plane tomorrow. Just being honest, yeah.”
Even Buddy Hield kept the mood light, after Kerr. Then again, he always does. He started his Q&A with a “good afternoon…good night” joke, referencing the early Sunday evening tipoff, and later walked out of an apparently well-attended Bill King Interview Room after being asked only four questions, “That’s it? So much people, so little answers. Crazy.”
If it was a traumatic loss where they let it slip away or something, the head coach and his players certainly weren’t down about it (neither was our particular YouTube livechat).
At the same time, being a Warriors analyst, it’s still good to dissect the play-by-play and see where things may have faltered. In fact, it was a Houston beatwriter who asked Udoka about Brandin Podziemski’s run-out layup (after Jimmy deflected a pass and Gary Payton II tipped the ball away from Alperen Sengun’s grasp — and was robbed of an assist by the official scorekeeper, by the way) which made it just an 83-81 game with nine-plus minutes to go.
“We were being a little sloppy and we understand that they’re 6th in the league in forcing turnovers and getting points off turnovers and that’s how they generate a lot of offense,” said Udoka.
But what happened after that, with Steph on the bench resting until the 8-minute mark? Well, Podz got bamboozled on a slip cut by Jabari Smith, Payton II missed a wide-open three generated by BP’s playmaking, Sengun came back with a leaning power-then-finesse iso floater after a pick-and-roll with Fred Van Vleet caused BP to switch onto the big and Jimmy off.
Then Green threw an attempted touchdown pass to Butler into the baseline seats, the Dubs’ 16th turnover on the night.
Curry checked in and, after a nice DPOY-level deflection by Draymond against an attacking Amen Thompson, Van Vleet tossed up a missed three at the shot clock buzzer, but eleven seconds later, Steph missed a rushed three on the way back.
FVV was covering him and Curry probably felt that it was a rare chance for a dagger three without Thompson draped all over him. Had Steph made that, he would’ve cut the lead to 87-84, Rockets and probably lit a fuse under Chase Center with at least a sliver of doubt starting to creep in on this young Houston group. Oh well, make-or-miss league, as he referenced on the podium not too long ago.
Jalen Green, whom Udoka had checked back in for Aaron Holiday after the aforementioned Green deflection out-of-bounds with seven-plus minutes to go, then made an iso move on the left side past Steph — who had been icing his left knee with a huge wrap on the sidelines prior to checking in — and found Thompson in the corner. Amen then attacked the solid close-out and made a tough finish over a recovering outstretched Dray in the paint, the push-shot going in after tickling the rim.
With Amen smothering him, Steph then chose to use his own gravity, getting Gary open on a slip cut, and Payton delivered the extra pass to Kevon Looney, who pulled the string and smoked a five-foot open banker on the left side. It turned out to be a critical miss and Looney knew it, nodding his head in frustration while running back on defense.
On the next possession, Steph didn’t tag off of Jalen properly on a pick-and-roll with Amen as Podz automatically switched immediately, and Amen got the ball at the nail and — despite good bothersome help by Loon — got off a super-athletic scoop that missed.
But Steven Adams bullied a dunk putback on the other side of the rim over Gary. Steve called timeout as Steph raised his hand to the bench, a signal of “my bad” for not tracking Amen on the initial switch, which probably would’ve been hard to pull off anyways, given Thompson’s athleticism.
In a span of three methodical minutes, 83-81 became 91-81 with 6:30 left in the game. Houston, obviously, held serve until Kerr finally waved the white flag at the 1:42 mark, shortly after Curry dribbled into oblivion with the team’s 20th turnover of the night.
But that was also after turnovers on a bad screen by Looney, another bad pass between Dray and Steph although Curry seemed to accept blame for that one, and the sideline double-team of Steph right in front of referee Ray Acosta, who didn’t see Adams grabbing Steph’s hand on the blitz with Dillon Brooks, which I clipped and played in slow-motion at the 2:26:00 mark of the livestream:
Udoka told Sam Amick of The Athletic (although their editor ran with the halftime verbal spat as the lede), “When people start complaining about foul calls or crying about physicality, you’ve done your job. That’s the first step in winning the battle. So I told my team, when this team starts crying about it, up the intensity, up the aggressiveness, and make the refs adjust to you.”
Another bit of irony: Steve had said in the pregame that Jimmy was good to have around as an extra “bully” alongside Dray, for Steph (I’ll have that video and full transcript in the future on this site). Maybe next time against this team, Kerr will have Butler initiate some of the offense.
And Jimmy, who had only 7 field goal attempts, 4 makes and 2 of them shockingly in retrospect both around the three-minute mark of the 4th quarter on consecutive buckets inside, somewhat deflected the idea that he needed to score more.
When asked if he should’ve been more aggressive, he replied, “Maybe, maybe not. My thing is, I’m gonna make the right play the majority of the time, probably 9 out of 10 times, so if I get in there and draw help, I’m gonna kick it to the open guy, but I’m not gonna say that anybody scoring was the reason that we did not win this game. I’m gonna stick to turnovers. We had 20 of them. It’s gonna be hard to win in any basketball game if you got 20 turnovers.”
So, Ime has the Rockets applying the right amount of force and Amen has been their two-way secret weapon, maybe not-so-secret in NBA circles, but he’s certainly not a household name yet. Amen can be in due time, as he makes his imprint on the game even without a reliable long ball.
During that closing stretch, Thompson applied the right amount of bothersome force, fouling Jonathan Kuminga on a jump ball that Steph stole anyways, thereby stopping transition even if Amen wasn’t trying to foul.
“(Curry)’d been on a heater lately and so we wanted to obviously pay him a little bit more attention and when you got a special guy like Amen Thompson do what he does, that’s the result,” said Udoka.
“That’s why he is out there for 30-plus minutes a night because that’s how he helps them win,” said Steph of Amen. “He’s kind of relentless. He’s a supreme athlete and has found his lane on, again, how he can be impactful, so you tip your hat to him and he’s gotten a lot better every time you kind of face him.”
If the Warriors face the Rockets in a seven-game series, my guess is that the innovative Jerry Stackhouse would employ some sort of drop coverage on Amen to try and play mind games, but again this was Game 78 of 82 and they got us.
Udoka has whittled his deep bench into an eight-man rotation which also features that twin-tower Sengun-Adams set, as well as their own version of small-ball with the two-way versatility and length of Jabari Smith, Jr.
Meanwhile, Cam Whitmore, Jae’Sean Tate and Reed Sheppard, all of whom have played meaningful minutes against the Warriors in previous matchups, only played those last 1:42 of garbage time.
“They play zone, they had two bigs, whatever it is, we can adjust to all of that, we just didn’t do it tonight,” said Curry, ending his and Green’s dual podium visit last night.
Maybe in a seven-game series, you actually start Looney on Sengun because it did look like he was a lot to handle over 48 minutes for Draymond. Kerr certainly would try to fit into the equation Quinten Post, rendered irrelevant on this night by, again, the sheer physicality of Sengun and Adams and the pick-and-roll threats of Jalen Green and FVV.
Going into last night as the next game on the regular season schedule, you can’t second-guess the starting lineup with Dray at the 5 that was 14-0. Ironically, it was also a plus-14 on net rating and won the previous game against the Nuggets by 14 as well, as my co-host Dean “of Positivity” Chambers noted.
The Rockets got a huge signature win and now they can rest their guys the remainder of the way. Houston proved it is a legit No. 2 seed in the West and maybe that’s due in part to the Lakers and Nuggets having their flaws or injuries, as they are both clearly not worthy of that spot right below OKC, but Houston is a legit No. 2 seed and even beat the Thunder convincingly, two nights ago.
Meanwhile, our squad should take care of business in the next three games with Phoenix and San Antonio on a road-home back-to-back, then Portland — if we are to base the expectations on the past couple weeks with a generally healthy roster, i.e., Steph is active. Seems like it will all poetically come down to Game 82 versus the Clippers at Chase Center, a day game (😬) at 12:30PM on Sunday, April 13th.
But, fear not, DubNation. Even if we don’t nab the 6th seed, a Play-in team has made it to the Finals, a Jimmy Butler team, at that.
And this team still has the third-best win-loss record since the All-Star Break: https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/nba-teams-record-since-all-star-break
We’ll be fine in the long run. At some point in the Jimmy era, they had to have that game where an opponent man-handled Steph, Dray had a few too many turnovers, and Jimmy took single-digit shots (he averages 11 FGA/game for GSW). They’ll figure it out.
Here are all the interviews and transcripts from yesterday:
00:00 I’ll start with Steph. You guys have obviously won a lot of games recently and not every single one, but you’ve won a ton. Is it a little shocking when you run into a maybe a tougher moment, tougher game, against a team that really seemed to give you guys trouble after the good run? What does this night feel like?
00:20 STEPH CURRY, POSTGAME HOU-GSW: You just gotta have perspective on what the positives of what we’ve been able to build. We won a lot of tough games. We strung together great performances and we are still that team that is confident we can beat anybody. Tonight’s was a rough night all the way around. They played great. We had some moments, but gotta maintain the confidence that we’re building towards our best selves come play off time.
00:55 Jimmy just down there said he thinks you get fouled more than any player in the league or any player he’s seen, something like that. What’s just kind of your view on maybe tonight’s mentality, but the bigger picture on how you (inaudible) that.
01:08 CURRY: I don’t know how to answer that question. Like, it’s been around 16 years. You’ve seen it all. I don’t ever expect to get calls. I don’t ever go in looking for it. I try to play basketball or try to play the way I do every night, battle through physicality, whatever, but if I need to say something, you say something. But I don’t have any expectations.
01:34 Draymond, what’s your view on that?
01:36 DRAYMOND GREEN: You know my view.
01:38 CURRY: He trying to set you up.
01:40 GREEN: Fouls and referees and you know my view.
01:45 Steph, over here. The Rockets obviously were just trying to deny you the ball the whole night, but I’m wondering with Amen Thompson guarding you, just what do you think of him as a defender, especially on a Rockets team, that that’s kind of their identity?
01:59 CURRY: That’s why he is out there for 30-plus minutes a night ’cause that’s how he helps them win. He’s kind of relentless. He’s a supreme athlete and has found his lane on, again, how he can be impactful, so you tip your hat to him and he’s gotten a lot better every time you kind of face him.
02:25 Guys, what are the keys to beating a team like this young athletic team and what did you guys not do tonight that you expect to do if you see them again?
02:35 CURRY: You want that one?
02:39 GREEN: Just gotta take better care of the ball. When we were — they struggled to score in the half court bit, so when you give them run out layups, makes ’em a lot — it makes anybody tough to guard, but just take better care of the ball, get to our spots so you can see the pressure. They pressure a lot. You get bunched up. It works to their advantage, so just gotta get better space and then it allows you to handle the pressure better.
03:18 Draymond, how would you describe what was going on with you and Sengun there? Were you trying to get the energy up? Is that kind of how that started? And then what did you think about the flagrant call?
03:30 GREEN: I mean the flagrant call, I don’t know what to do. Duck? Don’t go in for the layup? The tech, I’m not gonna stop ’cause the referee say stop and give up position. I already give up six inches and 50 pounds, so it is what it is.
03:53 What did Ime say to you? Guess what was the conversation that cameras caught entering halftime?
04:02 CURRY: He had made a reservation at International Smoke and then he canceled it and so I was kind of upset with him and we went back and forth on that. You like that one?
04:18 GREEN: Plug!
04:21 Your turn.
04:22 CURRY: Yeah, I know, you in the business now. Yes.
04:24 GREEN: He didn’t show up to Meski, either, so we was hot.
04:29 CURRY: Yes, sir.
04:30 Steph, you guys played the Rockets in a previous iteration of the Rockets in a lot of really important, huge games. Obviously there was a rivalry there. You haven’t faced this version in a big moment, but you could. Does it feel like there’s a rivalry or a tension or something going on with you two guys, above and beyond just the basketball?
04:51 CURRY: Nah, you carry — there’s nothing from the past. There’s just two great teams just trying to win a basketball game. You understand there could be matchups down the road, but you cross that path when you get there. They’re the 2nd seed in the West, so they’re a really good team. They’ve been beating teams all year in different ways, so you gotta take ’em seriously. They’ve proven during this regular season that they’re a tough team any given night, but we don’t carry any stuff in the past and whatever happens in the future, we’ll cross when we get there.
05:30 More to the game the other night, when you suggest to get Gui in there, you guys have talked about — or Steve’s talked about a lot — about how there’s gonna be different guys for different nights. How do you think the other guys are taking that? Like, it might be somebody’s night one night and then another night for someone else. Do you sense, do you talk to them about, “Hey, you can’t get frustrated. This is the way it is.” How is that kind of working with those guys?
05:58 CURRY: From my perspective, it’s way better than it was pre-trade. I think we’ve had a really good certain level of consistency for rotations and knowing who’s gonna be out there at certain times throughout the game, knowing who you’re gonna play with. There’s obviously the question of closing lineups and who the five guys are gonna be, based on matchups, based on who’s playing well, all that type of stuff, but when you’re winning, it’s just a commitment to being ready for your moment and whatever that means, embrace it. And I think we’ve done a really good job of that since February and our record is kind of reflective of that.
06:40 They spent stretches of tonight’s game playing with two bigs, then one big, playing Jabari at center. How would you compare and contrast the those three looks, I suppose?
06:56 CURRY: I mean for the most part, you make adjustments. Anything we did tonight wasn’t really reflective of their lineups. It was more kind of self-inflicted, where we turn — like Draymond was talking about — we turn the ball over, give up offensive rebounds, not executing on the offensive end, so kind of everything was bad, but they have different looks. They play zone, they had two bigs, whatever it is, we can adjust to all of that, we just didn’t do it tonight.
00:00 We’ve talked to you about this after a couple losses, but 20 turnovers, I mean, is that kind of the number or the part of the game that you feel like led to the loss?
00:09 JIMMY BUTLER, POSTGAME HOU-GSW: Yeah. I mean, a lot of the times when we turn the ball over that many times, it doesn’t end well for our group. We talked about not turning the ball over and did the exact opposite and this was the outcome.
00:23 How would you describe this matchup with Houston, in particular, especially with their length and athleticism?
00:29 It’s a good matchup. I would like to think that they played incredibly well tonight. They did what they want to do, turn us over, contest shots, make it difficult, but I think if we take care of the ball and we care about every possession like we should, it may be a different outcome. That’s not the case, so all of the ifs can stay where they are.
00:50 Is the key to beating this team just keeping them out of transition, not turning the ball over?
00:56 That’s the — it’s not about beating that team. It’s about us winning against anybody. Whenever we get shots on goal or we keep our turnovers down, we can hang. We can beat anybody.
01:08 You’re a guy that can get a shot whenever you want, like you’ve said. Is this is a game where Steph’s struggling, where you would probably wanted to be a bit more aggressive offensively with your shot?
01:19 Maybe, maybe not. My thing is, I’m gonna make the right play the majority of the time, probably 9 out of 10 times, so if I get in there and draw help, I’m gonna kick it to the open guy, but I’m not gonna say that anybody scoring was the reason that we did not win this game. I’m gonna stick to turnovers. We had 20 of them. It’s gonna be hard to win in any basketball game if you got 20 turnovers.
01:45 What stood out about the way that they did guard Steph tonight, though?
01:48 They did a good job of whatever you wanna call it.
01:59 What do you call it?
02:01 I don’t even know. I just, I’ve never seen an individual get fouled more than he gets fouled. That’s, to me, I think that’s — it’s astounding, but it’s crazy to say, but he’s used to it. It’s been happening to him his whole career and he’s found a way through it, around it, under it, whatever you wanna call it. That’s tough.
02:23 The fouling, you mean not just tonight, you mean since you’ve been here?
02:27 I mean, yeah. I’ve seen it since I’ve been here, but I don’t know how many years he got. What he got? 16?
02:33 Mm-hmm.
02:34 I’m pretty sure it’s been happening for 16 straight years. I get to see it and it really angers me that he’s on my team and he gets hacked like that.
02:44 Are you talking more on the ball when he’s going to the rim or off — ?
02:48 Both.
02:48 Which is the one that you feel like it gets missed?
02:50 Off. Off the ball.
02:52 Off?
02:52 Yeah.
02:52 Why don’t you think they call that off?
02:55 That’s not my job. Leave me alone. I don’t wanna talk about it no more.
02:59 Did you see or hear about Ime and Steph kind of getting into it a little bit, halftime? Does it surprise you that that would happen?
03:07 No. It doesn’t. I wasn’t even paying attention to it too much. I don’t know what was said. I don’t know what happened. I’m pretty sure it’ll pop up on my feed. My Instagram feed is a lot of Warriors basketball, Neymar highlights and coffee pages, so if he says something, they did something, it’ll show up.
03:26 Jimmy, with a week to go in the season, there’s five teams in the West with 32 losses, four teams, the exact same record, yourself included. How much do you — I mean, it’s literally shifting day by day. I mean, you guys could have been 4th, could have been 8th, now you’re 6th. How much do you pay attention to that and what’s this week gonna be like, do you think?
03:42 Zero. I don’t care. We know as long as we win our games, then everything take care of itself. You win, good things happen. You don’t, you know what happens.
03:58 A couple years ago you brought a Play-in team to the Finals. How much did that experience kind of inform the way you view being a Play-in team versus getting out of the Play-in round?
04:10 I’ve always been one to think that, whatever squad that I’m on, we always have a chance. I know whatever squad 30 on, whatever squad 23 is on, always got a chance, so I’d only like to think that all three of us together have a really good chance. We want to not be in the Play-in. We’re playing to not be in the Play-in ’cause we’re gonna win the last four, so that’s that, but we got a job to do anyways and that’s to win a championship no matter what seed we are.
04:41 Did you see what happened between Draymond and Sengun?
04:46 You talking about like when they gave him a flagrant?
04:47 Yeah.
04:48 I mean I saw a good bucket in my eyes, but just sucks to be Draymond sometimes ’cause it’s him. He gets a flagrant or he gets a tech or whatever the case may be. It’s 23 for you.
05:04 Did that get you — whatever happened in the result, did that get you guys out of sorts a bit in that third quarter?
05:10 No. We had probably turned the ball over 17 times by then. That was just one extra added play in the game. That wasn’t the reason that we lost.
—
05:23 IME UDOKA: Before the last two tip-ins, 92 points, 16-point fourth quarter before those two. They ended up with 20 there and then, obviously, him going 1-for-10 and the focal point. Obviously, he’d been on a heater lately and so we wanted to obviously pay him a little bit more attention and when you got a special guy like Amen Thompson, do what he does, that’s the result.
05:43 When Draymond started doing what Draymond does, what did you like about Alperen’s response?
05:48 I mean, he handled it well, didn’t get baited into it and then attacked aggressively offensively, and stepped up on the defensive end, so we understand what it is. He was in foul trouble and I think our guys were being aggressive going after him and then he doesn’t respond and he takes a hit to the face and just continues to play and liked our poise and composure overall, especially Alpy.
06:13 You guys were toggling between the double-big, between the small lineup with Jabari at center. Just what did you like about how you were able to kind of exploit the matchups based on the lineups on the floor?
06:23 Yeah, it gives us a ton of versatility to go both ways. We start with a neutral lineup, can have Jabari anywhere from the 3, 4, or 5, and that gives us a switchable lineup and then our bigs are doing what they do, which is being physical, pounding the glass, getting guys open. And so I love the versatility we have there and, based on who they had on the court, we felt we had some favorable things we could go to and kinda exploited that.
06:47 Good to see — sorry. Good to see you, sir.
06:50 Thank you. You too, man.
06:51 You guys have had a great year, but these last 17 games, you go 15-2, you beat OKC the way you did the other night, this is another statement game. Just how do you explain that the late surge that’s happening right now?
07:03 Well, our guys understand what’s at stake coming up. I think we’ve made a conscious effort to really lock in and focus on — ever since 20, we knew it was tight, 20 games out, and especially the last 10 — and then I would say minus the Utah game, we knew it’s high-caliber opponents that we’re facing and so want to be very sharp and deliberate about what we’re doing. Going into the playoffs, we’ve thrown a little bit more at them as far as preparation and our guys are handling it well, but understanding that this is a level it’s gonna get to. These are teams we’re gonna play against and for our guys that have never been there, it was about playing great basketball heading into the end of the season. And we’ve upped our physicality, upped our intensity overall and I think guys are just really locked in on both sides of the ball. And so getting what we want offensively, guarding the way we are defensively, it’s what we wanna see going into the playoffs.
07:53 And you touched on it with Draymond, but you’ve seen that before. You guys have had your battles before. What do you think he was trying to accomplish late second quarter and did you like how everybody kind of stood firm with that intensity?
08:05 Yeah, but that’s what he does and I appreciate it. I like I don’t mind it at all and so I understand how he impacts his team, trying to get them going in his own way and has made a hell of a career out of doing what he does, being the heart of that team and bringing the fight when he doesn’t see it out there, so no knock on him for whatever. Like I said, some coaches might mind it. I really like him and I like what he brings to their team and what he does. And so you gotta understand that players that do certain things and our guys stayed locked in, stayed focused and didn’t get baited into it, so credit to both him and them.
08:43 Jabari was extremely active tonight. What did you like about his activity?
08:46 Yeah, he gave us a scoring punch, gave us a rebounding punch, very aggressive on both sides, but like I said, his versatility has been crucial for us since we got him back. We will downsize. We’ll put him at the 5 and switch everything. He can play his normal 4 or the 3 and he’s looked very comfortable out there. Especially when we go to zone, we’re kind of mega-sized out there and so aggressive offensively, locking in on defense and giving us that versatility. He was huge for us.
09:14 About nine minutes to go, they cut it to two on the Podziemski layup and then you guys went on that little 8-0 run, they called timeout. What did you say to your team during that timeout that allowed you guys to put the clamps on them and put the game away after that?
09:24 That we were being a little sloppy and we understand that they’re 6th in the league in forcing turnovers and getting points off turnovers and that’s how they generate a lot of offense. And we did it on a few of those plays, turned the ball over, let ’em back in it, but understood if we got shots, made them work on the end, limit to one shot, we’d be in good shape and really, obviously, getting out in transition, had 20 in the first half to end up with 26 there, so that was a formula for us. Taking care of the ball was a big part. We didn’t in the first half, got a little sloppy in that stretch, but refocused and got back to doing what we were doing, guarding well and scored, obviously like you said, the 8-0 run.
09:57 Cameras caught you talking to Steph on your way off the court after that Draymond sequence that Sam (Amick) mentioned. I was just wondering what kind of was the message or what was going on there?
10:06 I was talking to my team about the physicality. This is the type of game we like. This is who we are. He said something, I said something. Nothing — a little friendly banter. Thank you.
00:00 What stood out about Houston’s team defense and then the way Amen Thompson defended Steph?
00:07 STEVE KERR, POSTGAME HOU-GSW: Yeah, they were great. I mean, ball pressure, they forced 20 turnovers. They’ve been one of the hottest teams in the league and probably the best defensive team in the league, this last month and they took it to us. They were great tonight.
00:21 Steve, you talked about Steph’s fatigue in the last month and obviously he’s been carrying a huge offensive load over the last few games. Do you think tonight was a symptom of fatigue or do you think it was a bit more with his performance tonight?
00:33 I mean, this is the NBA season. You go through 82 games and there’s just games where you don’t have it, every player, no matter how good you are, so Steph didn’t have it tonight. They did a great job defensively. Take tomorrow off and get ready for Phoenix and you guys get to analyze everything, but it’s just, it’s all part of the season.
00:56 Steve, what was the most difficult part to try and fight against? I mean, they’re a taller team, athletic, energetic, all those things. What are the hardest part about this team to play?
01:06 They have great size and athleticism at pretty much every position and Ime’s done a great job. They’ve really established an identity and kind of know who they are and so yeah, great defensive team and they played a really good defensive game tonight.
01:25 You have said and many others have said, many years of proof behind it, is that age can be a factor in the NBA. Is there age difficult to deal with because it brings a certain energy, too?
01:38 Because they’re young?
01:39 Yeah. I mean, there is their age and energy, combined, a different difficult thing to deal with. For guys that have been on the road like you guys have been for a while — ?
01:48 They’re a young team on the rise, they’ve got a lot of good talented young athletes and they’re playing well and they just beat OKC two days ago and, like I said, one of the hottest teams in the league. And there’s there’s a reason they’re 52-27. They’re a great team.
02:10 This was the fifth matchup between you guys and the Rockets that’s got testy at moments. How would you describe the tension between these two teams?
02:19 It’s just competitive. It’s two very competitive teams. You got a lot of guys out there who are fighting for everything and who care about everything and this is how it’s gonna be and this’ll be what the playoffs will present, so our guys know that and they’re up for the challenge. They’ve been through this many, many times.
02:38 And what was your message to Draymond at halftime after the way the end of his half, ended?
02:46 I didn’t have a message for him. Yeah, I just get — we were just planning for the second half. That was it.
02:56 Steve, how tricky was it — obviously, you got Houston getting some offensive stuff, so you’re playing defensive guy, GP2 and Looney versus — “Okay, we gotta score some points here.” How tricky was that kind of balance tonight?
03:09 Well, that’s always the game as a coach unless you just know your five guys who are you’re — that you’re always gonna go with. We always have decisions to make based on offense and defense and whatever the balance is and so, yeah, we found — I thought Buddy and Gary off the bench really played well. We needed Buddy’s shooting. We needed Gary’s ability to set the screen and dive against their blitzes and he caught the ball in the pocket, made some really good plays, so I thought we had guys who stepped up and played well, but Houston just played a lot better than we did.
03:48 Steve, what do you think would (be) the key reason for our loss? I know you mentioned we have 20 turnovers, but they have 15, as well. Do you think the turnover is the biggest problem for today?
04:01 The key reason for the loss is Houston. Houston played a great game. Sometimes it’s really simple. They played a great game. They played great defense. They deserve to win.
04:11 It looked like Draymond was really energized for that Sengun matchup. What do you think about Draymond’s fire, tipping into five fouls, a technical and a flagrant?
04:19 I love Draymond’s fire. There’s a reason we got four banners up there. We wouldn’t have any without Draymond, so I love his fire and he just, he was fighting out there, just didn’t go our way.
04:33 Steve, in a game where Steph only makes one shot, would you have wanted to see Jimmy be a little bit more aggressive in the second half, to kind of galvanize you as a bit more?
04:46 Yeah, I think when I watch the tape, I’ll probably see some things that I could have done better just to get Jimmy more involved and we’re still kinda learning how to play, how to put this team together on certain nights. Houston changed some matchups around. They had Sengun guarding Moses to try to disrupt our offensive flow and they did a good job with that, so if we see them in the playoffs, we’ll have this tape to look at and we’ll find ways to get Jimmy more involved, for sure.
05:19 It looked like Ima Udoka had some words for Steph walking off the halftime — ?
05:24 For who?
05:25 Steph Curry. Ime Udoka was saying something to Steph as he walked off the court. Did you see that or — ?
05:29 I didn’t see it, yeah.
05:35 For a minute there, you guys had the 4th seed and now there’s a five-way tie for, what, 5, 6, 7, 8. How — or four-way tie — how much do you think this is gonna shift on a day — is it gonna be a daily basis the rest of the way, going down the stretch? And are you guys watching it very closely?
05:54 Oh yeah, we’re watching. Well, I look at every score and I look at the schedule for tomorrow and the next day and the only thing I know for sure is if we win our last four games, we’re not in the Play-in and that’s we knew that coming in to tonight. We needed to win four of our last five. We might get a little help, so maybe we don’t need to win all four, but you can’t worry about any of that. You just gotta worry about the next game and keep winning. Our guys have done such an incredible job to climb up to this point where we were, six weeks ago. What an incredible run this has been, but you’re not gonna win every game and ran into a hot team, played a great game. You just quickly move on, so I’m gonna go home and I’m gonna watch the White Lotus and then I’m gonna get on the plane tomorrow. Just being honest, yeah. Thank you.
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06:45 BUDDY HIELD: (Good evening. Early evening. Early afternoon.) Late — what is it, night? Night. Goodnight, sorry.
06:49 Buddy, things have obviously been going so well — over here to your right —
06:52 What’s up with it?
06:53 Going so well for such a long time, you haven’t won every game, but you won almost every game. What is the feeling like in the middle of this when it — is it a little frustration? Is it a little surprise when things get so tough in a game like this?
07:05 You can’t win ’em all. Shout out to Houston. They played really tough tonight, but we had a good stretch going on and we didn’t really execute it how we wanted to tonight, but that’s how the NBA goes. You’re not gonna win ’em all and then the ship hasn’t sunk, just keep building every day and following Steve’s lead and Steph and Draymond and the guys behind them, and just taking one game at a time. We have four more games left. Am I correct? Four more games left, so one game at a time and I think we win ’em out. Take one at a time, we win them all, I think we should be fine.
07:41 What were some of the challenges they presented defensively tonight?
07:45 Really tough. I think we can score against them. It’s just, I think our turnovers just kill us, you know? And they seemed to thrive off of the turnovers, you know? And I think that we scored pretty fine. We had good ball movement, good shots that we liked. I think that our turnovers killed us.
08:02 What’s it like playing a team five times in a season?
08:05 It’s fun, especially a team like that, that’s scrappy and gets after it. You love to compete against teams like that.
08:14 Could you tell Draymond was especially getting revved up there in the second quarter and just what did you think of him and Sengun kind of getting into it like that?
08:21 It’s Draymond, man. He’s a competitor. He’s one of the game’s ultimate all-time competitors. He’s in — we come to the game tonight and that’s his job to get us going and he’s Defensive Player of the Year, yeah, in our opinion and, hopefully, he got the second one. But he’s a leader. That’s what he does to get us going and whenever Draymond is going like that, we support him a hundred percent. That’s it? So much people, little answers. Crazy. Bye.
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