Golden State Warriors v New York Knicks (1/15/26)

The previous few games were decently covered in the Athletic, though at a more traditional newspaper level of detail.  But this one was not, so here we go...

Last night the Knicks took a 31-14 lead in the first quarter and it was a test for Warriors fans:  Are you confident or scared?   I have long maintained that the greats in Bay Area sports history give you confidence in the big moments, even in spite of growing up in the 1970s and "learning" that the home team was going to find some way to lose.

Now the Knicks were missing Jalen Brunson after he twisted his ankle just dribbling the previous night against the Kings, and the Knicks were on a back-to-back night on the road.  But we've seen this year's Warriors team fold behind big deficits, go cold and stay cold from the field, and chase to close the gap late but fall short.   It could go either way.

Fortunately, it went the good way.  The Warriors rallied to get back within five by the first quarter buzzer, tied it with one of Moody's many threes (Nice to see one of our guys do that again) with 8:42 left in the second quarter, take a 62-59 lead at the half, and never trail by more than one the rest of the way on the way to a 126-113 non-clutch victory.

I have observations to share, but the biggest takeaway for me is how good Jimmy Butler is.   Just watching him play is fascinating, as he has the kind of athleticism that Barry Sanders had - just a slight hint that he's going one way gets the defender to bite, and then he goes the other way under complete control.  How many times have we seen him lay it in with no hand within four feet of blocking him because the defender went the wrong way?  Or more accurately, because there is no right way; Jimmy can go the other way no matter what.  

 Then he does stuff like follow his own miss and putting it back or tipping it in, which takes so much athleticism when he has to bounce back from the position he was in after missing to beat one or more guys who didn't.  And he gets fouled often, giving the Warriors points, a breather, and one more step towards the bonus.  

Jimmy finished with 32 points, 8 rebounds, 4 assists, 2 steals, no turnovers, and 1 foul for a +15.  He's played 37 of 41 games this year, which is a 74 game pace that he's only topped three times in his career, the last being 2012-13 with the Bulls.  He's given them the best non-Steph minutes since Durant.  How happy does Steph have to be that he can rest on the bench without anxiety?

That was a trade that was questioned (yes, even by me) that has only come up roses.  Sorry Heat and Wolves fans... you're just going to have to keep hoping we'll be disappointed. 

Observations

1. Sideshow Podz had another excellent game with 19/5/2 for a +22 in 25 minutes.  We had just been talking about his hook shot when he sidestepped into the lane and made one.  The announcers called it "An LA Fitness" move, joking that it's old crafty guys who take that shot.  He also hit two rainbow jumpers at the shot clock buzzer from the right baseline, one a three and one not.  Then he caught a couple of TD passes for layups near the end when the Knicks threatened to get close.
2. Stephen Curry is such a complete player.  He not only makes every kind of shot (including circus), his defense has gotten so good that no one tries to pick on him any more.   He makes steals with quick, anticipatory hands, keeps guys away from their attempted shots with quick feet, sets great screens, and makes passes downcourt that are on the money.   Always a joy to watch.
3.  OG Anunoby is a goddamn force of nature.  A guy that big, strong, and fast who wants to get to the hoop is a freight train.  But when OG's unstoppable twos are answered with Steph's unstoppable threes, say goodnight Dick.
4.  Jimmy's braids are back.   He's our fashion icon too.  I mean, competing with Steph's shoes, that is.
5. Refs did a good job.  I can't think of any truly blown calls, and I agreed with all their review decisions. 
6. Great shooting night from Moses Moody, going 7 of 9 from three for 21 points.  It really highlights what an asset he is when his shots are going down and also what an essential piece of his puzzle that is.   
7. A little too much Bad Dray last night.  He deserved that flagrant for grabbing KAT by the ankle.  He was 1/4 shooting (all threes) and passed to the corner for one of Moody's two misses instead of finishing.  And he made low percentage passes in the key that got picked off twice.  More below.

This might seem unrelated, but the great thing about Joe Montana that you can't tell from just highlights is that he always put the ball exactly where it was supposed to go.  If a receiver ran a good route, the ball would be right where his arms naturally go, away from any defenders, and a catchable ball.   Lesser QBs will much more often miss the spot, either by location or timing, or put up balls that the receiver has to "Go get," meaning they have to beat the defender to it.  

Dray makes too many passes that either aren't going to make it, or require something special from the guy trying to convert.   It's not that he never makes those great Joe Montana passes, but if he could just stick to those and not try the others, he'd be better.   And I do think a player's degree of aggression and risk-taking are conscious choices, even in a split-second. 

That's it for me today.  What's everyone else got?

Golden State Warriors v Milwaukee Bucks (1/7/26)

The Warriors actually won a game without making it a clutch game or using more than 10 players.  What versatility!  😁

Five observations

1. This was the coming out party for the De'Anthony Melton we've been hoping for.  Melt scored 22 points with five threes and was a pest on defense.  I also loved when he hung out on top near the end of the 3rd and despite being hot from deep he drove down the middle of the lane for a layup.  The turnaround two at the shot clock buzzer in Q4 was just rubbing it in.
    
2. Jimmy led the charge in the early fourth and kept the Warriors comfortably ahead without Steph or Dray on the court. Then when Dray came on, it worked fine.  It is really nice to have a strong leader in the non-Steph minutes.
3. Quinten Post showed three different ways he can score... besides the three he also made a two-dribble drive for a layup and an unblockable hook from the middle of the paint.   
4. Ryan Rollins still looking good, logging 16 points, 7 rebounds, and 4 assists.  He's looking like he'll be the best drafted ex-Warrior.  There had to be one.
5. Steph Curry's still the greatest show on hardwood.   12 for 21 for 31 points, 7 assists, and 6 rebounds!  He also was a three-level scorer and last night he came out of the gate hot.  When he doesn't have to carry the team and can just play freely... watch out!

That's 7-3 in the last ten games with the Kings and Hawks coming up.  It's a good part of the season to make a move. 

Golden State Warriors @ Los Angeles Clippers (1/5/26)

Last night's game vs. the Clippers in their fancy Intuit Dome was heavy on drama.  It'll be remembered for the refs completely missing an obvious goal tending call on a GP2 bunny followed by Steve Kerr getting two technicals and an ejection for going ballistic about it.  In the end, the Warriors had the ball with the clock stopped and six seconds and a chance to run a play where any FG would win.  Steph had already fouled out, and the play was for Jimmy to go one-on-one and take a shot with everyone else crashing the glass for a put-back.

Unfortunately, Jimmy airballed it, and contrary to Fitz wisdom, not all airballs go to the offense.   

Nick Friedell's coverage in the Athletic was similar to his coverage of many recent games:  focus on the microcosm of the ejection and throw in a few lines about the rest of the game.   Here's my comments about said rest of game:

• I've complained a lot about the Warriors' poor shooting from the field AND Draymond throwing up too many bricks from three, and this was no different.  They just can't start a game hot.  The game started with no Warriors buckets even though Moody had two steals.  Dray missed three shots from deep right off the bat.  He wound up missing six in the game and hitting none.   I will say again:  He should stop shooting threes as soon as he's missed three more than he's made.
• Having said that, the rest of this game was not bad.  Dray scored when he drove to the rim (once coast-to-coast), and he logged 2 steals 5 rebounds and 12 assists while committing only one turnover.   He's just got to stop taking threes when he's missing. The Clippers were just giving him those shots and he was suckered in.
• Turnovers were how the Warriors stayed in this game.  They picked up the swarming trick from OKC, especially on Kawhi, and finished the game with 18 steals!   More of that, please!
• Lots of good ball and player movement through the paint.  I particularly liked one where Melt came through for a pass and threw up a reverse layup from out in front of the hoop.
• The scoring drought in the third quarter killed 'em.  They got a few points from Jimmy and Steph free throws, but just could not hit from the field.
• Gui Santos came in and good things happened again!   Six points, two rebounds, and an assist for a +13 in 12 minutes.  Kerr played 12 guys and again it worked well.   DNPs were Spencer, Hield, and Kuminga.

It's frustrating to lose when this team needs a run and is so close to getting one.  I started a poll in the Athletic about what people would do if they were Dunleavy looking at the trade deadline.  Check it out and vote here. 

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What I feel like calling out is that Gary Payton 2 continues to have positive impact on these games.   The guy many people said they'd be happy to see thrown into a trade has gotten his bounce back and is dealing!  Last night he had 14 points, 5 rebounds, 2 assists, a block, and no turnovers.  I particularly liked this one play where was in the corner and snuck around out of bounds to zip back in under the hoop where Steph found him from the top of the key for a dunk.  

GP2 over the past six games has 49 points, 16 rebounds, 8 assists, 1 steal and 5 blocks while playing 84 minutes.  Over the same period, Will Richard (who everyone loves, including me) has 46 points, 18 rebounds, 10 assists, 9 steals and 1 block in 131 minutes.  Will obviously has a brighter future with the Warriors, but I feel like GP2 is playing great and getting largely ignored.   

I mean, it's not just 49 points... it seems like all of them are either layups, dunks, or threes, the statistician's trifecta.   And all of that are things he's doing on his own... the Warriors never run any plays for him.  These are plays that save the possession.   Good on you, Gary!

Golden State Warriors v Utah Jazz (1/3/26)

 The Warriors hosted the Jazz last night, and can I just say that it's long past due that they change their team name?  It made sense for the five seasons they were in New Orleans, but they should let the Pelicans have it and choose something else more worthy of Utah.  Arches?  Mormons?  Something!

 The Jazz came out firing last night, and while we got a deep drink of the talents of Keyonte George and Lauri Markkanen, it still always felt like we should see the Warriors flip the switch and run away with it.  That finally happened in the third quarter when Steph did a Curry Flurry and scored 20 in the quarter!  They went from seven points down at the half to two points up after the quarter.

And then came the Jimmy Unit... No Steph until 4:xx minutes left in the game.  So a group with Jimmy, Sideshow Podz, Moody, Post, and Little Richard ran the lead up to 11 and looked pretty good doing it.   My favorite play had to be Jimmy backing down his defender, taking a turnaround from about seven feet.  He missed, but Podz was the inside rebounder and beat two Jazz to the ball, whereupon he took one step into the key and sidearmed it to the corner for Richard to hit a three.  

What is it about the Jimmy  unit that works?  Which are the right pieces?  It looks like Steve likes Draymond and Gui out there with Steph, but I'll be paying closer attention to who the best court partners are for Jimmy.  Probably one of you who looks at plus/minus by lineups already does it.

Just a word about Draymond's ejection, as it seems like some Warrior fans are joining the chorus of the haters to move him.  Objectively, he still has some game, albeit diminished from his peak.   I don't think he has great trade value because of his decline and obviously unique fit with the Warriors.  The best future success for Dray would include focus on keeping the turnovers and techs to a minimum, and if that diminishes the rest even further, that's OK.  Does anyone even mention his assists last night?  He threw some doozies.  Since I always said I thought he had more self-control than it seems, I'm sticking with it.  He just has to want it.

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OK, I haven't run through the other Warriors talk, so I don't have tidbits to share, but I did want to make sure everyone knew about Eric Apricot's "Explain One Play" series.  Eric was part of a large contingent on "Golden State of Mind" when that was the best Warriors talk on the Internet.  At some point several years back, there was a split opinion on direction by the leaders and the bulk of them went on to form DubNation HQ, which really has some excellent chatter.  

Eric went with them, and continues to do his excellent video series on YouTube.  This not only breaks down Warriors plays, but is funny as hell.   But rather than point you to a YouTube search, I'm going to share with you the "secret" index he's compiled.   He stopped keeping it up until I pointed it out once, but it looks like he stopped again.  My guess is a little click traffic could inspire him to update it again.  

Golden State Warriors v Oklahoma City Thunder (1/2/26)

 Happy 2026!  I am soldiering on with post-game thoughts, partly because the Athletic isn't doing it, but also because I find that I like doing it.  I've kept a journal since 8/3/76 and there's a certain feeling of completion when I write about things that happened.  Onward!

The first game of 2026 was a home game against the Oklahoma City Thunder and Kerr chose to rest Steph, Dray, Jimmy, and DeAnthony when they probably all could have played.  But they have a back-to-back with the badly mis-named Jazz tomorrow, so it's a bit of a "Fuck you" to the schedulers.  I'm just glad I didn't pick this game as my one guest game in a friend's awesome seats this season.  I'd have been pissed!

 As expected, it was an OKC rout.  But what was less expected was a genuine Warriors run to close the gap from 14 points to 2 featuring some inspired Warriors play from our middle tier players.  Sideshow Podz actually blocked Shai on his one-on-one drive to the hoop!  And in the next possession, Moody picked him at halfcourt and took it the other way.  Gui blocked Chet at the rim.  The ball movement looked good.

And then just as quickly as it came, it went.  OKC scored 19 straight points as the Warriors forgot how to score.  You could see how a good defense freaks players out, as they started rushing shots and missing close ones.  It was at least nice to see Al have a good day out there with the second team.  He finished with 13 points, 6 rebounds, and two blocks in 15 minutes.   That's the guy we thought we were getting.

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I listened to a lot of Warriors podcasts, so I'm thinking for those of you who don't, it's a good idea to share the highlights.   Tom Tolbert's been doing a podcast/video podcast since leaving KNBR.  I've always liked Tom's take on things... it's always rooted from a professional player's point of view, and as such, his read is often right.   Also, he's an old friend of Kerr's since college, so Steve comes on frequently.

In this show on New Year's they talked about the value of moving the ball from side to side.   It used to be coaches would emphasize it, but now that there's metrics to show how productive it is, players are buying in.  Basically, the more you move the ball (and don't turn it over) the more opportunities there are for the defense to blow something or you get an advantage.   

Steve also confirmed what I had mentioned about the Jimmy offense... it's a deliberate rotation to put guys around him that he won't defer to.  It makes him take over.

He also talked about what happened with the Draymond dust-up.  Apparently Dray was talking to the refs, as he always does, and Steve was trying to get the team to huddle up.  He has to yell to get Dray's attention, and Dray assumes it's because of his bad turnover and says something snarky.  And then Steve fires back and it goes how it went.   

OK, that's it for today.  Not sure when I'm going to get to watch the Jazz game, but I will.

Golden State Warriors @ Charlotte Hornets (12/31/25)

Continuing on with game thoughts.   Now I only watched this after staying up for a fabulous new year's with Molly Tuttle, so it's going to be a bit more off the top of my head than previous notes.

The Warriors pulled off a glorious 132-125 win over the Hornets in Charlotte yesterday morning (10:00 West Coast time) and it felt a bit like a statement game.  

Let me put it another way; it felt like a vindication of Steve Kerr.   He's taken a lot of heat from fans about not having a consistent 9-10 man rotation, and for not playing young players, in particular Jonathan Kuminga, who remained on the bench.  And yet once again in this successful roadtrip his way works.  There's two ways I look at this.

The first is what I just mentioned - Strength in Numbers is working.  Last year felt so frustrating because with a wide selection of passable-to-good bench players, he would try to find the hot hand only to find that there wasn't one.  Players would just not perform unless the stars were carrying them and they would not turn their bad games into good ones.  

But now the bench guys are showing up and performing.   GP2 made another lefty drive like the other night, and sank an early three.  Gui Santos was a madman, particularly in the second quarter where he made three threes including a highlight play where he saved the ball going out of bounds, changed his original target to Melt, then got it right back to swish one.  And then Sideshow Podz continued his good string of games, ramping it up even further from three.  He had a sweet step-back early, almost Harden-like that will be very useful going forward.  Then late in the game he sank two big ones, the first while moving and jumping off one foot as the clock was about to expire.   Steve is doing a great job of mixing and matching and somehow pulling all the right strings.

The second aspect was just watching the style of play.  The Hornets have some tremendous talent.  Brandon Miller is an unstoppable wing, scoring 33 points.  Kon Knueppel scored 20 points from all over the court.  His performance and the recent Cooper Flagg one showed us what elite rookies look like.  But for most of the game (except their five minute burst in the third where they really looked like a team), the Hornet scoring came from isolation play - either a shot or a drive you can imagine them pulling off in any pickup game.  Sometimes they'd make a nice pass, but it was the kind that good players make when they play together.  

In contrast, the Warriors were always running the offense, doing their ball movement, split cuts, and backdoor passes.  It looked like they were going to win the game with the advantages of skill and a plan borne of experience, despite their obvious athletic inferiority.  And in the end, they did, though helped greatly by shooting well.  There are so many games this season that came down to making or missing shots, and in this game they were making them.  

Kerr deserves a ton of credit for this win.  He probably won't get it from a lot of people, but he gets it from me.  Also, Draymond was excellent, with 12 assists, two rebounds short of a triple double, and solid defense.  Steph we just take for granted, but he has to be relieved that 26 points was enough for a comfortable win.