It’s actually pretty cool, I think, that Steve Kerr took the blame yesterday after practice for the turnover-filled blowout loss in Portland. He even started his response to the SF Chronicle’s Sam Gordon’s question on whether he thought it was a “good week”, all things considered:
We break the season into segments, weekly segments, and we, we talk every week about, “let’s win the week.” It’s a little bit like baseball. Let’s win the series. if you win the series over and over again in baseball, yeah, you’re gonna win 90 or a hundred games. If you, if you win the week, more often than not in the NBA, you’re gonna win 50 plus. And that’s the goal. Given the circumstances, great week. I also liked that we were really exposed against Portland in some ways that I needed to be better as a coach and prepare our players better. And so that was a very instructive game for us as a staff. And, and so we were able to see some of the areas where we really need more work.
Those areas where they need work?
Playing against switching for sure. Portland switched everything one through five when they went to their small lineups and their pressure bothered us. We didn’t have good spacing and this is part of what the early season entails is, because you can’t get everything in a three week training camp, but you get to see where your weaknesses are early on and you can then really apply them or work on them and apply that adjustment.
And so all that exasperation over what I even refer to as “middle school” runout turnovers and the bunches they come in, Gary Payton II had a solution:
We just gotta set screens, be able to set screens, low screens on the defender, just create a pocket. When they do switch, we got an advantage on him and just continue to, like I said, see that, get that picture, and just rep it.
The Warriors’ fourth opponent of the season is Memphis tonight and with the young speed of guys like Ja Morant, of course, but also Jaylen Wells, diminutive but quick pg Javon Small, and the length of Jaylen Wells, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Cedric Coward, this team maybe isn’t as big and athletic as the Trail Blazers, but they’ve got their own level of athleticism. Don’t forget their rim protectors Jaren Jackson, Jr. and Jock Landale, who has given the Dubs some problems in the past.
Ergo, let’s look for those screens to help out one Wardell Stephen Curry with the length while dribbling it up past half court.
Heck, one of the pictures above didn’t even show the fourth Blazer in the picture! (Credit: Getty Images)
Those “throw-the-ball-to-the-other-team” brain farts? I will now consider them Steve’s fault, should they occur with no on-ball screen to help Steph versus a lengthy guy.
Video interviews, captions and transcripts below. I’ve got a little feature on Jimmy Butler and Jonathan Kuminga coming up that will reference the Denver game that I’ve skipped so far, next post…
00:00 (Do you prefer back to back games earlier or) later in the year or just doesn’t really matter?
00:02 STEVE KERR, PRACTICE, DAY BEFORE MEM-GSW: It doesn’t really matter. You just, whatever the schedule says you play, it is, it’s not ideal that we have two back to backs basically in the first week. Five games in eight days is a lot, particularly at the top of the season when the guys who play big minutes are still ramping up to get to that level. So it’s not an easy schedule, but the schedule isn’t easy for anybody, so there’s no complaints. It’s just, how do you handle them? You saw the way we handled it in Portland. Nobody played more than about 25 minutes. We didn’t play very well, but we didn’t tax — overtax anybody, either. I think we should be in better, literally in better shape going into this back to back because we had yesterday off, today a good practice and we’re a weekend — we’re three games in, so guys should have better rhythm. Al won’t play tomorrow and he will play against the Clippers. And, other than that, yeah, we will lean into our depth and keep, keep playing people in combinations that we believe in and, hopefully, use our depth to get through this next back to back.
01:25 How much of that decision with Al is based on the matchups, Memphis versus Clippers?
01:32 Yeah. I mean it’s, we always take that into consideration. Against Portland it was, that was a pretty easy choice dealing with Jokic and I would say this one is a much more difficult decision because Memphis, Jaren Jackson’s obviously a great player, but we we opted to play him against the Clippers. Zubac has given us trouble. It’s a really big team. So that’s the way we’ll go in this one and on, on those back to back games when you are playing your regulars, but you might not wanna overtax them.
02:10 What is like the score range you’re looking at to be like, “Hey, let’s shut it down, let’s take it easy,” versus “let’s put the pedal to the medal and try to go for a win”?
02:21 It’s really a feel thing. We go into those games mapping out minutes and you try to stay with it. I think we had Steph mapped out at 28 against Portland. We went into it knowing we were gonna try to buy him two extra minutes per half. But that’s always just a plan and you throw that out the window depending on how the game’s going. And if that had been a tight game, we would’ve gone back to Steph, played Jimmy more, et cetera. But, it’s combination of the score, but also the circumstances. Three games in three cities in four nights. And then you feel the way that game was going from the late second quarter on, we weren’t gonna chase that one.
03:14 Just what do you take away from the first week overall? Like you mentioned, three games in three cities and four days going 2-1. You feel like it was a good week?
03:21 It’s a great week. We always, we break the season into segments, weekly segments, and we, we talk every week about, “let’s win the week.” It’s a little bit like baseball. Let’s win the series. if you win the series over and over again in baseball, yeah, you’re gonna win 90 or a hundred games. If you, if you win the week, more often than not in the NBA, you’re gonna win 50 plus. And that’s the goal. Given the circumstances, great week. I also liked that we were really exposed against Portland in some ways that I needed to be better as a coach and prepare our players better. And so that was a very instructive game for us as a staff. And, and so we were able to see some of the areas where we really need more work.
04:07 What are some of those areas?
04:08 Playing against switching for sure. Portland switched everything one through five when they went to their small lineups and their pressure bothered us. We didn’t have good spacing and this is part of what the early season entails is, ‘cause you can’t get everything in a three week training camp, but you get to see where your weaknesses are early on and you can then really apply them or work on them and apply that adjustment.
04:41 Hey Steve, based on what Joseph (Dycus) was asking earlier about the back to backs, is it different though when you’re playing an 8:00 PM game here on the West Coast versus maybe on the east as you sometimes do, is the back to back different? Yeah. And then playing the back to back the second game at 8:00 PM?
04:57 Yeah, I mean that, that’s an adjustment this year. With the new TV schedule, we are gonna have some 8:00 PM starts. I don’t know that it’s really a big adjustment. You do get the extra hour of rest if it’s the second game. You get an hour less rest if it’s the first game. These are not really things that we can do anything about. So we just, just go out and play.
05:26 Moses Moody came back last game, played about 20 minutes. Do you expect him to play both games of the back to back or–?
05:31 I haven’t talked to Rick (Celebrini) about it yet, but I did talk to Moses today. He said he came out of that game feeling good. He just didn’t have his rhythm or his conditioning yet. So I’ll talk to Rick today.
05:42 Steve, did everybody else do everything today?
05:45 Everybody other than Melton, of course, and Toohey but yeah, everyone else was engaged in practice. Yeah.
05:54 Did that Portland game give you any ideas of how to handle when Horford’s not in or not available, how to supplement the spacing that he brings when he is in the game?
06:05 Yeah, the spacing needs to happen no matter what, no matter who’s out there. In fact, spacing is more important the fewer shooters you have out there because a lot of guys who are traditionally not space players, Gary Payton’s a great example, right? He’s a great cutter and he wants to get behind the defense. He wants to make cuts, which is great, but we have to start out with space. And we had a lot of possessions the other night where we didn’t get to our space, and then you have no outlets against that kind of pressure. So the spacing was a big problem. It’s something we worked on today.
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06:48 Gary, just what did you learn about this team over the first week of the season, things you wanna do better, things you thought you did well, just as a team?
06:58 GARY PAYTON II: I think we, pretty solid, clean up the start the games, turnovers. Just come prepared and ready, just being locked in and ready from the start of the games, take care of the ball, get our spacing right, whatnot, transition defense. I believe just getting back, and building a wall when we need to. We did a lot of things good. Once we get in the right space and run the floor, good things happen. So just focus on trying to create that picture over and over again.
07:35 Steve mentioned that one of the things that might’ve given you guys trouble against Portland is the way that they switch. When a team is switching one through five kind of aggressively, what are the keys to countering that?
07:46 We just gotta set screens, be able to set screens, low screens on the defender, just create a pocket. When they do switch, we got an advantage on him and just continue to, like I said, see that, get that picture, and just rep it.
08:05 Are there any difference between how back to backs feel in the early in the season as opposed to later in the season?
08:10 You don’t get them later in the season and hopefully for playoff contention teams, that gives you a little bit more time to rest on the back end. So don’t mind them getting him out the way early, but slippery slope. Depends on how you handle the early ones.
08:29 Do you feel you guys are equipped to handle the early ones?
08:34 Yeah, I think so. I think so. Ah, we got a couple bets in here, so I gotta manage them properly, but I think we’ll be all right.
08:45 With the turnover — fixing the turnovers, how do you distinguish between turnovers that are good and are getting the flow of the game and turnovers that you just can’t have?
08:54 Unforced turnovers is probably the ones you shouldn’t have. And just being patient and that comes along with the spacing. Once we get the spacing, we should be able to clean up those turnovers and take care of the ball more.
09:07 What have you made of the way that Will (Richard) has played so far on both ends, but particularly on the defensive end?
09:12 He’s picking up a lot of things quickly. He has great teachers, great vets. It’s been showing. Somebody, I think, Steve said he looks like he’s like in third, fourth year already. That’s pretty encouraging and I know that gives him a lot of more confidence, to have that type of confidence from your coach early. Just continue to do what he does and keep learning and I think he’ll still be in this rotation, later down the season.
09:45 He plays a similar role to you, similar position. Are you one of those great teachers, great vets that he has?
9:52 Oh, absolutely. From everybody, from the young guys that’s been here for a little bit, everybody’s been giving him a little tricks and trades of what he can do and just trying to continue to add to his game. But he’s a smart player. He is a champion. He knows how to play the right way.
10:12 You and Steve have mentioned the turnovers being attributed to spacing. I was wondering what is something about the spacing that you could do or the team could do better? Is there particular set or something that you guys are struggling with or just–?
10:26 No, just getting spacing, transition, stay in space and letting our guys with, our play makers operate with space. Don’t try to crowd the ball when we run, just get to our spots in spacing and transition and good things will happen. Good. You guys are great.
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10:46 Moses, how do you feel, your first game in Portland, had a couple now, a couple days off. Just how do you feel physically? You feel ready for more minutes or still taking it day by day?
10:55 MOSES MOODY: Yeah, I’m good. I’m ready to go. Yeah, I feel great.
11:03 How serious was the calf thing that you were dealing with?
11:06 It was really minor. No structural damage or anything. I got the MRI and everything, but really was just strengthening it and precautionary. So yeah, I’m in a good place.
11:18 You were shooting it really well in the preseason. have you been able to continue shooting and everything, while you were recovering?
11:25 Yeah. Yeah. I’ve been able to keep getting shots up, still feeling good.
11:30 How do you, getting back into the rotation and everything, how do you see yourself fitting into some of the like the bigger lineups that, that you guys have been able to run?
11:39 Yeah. Control what I can, so bringing what I bring to the table, defense, knocking down shots, whatever the game calls for, so that, that’s on me to do. And then it play itself out.
11:52 When you’re dealing with coming back to a lineup and getting your rhythm back, is it harder to get your rhythm like shooting or is it harder on defensively to get back into that flow?
12:01 Good question. I would say just, it is a different flow for different groups that you’re on the floor with. So just finding your group, finding your role within that group, takes some getting used to, but defensively, I think that’s pretty, yeah, that’s pretty self-explanatory. You — once you got the rotations down, once you got the principles, then I think that comes back pretty fast.
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