Episode Transcript
[00:00:14] Hello and welcome on into stacking doves. This is Chris Chin, first name Chris, last name Chin. I'm happy to have you guys here. Thank for listening. Happy to share a little my energy, enthusiasm, passion as a Warriors fan. I'm just a kid who grew up in foster City before moving to Los Angeles, went to UCLA and still live here in LA, but you will not find a bigger warriors fan around, especially here in Southern California. A little bit about me. Well, my best day ever. Let's just talk about that, right? Best day I've ever had. Game five, NBA Finals, warriors versus Calves, 2015, year one that we started our dynasty, came up from Los Angeles to go to the game sitting upper, upper reserved. I think it was $600 a ticket. Roped my dad into coming. He initially was hesitant to come, but man, I am glad he ended up coming. Had the best time of our lives.
[00:01:21] I have a picture of myself and my dad that I have brought up on my screen just to remind me of how great a day that was and God rest my dad's soul. Love you very much.
[00:01:34] Couldn't be a better memory of my dad than just watching warriors games and Niners games and Giants games together. My number one fan, my number one bud, and I know he'd be my number one listener here listening. So shout out to you dad, and just know that you will have an influence on me throughout this podcast, wherever it goes. Light years off into the future.
[00:01:58] Well, welcome on in guys. You caught me on a very interesting date. It's twelve, three minutes past the trade deadline here on February eigth, and as far as I know, the warriors have stood pat. They have not made a big move or any move as far as I know, which is news because, well, there were a lot of talks, particularly around Andrew Wiggins, who we will get to in just a minute. Wiggins had a huge game last night, but man, I am glad to wrap my arms around that guy, metaphorically. Give him a hug and just say, man, I'm glad you're sticking here. I'm glad you're still around.
[00:02:43] It's also another great timing, great day to start this stacking dubs podcast, because you know what? The warriors are stacking some Dubs themselves. Two game winning streak, three and one on the road trip after last night's win against the Sixers. Heading into tonight we play the Pacers on the second game of a back to back to hopefully close out the road trip. Four and one Dubs last night played at Philadelphia against the Sixers, a 30 and 19 Sixers playing without Joel Embiid Dubs come away with a win 127 104, improved their record to 23 and 25 stat of the game. Warriors only allowed 68 points through the third quarter and at that point, the game was effectively out of reach for the Sixers. Warriors were up 23 through three quarters and were able to sit all of their starters, getting some much needed rest heading into tonight. And, well, that seems to be the theme lately in the warriors wins. Since Draymond Green has returned, the defense has really seemed to start turning a corner. The number one reason for that is the synergy between the Draymond Green, Jonathan Kaminga, Andrew Wiggins front court in 139 minutes since Draymond Green has returned from suspension, those three on the court together are plus 78. Absolutely love to see it. The defensive versatility, the athleticism. All three can challenge shots at the rim. And most importantly, Draymond Green really just ties up the back end, gives you a little bit of a protection behind our point of attack defenders. And those three, you can see the chemistry, especially again on the defensive end, really gelling, and that's been making the difference and giving us a lot of hope for optimism as we go forward.
[00:04:40] We know that the offense, being a high volume shooting offense led by the splash brothers, it's just always been that way. There will be fluctuations based on if the ball is falling or not, but what the warriors have always been able to hang their hat on throughout this dynasty is a top ten defense. Can we get back to that point? Can Draymond hold up as truly only our real center? And if I lose that term loosely, real center without the warriors surering up and getting a little more depth at center, it really is just Draymond. It's Looney, it's Sharich if you want. It's TJD if you want. There's not a ton of depth behind Draymond when he's off the court needing a rest or otherwise. So that's the biggest question for the warriors as we move forward here and as it looks like we stood pat on the trade deadline. Can that front court get it done going over to Andrew Wiggins, man, can we just give this guy a hug? It was so good to see that big, toothy, goofy smile on his face. In only 23 minutes tonight, he had 21 points, ten rebounds. He was nine of 14 from the field and two of three on three pointers, and the double double was great. I love to see him rebounding and being engaged, but the efficiency, it came in all different ways. It was great to see him attack the hoop. It was even better to see some of his jumpers fall.
[00:06:11] The three point shot is really what's going to get Andrew Wiggins going, not only from just obviously a scoring standpoint, but he's very much a confidence type of player, right. If things are going well, he's confident his shot is falling. That opens up the rest of his game. He starts getting downhill, attacking the hoop. His handle gets a little tighter and by all means, this year his handle has been so loose, so many bobbles and fumbles, you would think it's football season, but we're going to get into football season just a little bit later.
[00:06:44] But Andrew Wiggins, if this is the type of Wiggins, just from an effort standpoint and from an efficiency standpoint that we think we can get moving forward, this team can compete with the emergence of Jonathan Kaminga and the consistency in Kaminga's game as of the last dozen games or so, with Draymond Greenback tying this defense together, with Gary Payton and Chris Paul coming back to add more depth soon with the emergence of Brandon Pojemski, with the resurgence of clay finding his shot, which we will get into in a bit, of all those things can come together.
[00:07:25] And again, the number one most important thing here is that Wiggins can be consistent and get it together.
[00:07:31] This is a team that can contend. I know right now you roll your eyes and hey, we've seen glimpses of this only to blow a 20 point lead or lose to a shorthanded Grizzlies team or just get run out of the building at home. I get it, guys. I know it's about consistency, but we've seen the upside in this team. We've seen them compete with the Nuggets. We've seen them beat the Celtics. We've seen them play with some of the best teams in the league. And we know that at any given point, if we can just get to that clutch time to winning time, we have Steph Curry in our pocket. And there is no better closer in the game in clutch moments at this point in time in the NBA than Steph Curry. No, we haven't always been getting the job done.
[00:08:21] Yes, we lead the league and clutch games played. We're below 500 in those games.
[00:08:28] But I say that because the silver lining is there's no reason to think that we couldn't have turned around two, three, five of those games. And now we're looking at being a couple of games over 500. There's a lot of things that have just gone wrong for the warriors. And it feels like, oh, the sky is falling, the dynasty is over. They're old. They just don't have it anymore. That championship dna is gone, guys. This is basketball. The ball is in the air. Sometimes a millimeter off one side of the rim, a millimeter the other way.
[00:09:05] The basket going in or out ball, a charging block to call. There's so many minuscule margins of error that could change a game, especially in these games, that we're losing by a point or in overtime. This team is right there. And so I say that with optimism, that if we can somehow get it together, this team seems to be off the court, gelling. They like each other. They're learning to play even better together. On both ends of the floor, things can come together. And for that reason, I'm happy to say that Wiggins played himself to staying in the Bay area. We'll see what happens after this year. I still think he's on a good contract.
[00:09:49] Four years, 25 million on average. That's a great contract for what Wiggins is capable of. Even Wiggins playing poorly right now, he's not even that far below a $20 million player, just given his production this year. Sure, that's debatable, but I think as we see him regress to the mean and maybe even find some of that mojo that he had in past years, he's going to play himself. And we're going to say, yes, that was a good contract, a team friendly contract, and we're happy that Wiggins is staying with us. So, yes, I'm happy that we're standing pat. This team can make a run.
[00:10:24] Is it a favorite to win? No. Do I expect it to get to the Western Conference finals? Probably not. But if you're going to put me in a seven game series against the Clippers, the Nuggets, the Thunder, you're telling me the warriors can't win a seven game series? After all we've seen with Steph Curry, Draymond Green, Clay Thompson and everyone else in there, with the coaching adjustments that we always seem to make, except for last year when we kind of ran out of juice and just. It was just a long season.
[00:10:57] Guys, I believe, we believe we have the strength and numbers this year. There's one thing that's been consistent. Our bench has been great.
[00:11:07] We can do this. We just need to get clicking and we just need to be consistent.
[00:11:13] Which leads me to my next point, has this season, and I'm pointing at Clay Thompson and Andrew Wiggins, who I think collectively we can say, have really been our biggest areas of opportunity, if you will. Biggest room for improvement. Is it possible that they're just in shooting slumps and we're just overreacting? I understand that Clay has his injuries. I understand that he's not a 22 point score per game anymore, and he more or less is what he is. He's a great shooter. He doesn't give you a ton on ball.
[00:11:53] He's an okay defender. He's gotten better defending bigger players in the post.
[00:11:59] We know what they bring. Is it possible that just these shooting slumps and thus which also affect their confidence, could that just turn around with just a couple of shots going in? You saw it with Wiggins last night. We saw it with Clay last night. Clay Thompson in 28 minutes, 18 points, four or five from three, very much changed the narrative from the night before when he was pouting for not closing a winning effort just because he's a little bit off? No, he wasn't playing well, but sometimes the shot's just not falling. And my point is, in the NBA these days, are we too quick to give blanket statements and blanket evaluations on players just because they're going through a shooting slump this year? Clay Thompson, 37.7% from three. He's normally a 41% career shooter from three. He's only shooting 41% from the field. Those numbers are going to come up. He's played long enough. It's not like Clay Thompson just forgot how to shoot. Yes, he was injured. Maybe he doesn't get quite as many clean or good or set looks as he used to, but the guy can still shoot the heck out of the ball. He will get back closer to 40%. Andrew Wiggins on the season, 31% from three. Well, the last two seasons in a row, he shot close to 39%, maybe even a tad over.
[00:13:23] You have to look at these sample sizes and yes, I know it's been almost what it's been 47, 48 games through the season, but I tend to look at past years, things can turn around. The sample size tends to play out in the aggregate. The other thing that Wiggins has really been struggling in is the mid range, whereas in past we could dump it to him. Late shot clock. He can find a nice, clean mid range look and knock it down somewhere close to 45%, maybe even kind of 43%, which is a good shot, which is pretty good efficiency for the end of the shot clock this year, he's shooting 34% from the mid range. A lot of those have been good looks. I can't even tell you how many little four and five foot little push shots, or even just slightly off balance finishes at the rim that just aren't falling for him. I could very easily see some of these start to fall. Wiggins brings his scoring average from. I think he's at like 12.8 points per game on the season. That could get closer to 1617 points just with a little turnaround. And then he's a completely different player. Wiggins is a confidence guy. Wiggins starts scoring, Wiggins starts defending. Wiggins starts scoring. He starts rebounding. Everything starts to click. And that's the recipe for the warriors to maybe win a playoff series or two or three, or just go all the way, stack doves all the way to the championship. Unless bring home that thumb finger. Sorry, not thumb finger, thumb ring. There we go. Pinky ring, whatever finger you're wearing on it. I lose track. There's so many. I'm sorry, guys, but my point is, I think the warriors have it have a chance to turn things around. Best course of action, stand pat, ride this year out. Keep some financial flexibility heading into next year. You can figure out what you want to do with Wiggins. You can figure out what you want to do with Chris Paul's contract. I don't think it makes any sense to make any drastic moves right now and essentially push your future and all your chips into the middle. A minor move would have been okay. I would have liked to maybe somehow get like a Kelly ol Linux who is going, I believe, to the Raptors for a first round pick. There's no way I would be giving a first round pick. So here we are.
[00:15:46] We're still having guys like Moody, guys like GP, two guys like Chris Paul that probably are only going to be getting 15 to 20 minutes. And we got to figure out what to do with these guys because our bench is so deep. It would have been nice to maybe trade one or two of them for an upgraded player for a two way type player. We have a lot of guys that do one or two things well, but not a lot of guys that can be two way contributors. That would also been an area to address, but it is what it is. I'll live with it. I think this is the best course going forward for the rest of this year and heading into next year.
[00:16:25] So let's talk about the closing lineup, and I guess we can call that the starting lineup. And I guess what would be next, our one b lineup. So our best lineup is a Steph Curry, Draymond Green. Obviously it's Jonathan Kaminga, and it's Wiggins. We're going to have to assume Wiggins is going to play well enough. He just defensively we need him in there. And if he can give us 1617 points on offense a game, that's the four that's been working for us. That's the four that are going to get us as far as we're going to go. And then that fifth spot, so that's the Clay Thompson starting spot. And Clay gives that lineup more spacing and he gives it a little more size, the interchangeable lineup there. And what Steve Ker has been doing is he's bringing Brandon Pojemski in for Clay Thompson and letting Pojemsky run with that group of four different looks brings different things. And depending on the night, you can play either matchup. And that's more or less what Steve Ker's been doing. Yes, I know he's closing with random lineup sometimes, whatever's working, but if we're talking about playoff series high leverage moments, we're going to see some combination of the six of those players playing. So I want to just kind of do a little comparison on what the Clay versus Pojemski lineup looks like. Obviously, Clay Thompson gives you the shooting, right? If we're looking skill by skill, Clay Thompson gives you shooting, but does Pojemski give you more everywhere else? And this is not a knock on clay by any means. This is just me trying to be objective and just really more of a compliment to Pojemsky. Yes, Pojemski's shot could do some work. He shoots a set shot, doesn't really have a jumper or a pull up game at all.
[00:18:15] But aside from that, in terms of ball handling, playmaking, rebounding, Pachemski gives you more. And that's just on the offensive side. Clay Thompson, if anything else other than shooting, gives you a little more length and height. In Pojemsky, Clay's six seven, Pojemsky is six four. But I think everyone would agree that Pojemski plays much bigger than Clay does. Pojemski is averaging eight or nine rebounds a game lately.
[00:18:47] On defense, he's attacking, he's aggressive on ball, off the ball he's in strong help. D gives you rim protection by drawing charges.
[00:18:57] Leads near the top of the league in charges drawn. I don't know if I've ever seen Clay Thompson draw a charge, and by that logic, I don't see Clay Thompson blocking too many shots either. Although on the warriors he, I believe is top three or four on the warriors and blocks, but that's more or less a team lack of protection issue. Pojemski gives you more defensively in almost every aspect. He takes care of the ball again, he can handle the ball. He can be a secondary playmaker with that lineup when Steph Curry's needing a little bit of a break, and, you know, Draymond Green can do his thing, but he's not going to be a dribble, drive, crash the defense, collapse the defense, and kick it out to other guys. Pegemski gives you that. So I say all these things because those are weapons within themselves. I'm not saying one's better, but on one night or the other, depending on the matchup, depending on how the game's going, you can use either one of those. And I like both of those lineups. It gives you a kind of a different look, and it's really been successful. Both of those lineups since Draymond Green has returned are in the high, high positive ratings, both offensively and defensively.
[00:20:13] Yes, I do think pause is a better defender, but since Draymond's return, that lineup with Clay has actually had a better defensive rating. So I will tip my sailors hat to Clay Thompson for being a part of that defensive unit.
[00:20:27] So anyway, Pegemski, I say all this to say that I love Pajemski. He's a great feel for the game. Before tonight, he had three straight double doubles with zero turnovers. After last night, well, the double double streak ended, but he still didn't turn the ball over. He, in his last four games, has 27 assists on zero turnovers. Absolutely love it. Other little tidbits from last night. Kaminga, 18 points, six rebounds, five assists on seven of 14 shooting. That's turning into a pretty standard, consistent night from Kaminga. That was only in about 28, 29 minutes as well. So there's no reason to think that wouldn't have been another game in the mid 20s. On close to 50% or better field goal shooting over his last eleven, Kaminga averaging over 24 points on 60% from the field. And I just love everything about that. Kaminga's emergence, this is really what unlocks all my optimism going forward. At the very least this season, no matter what happens, as long as Kaminga continues to develop, and if this is the Kaminga that we're going to get going forward, we have to consider this season a decent success. We found potentially our bridge to the future in Kaminga, and to a lesser extent, Brandon Pajamski, Steph Curry, Draymond Green, relatively light work for them tonight. Curry only played 25 minutes, only took seven field goal attempts, had nine points. Draymond only 18 minutes. We have a little segment on this show that I've been doing before. We call it Dre watch. Just kind of watching Dre's behaviors. Still no technical foul, still no flagrant since his return. He's been more or less light on the refs. Last night was maybe the most verbal he's been with a ref. He got a little tangled up on a loose ball rebound, may or may not have fouled, but got called for and had a lengthy conversation, kept his emotions in check, just kind of keeping an eye on it. But I would like to see him stay out of the extracurricular officiating parts of the game and continue to just keep on being the presence that he has been overall very happy with Dre since he's returned, and it really just shows how much of the glue he is to everything the warriors need to do.
[00:22:52] Other notes. What really has been working well for the warriors is the inverted pick and roll with Jonathan Kaminga on ball and Steph Curry setting a screen. Warriors did it at the end of the half, had a very good look. Got been really efficient on that play throughout the last, maybe about a month because defenses aren't going to switch off of Steph. When Steph's setting that screen, they're not switching defenders. Otherwise, Steph's just going to step out and pop and bury a three on them. So as Kaminga's defender is fighting through the screen and then going under, now Kaminga has an angle to attack the hoop and he's been getting downhill, and as soon as he turns the corner, it is effectively over. We're starting to see evolutions of that where now help is coming into the lane and Kaminga's shown that he can make that next not he can either get to the line, but most importantly, he's not going to draw a charge.
[00:23:52] He's not going to turn it over at the rate that he used to be when he was attacking the hoop. He's making sound decisions, and I credit that to his patience and his control and his creativity. In the lane, he gets there, and often it's a jump stop, head fake, pivot. However, from there, step through, fade away, whatever you want to call it. Just go up for a dunk and bulldoze people. But he's very controlled attacking the hoop, and I think that's been a very important part of success recently.
[00:24:24] Okay, well, I think the recipe for the warriors going forward Kaminga, Clay and Wiggins. My magic number, the three of them from the scoring department, I need at least 56 points from the three of them. So they're each averaging 18 points on whatever game basis.
[00:24:44] If those three combined for about 56 points, we're in business. That collectively replaces the need for that second score, that second mid 20s, low 20s all star score that the warriors are lacking on any given night. That can be Clay, that can be JK, that can be Wiggins. But we can't have one of those three completely disappearing. The three of them collectively again need 56 points or more. And then I think the offense is doing well enough to let Steph Curry drop his typical 27, 28, 60 points a game. And then Draymond Green anchors the D and that's enough to win. Looking ahead tonight, right back to it, going to Indiana, playing the Pacers. Pacers who just traded away. Buddy healed at the deadline. Halliburton sort of been nursing a hamstring. He missed a couple weeks, but he has since returned. He's a game time decision. I expect him to play. Phenomenal player again. I expect him to play, but we'll see. I think the warriors can go and get this one, guys. Our starters did not have to run too many minutes last night. Fairly rested, big game to hopefully close out this back to back. Get to four and one on the road trip. Head back home Saturday hosting the Suns before we all get a settle in Sunday and watch our Niners take home the Super bowl championship against Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs. We'll close with my Niners prediction.
[00:26:19] I think it's going to be a lot of running.
[00:26:23] What the Chiefs defense does well and doesn't do well. Their secondary is phenomenal. Their run defense has been okay. Obviously the Niners, they live and die. It all begins with McCaffrey on the ground or even through the air. But as McCaffrey gets going, it opens up the play action. It opens up Brock Purdy. I see the Niners feeding the ball to McCaffrey, finding ways to get Debo the ball at the line of scrimmage and letting him run.
[00:26:55] I don't know what to expect defensively. The Niners need to stop the run, and I do think that the Chiefs are going to try to do that as much as they can.
[00:27:04] Patrick Mahomes is obviously the goat of our era, maybe the goat of all time, so whatever magic he brings could offset anything I say. But I think overall Niners the better team. Brock Purdy is going to show up to play cool, calm, collected. Hopefully we don't need a huge comeback out of him, but we know he's capable of it. That being said, I think it is going to be the 49 ers winning 24 to 21, bringing home that fifth championship, that fifth Lombardi trophy. Bang bang. Not a gang. Well, I'll leave it with this, guys, because this is a Warriors podcast. Glad we're finally starting to stack some dubs. Thank you guys for listening. This has been so fun. I can't wait to do more. And please stick with me. We're going to get better and better. And as the warriors make this miraculous turnaround into their season and can also get to the promised land, I'll be here to tell you all about it. Until next time, guys. This has been Chris Chin and you've been listening to stacking dubs. Have a good life.
