Game Debrief: What Went Right And What Went Wrong?

The amount of games and injuries has set us back. But there's time to improve from that.

Need to do less ISO ball and have to make defensive adjustments instead of allowing too many open 3's.

 

This team has size issues. Chicago and Orlando really bothered us with their size at every position. The only small guy who got any burn was Joseph.

 

sticking with my earlier thought that the bulls game was a bellwether. we lost whatever mojo we had gained during that 18-4 stretch. time's running out to rebuild it before the playoffs, imo. we can still narrowly avoid the play-in if we get our s*** together, but we've squandered the cushion in pretty dramatic fashion.

 

I don't know what happening but if feels can't build any chemistry with the injuries and now coming back.

The big 3 looks far worse then when they first got together. No Lebron cutting, using those guys in the PnR

Defense not sure what to do here individual S just not good enough

I'm not sure how concerned to be: have teams scouted but clear decline with Rui and Lebron coming back. Want to lean into relearning how to play together

Particularly the third quarter has been a disaster. Team has played well outside of two awful 3rd quarters

 

Hello darkness my old friend...

We looked stuck in 3rd gear throughout the first half, were up 60-58 after playing in 2nd gear the final 2 mins of the 2nd Q.

As true to late form, our 3rd Q was azz. I was afraid it was gonna happen, then I had to watch it. ORL won the 3rd by 16.

4th Q: teams played even. We made a run, cut it to 7 (from 17) but couldn't get stops.

Holy crap that sucked. I had the ORL feed, so had to listen to their announcers, who aren't terrible, but during the 2nd Q they invited Dwight to talk for the whole Q, and man he's slow, boring, cliche-ridden. Halfway through I just watched the game on mute.

I kept thinking, If we come out strong in the 3rd this latest nightmare is probably over. It was not over.

On to IND.

 

Back to the no D no 3 team (except Doo n Luka)

 

We look like we need a week off.

 

It took Luka and AR a few games to look right after their returns. Hoping the same from Bron. Rui, I don't think we'll get there with him based on how he spoke about his injury. I'm sure he'll look better but... how much?

Luckily nearly everyone in the West is on a losing streak. BUT we've got to get it right soon. Then try to ramp up to the same stratosphere of where we were before these injuries. Cause that team can go to the WCF. This team, play in.

 

I think there are a few things going on:

1. The team is tired. The were on a really good run pre-Luka trade, and then sustained it for a little while afterward. But the adrenaline of Luka being here has worn off and they just had a 6 games in 8 nights stretch.

2. The style of defense we were playing during that run isn't sustainable over the course of a regular season. This is why teams still play mediocre traditional rim-protecting bigs rather than going small all the time. Its why the Warriors, at the peak of their powers, still started guys like Bogut, McGee, Looney and Zaza in the regular season when their Draymond at the 5 lineups obliterated everyone. Its about eating innings in the regular season. It's easier on everyone to funnel ballhandlers into your rim protector for most of a Tuesday night game in February than it is to go switch heavy, rotate, swarm the ball, etc.

3. The offense isn't there yet. Being the #1 or #2 defense or whatever was never sustainable with our personnel, the theory of this team post-Luka trade is you do enough to get by defensively while the offense is overwhelming.

2 seed is probably off the table now unless we get lucky with opponents resting guys down the stretch. I'd love to jump up over the Nuggets for the 3 seed so both they and the Thunder are on the other side of the bracket. We have the tiebreaker so I think its still reasonably possible. But even if we get stuck in a 4/5 matchup against Memphis, that team is in worse shape than us. They haven't beaten someone over .500 since the first week of February. No one knows if Morant is playing night to night. They're an unserious team IMO.

 

Definitely another disappointing loss but I'm not ready to throw in the towel just yet. I suspect its a combination of things including guys still being a bit banged up. I don't know if we can get back to the level of defense we were playing but I definitely think we can do better than the last two games.

 

Second place isn't out of question.Lakers twice will play vs Houston at home and If they win both games they have tiebreaker ,but If GSW will win today aat Miami I would start worrying about play in

 

Too many games too close together

 

This is why, they look like their legs are shot right now.

 

this guy gets it

 

Bad Miami Heat do to GSW exactly what Orlando did to Lakers yesterday just destroying small ball
Warriors vs. Miami Starting five at the half time 10-55
Are they contenders, friend asking.

And without Curry warriors have basically 0 chances for comeback

 

And Heat shot 71 % from 3 Lol
17-24

 

It’s the NBA, every team can get hot on their night. I mean here’s an example of maybe the worst team in the NBA:

Charlotte: beat Miami x2, Grizzlies, Houston, Pistons, Pacers x2, Bucks, Phoenix, Dallas, Lakers and Knicks x2

The Cavs have had two 4 game losing streaks.

It’s just the NBA, you’re nowhere near as good as your best game and you’re nowhere near as bad as your worst night.

 

i get it, and i mostly agree. and i'm also usually the person who doesn't freak out. but the bulls game doesn't fit this story, nor does it match all these other examples (e.g., the warriors lost on the road, minus curry, in a unique situation--i'm sure miami's players have an axe to grind with butler), nor is it a one-off. i guess i just hoped the "we just didn't play hard" games were behind us.

i also agree that fatigue can explain some of what's happened, but...there are 12 games left in the season and then, you hope, as many as 20+ playoff games. if we're too tired to defend and execute now, where's the sudden energy coming from?

we've now lost 7 of 10 games, a worse mark than every single team we're jockeying with for position. the only other losing record here belongs to denver, who's played without jokic for the last few games. i can excuse some of the losses incurred when we were missing folks, but we have no excuses for what's happened in the two games since we got lebron and rui back.

we have three more road games coming up. we've been a bad road team all season long. we could conceivably face gs at home with a chance to fall behind them in the standings next week.

i really thought the lead we'd built with that 18-4 run was big enough to avoid the play-in, but we decided to stress test that theory.

 

Great post, really good breakdown.

I think the last 2 games can happen. Clearly there's a fatigue situation going on. Then the return of Bron and Rui also affect everyone else, as multiple guys had to step up in their absences and now need to regress to what they were doing before. It's also a fact that neither Bron nor Rui are back at it yet and they have some rust.

We were really hitting it before and I think that's our peak with this group. I think we all agree we were playing better than we should. Everything was gelling, everyone knew their role and it might take time to return to that. It sucks we don't have that time but we have enough of a cushion to manage it.

I'm also not super worried if we play the play-in as 7th/8th seed, I think we come on top. Worst thing is that we lose much needed rest days and face OKC/Houston in that scenario, 2 teams that should provide a bad matchup. We struggle against young and physical teams