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.
1 comment:
Great recap! So glad you are doing it. Signed P.J.T.
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