Warriors/Mavs Postgame, Steph, Brandin Podziemski, Coach Kerr Reactions | Dec 30, 2023

Warriors/Mavs Postgame, Steph, Brandin Podziemski, Coach Kerr Reactions | Dec 30, 2023

Steve what what was the uh reasoning behind the change in the starting lineup bringing in Trace and uh CP yeah we’re looking for a um you know boost um defensively um you know we uh the last couple weeks with that starting group the uh the defensive numbers really

Weren’t great I I liked the energy shift that we got from it you know a couple weeks ago um but um defensively that lineup was and holding up so we were looking for better defense um from the start and um and wanted to get Steph more involved as well and we felt like

Getting Chris on the floor would uh you know maybe unlock step a little bit but um you the defense struggled all night I mean they scored 132 points and and um we just couldn’t stop them offensively we were fine you know we we uh you score

122 that should be enough uh took care of the ball you know rebounded pretty well and um but we just couldn’t get stopped so it’s hard to it’s hard to win in this league um especially in the modern NBA you can’t get stops because everybody everybody can score and how

Hard is it to try and contain Luca being that you know he was able to burn some double teams over the course of the game you got to kind of pick your poison there so how do you decide whether a double team or not yeah we tried to mix

It up on him um you know we we single covered him uh we switched uh we hit him um so we tried a lot of different things but he’s a brilliant player had a phenomenal game I thought the um the the the mistakes we made defensively in the first half especially

Were were on our switches you know we were we weren’t communicating and uh we had some good stretches where we were getting stops and our our switches were good and then um our communication broke down we started getting two on the ball and and then he you know that’s where he

Picked us apart so um he he was fantastic tonight I guess kind of the way you’re talking about this game I mean seems kind of simple to ask but like is this the type of night you really miss Draymond uh yeah yeah but I mean he’s

Not here so I that you know there’s no reason to dwell on that do you feel like right now you have a group of guys a group of five guys that you could throw out there and just feel really really confident in them and well I think uh I

First of all I love the guys on this team you know um we have a a really good group um I I I think um they have a good uh chemistry um they get along well but um you know we haven’t we haven’t found um that uh that grit that every team

Needs every good team needs um where you pull together and you just um you just play for the group um we’re not there yet and and that’s a problem you know we um like I said I we got great guys love every one of them but until this team

Really connects in a in a way that is solely dedicated to winning each and every game um then then we’re going to be stuck in this in this place so we we need to get there what do you think that shows where do you think that shows like

That lack of grid I mean because it’s kind of an intangible but where do you think that manifests you can just feel it you can feel it it’s it is intangible so it’s not it’s it’s difficult to describe but you can feel when a team is Con connected competing

Together everybody’s energy is right um the difficult thing in the NBA and I’ve this is you know one of the things I think about all the time as a coach every guy in that locker room has a unique set of circumstances and every one of them is under tremendous pressure

Um you know to to perform you know if you’re Steph Curry you’re under pressure to to remain one of the great players in the world if you’re um you know Usman garuba you’re trying to make it in this league as a two-way guy and elevate your

Yourself and your career and I could go down the list every single guy has a story and and I think about that all the time um and I care about each and every guy and I want him to succeed but I care most about the team winning and you know

The the irony is that um things always work out best for each individual player when they just lose themselves in the game and and the team and um commit to to the quest to the cause and um all the great teams do that they get there um

You know we’re we’re not there I mean simple to I guess ask like do you just feel like individual agendas are you know a problem right now I’m all I said was we we’re we’re not competing through the the tough parts of the game and there’s an intangible there’s a feeling

There’s a Vibe where you fight where everybody’s energy is right um and and we don’t have that right now you have a you’ve have a couple guys that have played a decade together but do you feel like some of that has to do with familiarity a lot of players not

Necessarily knowing how to play with each other yet um maybe there’s a little bit of that I mean you know I think um because we have a lot of guys uh who are capable of playing um as I said I think you know 13 guys who could all very

Easily be in the rotation um but you only play nine I mean tonight you know 10 um but um you know Moses didn’t get in the game he’s been in in the rotation most of the Season you know you so we’re we’re mixing and matching we’re trying

Different things and and uh so it is harder to um you know for individual players to find their Rhythm um to you know when when you’re when you’re changing lineups around and changing combinations but we have to we have to find you know something that clicks and

So far we haven’t been able to do that thanks Brandon what’s your um just general take on what went wrong tonight um just felt like the maybe the energy was off um I know that they’re a better team when luuka gets 10 or more assists

I think they’re nine or 10 and three now um and they’re eight and eight when he doesn’t and had more than 10 assists tonight so um going in we just try to make him more of a scorer and not let other guys get touches get a rhythm um but some some

Screwed up coverages here and there kind of hurt us what kind of a bind has it put you in when you you guys you want you want to contain him and sometimes you know you come over you double him and you know he’s so good at finding the

Shooter in the corner or or throwing any entry pass yeah uh it’s hard but we can’t kind of let that um affect how we you know take it out of the hoop and go back down um great players like that are going to score points and we know that

Um so when they do it’s just you know transition offense uh quick and you know vice versa we’re not hitting shots like we were in the first half um we can’t let that affect our defense you know we can control energy effort defense and rebounding and um for the most part we

Didn’t really control that tonight Steve said offc Court chemistry wise this team has it everyone gets along great but on court you guys haven’t found the like the collective grit to just win as a team do you feel that when you guys are out there um I feel like you more so

You feel it just kind of on the bench not when you’re out there um I think everybody just kind of needs to bring it for everyone else and um for us as a collective whole um you know we talked to Locker ma um we kind of just got to

Check our energy each and every one of us uh when we step foot into the locker room and um you know all of our thoughts regardless of what’s Happening um because everybody has their own personal problems going on in life whatever’s going on we just got to kind of channel

That energy and and focus on winning the game every night um but like he said off the court you know we’re the closest friends um probably of any team do a lot of stuff together um so it’s just on the court trying to find that that balance

Of you know putting everything for the team he mentioned he thought there was a lot of kind of defensive breakdowns early uh with switching and stuff like that was this seemed like it was this more of a complex defensive game plan than usual and and how’ you feel like

You guys kind of I guess messed it up at the first time I didn’t think so um I mean it was just to switch everything with with Luca um we purposely put um one of our our guards or bigger guards like Jonathan or Clay on lively so if

You bring into a pick and roll we just switch that and and know we were going to switch everything except with step um so a lot of times we just just got to communicate honestly I think um when we’re out there sometimes gets really quiet and we don’t know so we’re kind of

Stuck in between and then sometimes both of us will go sometimes neither of us will go so I think it’s just communication um we just wanted LCA to you know dribble the ball as much as he could to Tire him out um so I think that was probably the biggest thing how much

Is the defensive sort of up and down do you think is traced to Draymond not being around I mean I think for the stage in his career where Trace is at I think he’s doing an exceptional job um obviously not having Dre around to you know soak up knowledge and learn

Stuff from him does hurt um but I think you know Trace did a did a good job like myself I think me and him are you know facing these highle guys for the first time um so it’s going to be a little bit of a challenge but I think tra did a

Terrific job inste of sort of following up on Kendra’s question about the grit that Steve referred to in your experience how do you manufacture that how do you solve that I mean personally you just bring it yourself and if everybody brings it then we all have it um but like I said

Controlling the controllables is something that I am big into um I try to bring it every night like I said last game I didn’t feel like I had it um tonight when I was in there I tried to bring it and I think if everybody collectively brings um their part and

Their energy and we play for each other I mean I don’t see why we can’t win games that It I know part of what you kind of talked about this offseason was the need for this year everything to be about like winning everyone collectively it all kind of had to be about that some of the talk tonight you know particularly from Steve post game was at times you

Know I don’t know various agendas or what are getting in the way but but this team collectively needs to you know focus on trying to get the win do you feel that that that’s wavered or it has been wavering at times this year in particularly right

Now um I mean when you lose like you search for why you’re losing right like and for the teams that are struggling like we are to find consistency um you know you try to pinpoint whatever it is that is correctable or is you know a solution to the problem so right

Now I I don’t necessarily think it’s uh agendas or um kind of emotions getting in the way I think it’s when you’re not playing well you start to uh that’s like a human nature default you start to look at like and I would come up here and say I need to play

Better I need to shoot the ball better I know um everybody could probably speak to something that they could do better to help us win and that’s the situation we’re in so um until we start winning there’s going to be more nitpick and everything to try

To figure out what the solution is and until we find it we’re going to be uh you know sitting right here in this situation at this point in the year is it hard or frustrating that there doesn’t seem at least to be a clear-cut group of Five Guys you can put out on

The court and just know like we can rely on these guys to build a lead get it done do whatever needs to be done yeah it’s the nature of this team um and what’s kind of materialized throughout the year we’ve experimented a lot some for you know forc reasons some for us

Again just searching for an identity of of you know what are our strengths and playing into that and know we haven’t found it collectively so it’s frustrating for sure you know 30 what are we 15 32 games in and you know any team that is a serious you know seriously competitive Contender

Good team usually can answer that question so we have to get to that point for sure uh before it’s too late you you’ve obviously hit a little bit of a rough stretch shooting um did I mean can you pinpoint why you think so no I mean been in a situation before where

You know you start off hot and cool down a little bit I again hold myself to a high standard and you know know I need to shoot the ball better play better more consistent uh provide that punch that you know scares teams and gets us going you know we’ve stayed somewhat

Competitive even you know with my numbers down but I think uh confidence always remains you know high and you know it’s hard to be perfect for all 82 but you still play the same way I know that you over the course of the Season uh you know the law of averages take

Over and I’ve proven I can do that so that’s where my confidence remains were were you intentionally aggressive in the first quarter you took seven shots uh and did the lineup changes to start help with that with the looks you got uh we talked about a little bit in

The practice yesterday just around getting the ball moving a little bit it’s usually going to find the right person you know create good shots I think I forced two of them and the first uh the two two-pointers ironically uh but the mo had some decent looks this didn’t didn’t go down but it

Started to figure out a rhythm I think at this point it’s uh the lineup changes kind of the Kendrick’s question is you’re trying to figure it out on the Fly because we’re making a lot of adjustments from starting lineup and rotation perspective and all that so I

Know I got to be aggressive doesn’t mean you know you have to shoot it every time you touch it but allow you you know the threat on ball off ball whatever it is to you know create good shots for myself and for my teammates and that was better

Tonight so uh you just want to make some more shots Steph you all tied it up I think twice and it seemed like you was you all were going to maybe be able to come back and take the game and what happened where you would where it kind of slipped away

Again there are other others obviously they’re you know a team it’s not just Luca but the guys that were you know they were killing us all night uh exm hit some threes Josh Green hit some threes um you know Tim Hardaway hit a couple big ones and then they got a lot of

Drives um when we were sending maybe a double or not getting back in transition so they they play well and they made the shots that kept the momentum on their side and I think in the second quarter there was a stretch where it seemed like

We were going to get over the hump and get our crowd back into it and they hit three straight threes and change momentum again so they played well it wasn’t like this wasn’t a game where we didn’t play well and lost it was they just played better if that if that makes

Sense um compared to how we played uh against thank you Steph Steve and couple of guys talked about the need to be more connected on defense um and I think Steve mentioned his motivation for the lineup change partly to get CP in there to help unlock you was the way he put it

Seems like those are things that Draymond does particularly well you guys obviously won five straight without him but do you feel like these last couple games you maybe missed him in the sense that the things you guys are talking about are things that seems to be his Specialties I

Guess yeah we haven’t talked about him much since he’s been gone you know for for a reason just the space and you know allowing him to make the progress he needs to make but it’s not lost that when we came into the year nobody said we were going to be

A great team without Draymond um and that obviously is our belief like we’re way better with him um because of the things that he does you know when he’s out and since he’s been out we’ve been trying to stay competitive and we’ve won some games we lost L some tough ones um

But with all the players that we could throw out there and that we have um in the way that Draymond was playing before the suspension like it’s clear he’s a huge part of what we do and we’re better with him for all the intangibles and the

Way that he was playing but we have to stay you know competitive while he’s out for us to you know not lose too much ground man I think we can still do that for sure do you personally feel it in terms of trying to get the looks you’re used

To getting because you you and he obviously have a unique Bond on the court it’s a little different I’ve um most of the off ball stuff especially with him as like the point forward type looks and then you obviously not other other guys have had those reps so it’s it’s a tough

Transition um so yeah but still try to be versal enough to to I’ve had some you know games where I’ve played to the standard that I I expect and I’ve had some Duds for two and that might happen without with Draymond out there but it is a lot

Easier when you have your pet plays and actions that you’re used to we’ve had for the last decade but got to make the adjustments while he’s out is is the new year like a a checkpoint for you in the season I know you mentioned something I think it was in Oklahoma City about

Wanting to correct stuff by the new year I mean do you view this as a time to step back and and assess uh I think the situation we’ve been has forced us to do that on a much more consistent basis of you know it’s not like you’re just

Coming in thinking you can just keep doing the same thing and expect different results like we’re trying actively trying to figure things out and having a lot of conversations and practice in the locker room on uh on what those adjustments need to be and how we need to correct it but you know

Thankfully if you look at the standings and where we’re at it’s not not as you know it’s realistic for us to go on a run and close some space but you got to win games so uh we have what five more games on the homestead uh I think after this

Stretch you’ll know what kind of situation we’re in positively or negative ly based on how we uh get through this then this home stand um cuz at 15 and 17 like you start to you know feel a sense of urgency on where you are to try to

Set yourself up for being a playoff type team which is you know what we expect we expect it coming in we expect you know moving forward cool thank you

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