Quinten Post has gradually become one of my favorites when it comes to guys on the podium. Not only does he have a common-sense approach, most notably when he answers a reporter with, “XYZ, right?”
But also he’s one of the few NBA players who takes responsibility and details what he needs to improve on.
Even though Jalen Green is a wing and dropped 35 on the Warriors in Game 2, Post took the blame, at least during the times he was on the floor with Green. When a reporter prefaced a question about Jalen’s performance with, “I know it’s not your position,” Post replied:
It is also on me because they tried to — whenever I was out there — they tried to put me in the ball screen, so on my job, I gotta be better. I let him get loose in the first half. He split me, got to the rim and then our guards, they need to pressure him more. We need to take away what he wants to do. He was too — it was too easy for him tonight and so it’s on everybody, but it’s also most definitely on me.
I recall that gorgeous move by Green with 3:34 to go in Q1. Jalen went between the legs to cross Quinten, but it was after a pick by Alperen Sengun on Gary Payton II that got Green downhill, and it looked like Jimmy Butler may have been late on the help. Jalen somehow even finished the move with a dunk. Sheesh!
Overall, to me, the physicality of the Rockets, as orchestrated by Ime Udoka, got one Wardell Stephen Curry out of sorts immediately out of the gate and, with Butler gone by the end of Q1 due to the bad fall, there was no Robin to calm Batman down and the remaining squad that, in Draymond Green’s words, “couldn’t get over the hump,” (transcript below, per usual) reminded me and our livestream audience of the identity we had before the trade for Jimmy. You know, the one that went 25-26 and threw the ball to the other team a lot.
But I’ll get into this later as I rewatch the first quarter. I said on-air last night, I didn’t recognize the game that I’d grown to love because of all the near-football-like physicality, which Udoka is exploiting, and I heavily criticized Adam Silver for allowing this — and other previous egregious errors such as the fouls that were actually called last year, ergo, I see it as a pattern of his tenure — to happen under his watch. Again, I’ll save that for later.
As for Quinten, he actually blamed himself twice. In only the second response on the podium, asked about what he’ll take away from his first two playoff games, he answered:
That the playoffs is very physical and I gotta be better, personally, moving my feet and gotta get more physical boxing out. And, as a team, we’ll bounce back. We’ll be ready for Game 3.
Post is gonna be a helluva vet someday, with that combination of taking responsibility while exuding confidence. I can picture a cross between Andrew Bogut and Klay Thompson. He’s a keeper.
For anyone wondering about his contract, don’t worry. He’s deeply indebted to Golden State for making him relevant and a potential star, and with the expiring contracts of the Big Three coming in Summer 2027, giving Post a standard 1+1 (the “+1” being a team option) conversion of the previous two-way contract, with the Jonathan Kuminga restricted free agency to be determined and leaving some optionality given being only $37 million under the second apron, that was the right thing to do for both sides.
This is especially true for Post. If the Warriors end up going in a different direction and get constrained by the second apron — speaking of Batman, let me give you the “Christopher Nolan” fairytale-embedded-in-realism scenario: the Milwaukee Bucks get bounced by the Indiana Pacers and Joe Lacob and Mike Dunleavy, Jr. try to pry Giannis Antetokuonmpo away (thanks to our Eric Guilleminault for this “inception”). QP’s agent would want his client to also have optionality to maximize his value.
And with that, I would like to segue to announcing a tweak here at LGW-dot-com:
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From now on, all the transcripts here that you’ve gotten used to will be behind the paywall for at least two days, but you can always read them asap by going directly to the YouTube channel — although I might change that process as well, we’ll see.
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Every paid subscriber here on Substack will get access to our Discord server, which is the ultimate aggregator of quality Warriors (and NBA) journalism. I talk about it a lot and even show it in action on every Watch Party. It already has updates, as I write this, on Jimmy’s injury from key NBA insiders. It is like a carefully curated Twitter/X List without all the eyesore outraged replies, and yet our Discord is Xitter on steroids because it draws from multiple platforms including Instagram, where every nearly NBA player and agent has an account, and BlueSky.
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This deserves its own bullet point: Our Discord server can also organize video in an elite way whereby all other platforms cannot.
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I will likely increase the price of the Discord server assuming the Warriors continue a deep playoff run (please get healthy, Jimmy 🙏).
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Soon, subscriptions to the Discord will be primarily not via the manual way of also being a paid subscriber here on Substack. But this Substack will continue on in its present form as always. If you like Substack and you like supporting me (thank you, it’s needed, believe me 🙏), just stay here and I can add you onto our Discord server as needed. It’s just that people who already love Discord don’t want to have to come here just to signup, so I’m gonna be making it easy for them to do that.
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All of the above is dependent on my available time. Sometimes I get really busy uploading videos and, now, editing podcasts — or in today’s case, rewatching and analyzing/clipping Q1 of G2.
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If you are a paid sub on here and want to activate your Discord server access, just email me at rich@letsgowarriors.com.
I will always embed the videos which, again, have the whole transcript anyways in the Comments, and then the transcripts for each one will be behind the timed paywall that disappears two to three days later.
So here we go with the first transition of LGW-dot-com, in reverse chronological order from yesterday: postgame with Steph, then Draymond, then Steve Kerr, Kerr pregame, and finally views from morning shootaround plus interviews with Buddy Hield and, actually, another one with Quinten that reinforces my feelings about him above…