Transcripts from morning shootaround and pregame before Game 4 Warriors-Wolves below, but Trayce Jackson-Davis pointed out a game plan adjustment that the Warriors actually solved even as they went down 3-1 in the Western Conference Semifinals: rebounding.
“They shot a lot of threes and there was a lot of long rebounds,” Jackson-Davis said after morning shootaround. “I feel like we were just rushing in and usually we come from the nail and then kind of looked to see where the ball’s at, but we were just running in and then they were getting long rebounds and so I felt like we did a good job hitting, but that part of it, we just need to key in on.”
Btw, in case you’re unfamiliar with, the “nail” refers to the free throw line, actually, the exact center of it. On probably every basketball court made of hardwood, there’s a nail that’s been nailed into the middle of the free throw line. It actually helps guide a free throw shooter to line up to the rim. One Wardell Stephen Curry uses it every time, tapping his right toe on it before straightening out his stance, making sure the nail is between both his feet. He does right before every time he shoots a free throw.
And so, because three-point misses tend to bounce off the rim further away to the “elbows”, the literal strategy of rebounding in the modern NBA entails being at the nail or somewhere near the free throw line, fifteen feet away from the rim, to track down those boards. This strategy is the reason why Golden State is always atop the NBA in rebounding — and how Curry gets his rebounds in motion — even though they are one of the smallest teams and Steph is usually the shortest guy on the floor.
Kerr has talked about rebounding at length in the past. One piece of terminology his staff has come up with is “stays”, which is sort of the negative result of not obeying the above rebounding strategy:
Anyways, the Game 4 stats:
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Wolves had 38 rebounds, 6 of them offensive
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Warriors had… drum roll… 38 rebounds, 14 of them offensive.
As I’ll discuss in the next article I post, Steve Kerr had the squad executing the “formula”, but it abruptly ended roughly five minutes into the third quarter as Minnesota rattled off four straight possessions of three points each: an Anthony Edwards acrobatic and-one, then three straight threes. Even Mike Conley hit a dagger pull-up splash on the break in that run as the Wolves eventually finished 16-for-34 beyond the arc. A 68-68 tie became 80-68 as Kerr called timeout and, later, Draymond Green on the podium revealed that Jimmy Butler was sick, which explains his “ofer” and general passivity of not being able to stem the tide during that critical stretch, eventually ending the game with only nine field goal attempts.
Again, I’ll talk about this in the next post with all the postgame podia reaction, but the formula actually worked — until it didn’t. And if Butler isn’t 100% then you have no superstar to stem the tide or close the game. We’ll talk about what Steve can do about that in Game 6 next article.
Incidentally, Raymond Ridder and the rest of the Warriors PR crew won their eighth PBWA Brian McIntyre Media Relations Award for the 2024-25 season. The presentation is actually in the Kerr pregame video. PBWA Vice President Sam Amick said, prior to Kerr taking the podium, that they actually had to change the rules so that Golden State wouldn’t be winning it every year — they had won the award four straight years starting with the 2015-16 season. My only problem with all this is… you can’t see Cole Lawrence’s signature ponytail in the photo in the press release 😆 — just kidding, I love the ponytail, of course! But in all seriousness, kudos to Raymond, Brett Winkler, Michael Ravina, Cole, Darryl Arata, not to mention game-day part-time helpers Eamonn Sweeney, James Kincaid, Kaitlyn Frysztak, Jordan Mansfield and Dani Mernick for a job well done, with a job that is quite honestly very difficult to execute. And LetsGoWarriors wouldn’t be where it is today without their partnership over the years.
Finally, check out our latest podcast which delves into the sudden new identity of these Warriors (YouTube, Spotify and iTunes):
The following transcripts will be unlocked from the paywall when that posts. That being said, the transcripts from the previous article are now unlocked. Here are TJD and Gary Payton II from morning shootaround and Kerr pregame, where Trayce’s rebounding strategy above was reiterated, too.