“Luka Doncic is the hardest guy in the league to guard” – Steve Kerr on Warriors’ loss to Mavericks

“Luka Doncic is the hardest guy in the league to guard” – Steve Kerr on Warriors’ loss to Mavericks

So as we keep it moving here on Toyota Warriors postgame live the standings of course the Warriors now three and a half back the Dallas Mavericks we’ll see what happens in Sacramento but it’s looking more and more like the Warriers may be in that 910 bracket which they have to

Win two Do or Die games just the events to the Western Conference playoffs yeah and you got 17 they got 17 games to go so there’s still time but you know at this point they they can’t more afford more than three or four losses you know

If they want to get if they want to have a chance to rise above that so that means you’re going to go what 14 and three can you do that that schedule you know it’s going to be tough I mean so you’re probably realistically looking

At the chance of them being in the five or six spot are pretty small right now uh be to be honest yeah I think operation uh six seed has become operation 78 n 10 seed they’re not going to move out of 10 right I don’t you know like

You said it’s going to be tough yeah first order of business get Stephen Draymond backal and then start playing that Brandon basketball we saw you know prior to last three games I would say uh and then you know the chips for well they may you get into that that that

Playin situation take care of business and then any seven game series if they’re playing their world you know playing their brand of basketball you know they can they can match up with anyone in this Western Conference and tjd is playing better he’s getting a lot of confidence he received his fifth

Start of the season of course he’s a rookie out of Indiana the 57th overall pick and or had to trot out their 22nd different starting lineup tonight against Dallas but TJ Battle Man nine rebounds 10 points five an ey from the floor at times he got a little stuck on

Luca dones but he’s learning kind of like kaming good last season where he got better and better as a game evolved tjd is kind of that similar player there where he learns quickly from his mistakes I’m impressed with the young man mlly no he makes immediate in-game

Adjustments like a veteran um like you said about he was he was isolated with Luca he went for the head fake that next time he did not play good individual defense uh again operating in the paint understanding space timing I thought I thought overall another good performance and you know

Steve K said a few games ago we need we need to get this guy ready for the playoffs all this experience is good for him yeah I mean you’re talking about a guy who was a four-year starter at Indiana not just the guy who started

When he was a junior and a senior four years came on the campus with a starter and stayed there for 120 plus games so you see that he is a quick learner you see that he came in with certain tools he always talked about how Mike Woodson

Got him ready NBA coach NBA player you know he knows what he’s doing so I think you know again he’s facing a couple of guys I mean he had to deal with Lively and he had to deal with Gafford and so it’s a lot I thought he held his own but

It’s it’s a ton for him to try and deal with two guys that are both hyper athletic and actually you know taller than he is we just talked about Gafford and Lively they live off of Luca and Kyrie you know you pull Draymond and Steph out of the lineup it’s goingon to

Have a huge impact on the entire team but even probably bigger on Trace Jackson Davis no no doubt about that Gafford seven block Shots tonight PJ Washington three block shots the Mavericks blocked 13 Shots tonight and Daniel Gafford by the way is 33 33 for his last 33 that’s the second longest

Streak in NBA history what’s that percentage that’s a thousand not major but to me it sounds like it’s perfect and the words weren’t perfect tonight including CP3 look he’s been solid since he’s been back no doubt about that had a great game Monday against the San San

Antonio Spurs with 199 and8 tonight just 4 4-2 Chris Paul and Klay Thompson and combining go 7 to 25 that’s your starting back point right there just 17 points you needed some more Firepower from the back court didn’t get it tonight Mavericks made a tough on Chris

Paul there he show he showed his frustration there in the fourth quarter as well yeah you look at what he was trying to do and I mean there he made a couple shots like that one he got something going but you he didn’t get like last night I mean the other night

Two nights ago he had a really good game against the the Spurs and you thought okay he’s back but uh tonight he never got it going um and part of it was he had to defend a little bit more tonight than he did against so um but when you

Get you you got three veterans out there that you you want to rely on you got kaminga and uh and Trace out there with Three Vets with with Chris Clay and Wiggins and those guys didn’t get it done tonight they didn’t get it done and we always talk about no matter what

Lineup the Warriors roll out they’re playing small ball and that means they have to play Fast uh tonight I thought the Dallas Mavericks although they play a little faster they’re still very methodical once that ball gets in Lucas hands and Kyrie hand they d take the

Tempo and Pace a play they did that tonight and really slowed the game down to to their liking and I think it had effect May probably more so on Clay not getting really good attempts not having that that Mo that motion and off ball movement uh and then and then Chris Paul

I think also had a big effect on his game no doubt Warriors just 9 and 28 from the three-point line tonight 32% as you see in the team St comparison here the Warriors shoot just 40% they’re in their 30s for most of the game they they don’t they didn’t score 100 points

Tonight rebounds a battle but you see the bench points you see the points in the paint you see the points off turnovers and of course the fast break points the Warriors are negative in all those winning categories here so they dropped one to the Mavericks however they could still have a winning road

Trip if they still won an LA Saturday night down at crypto.com Arena let’s go back down to Dallas to hear from the head coach of the goto State Warrior Steve Kerr presented by BMW uh had a lot of turnovers in the first half um felt like some real killers too that turned into points the other way they they scored 21 points off of our turnovers tonight A lot of them felt like they were in the second quarter so thought we got off to a good

Start first half we had good ball movement good pace and then um things slowed down quite a bit for us in the second where do you feel like you guys miss Draymond the most tonight um you know what Draymond does you know he just um he puts his impact

On the game one way or the other so um but you know doesn’t matter um people get hurt and you got to respond think you guys you you had a really good record for like a six week stretch I think now one and three in the last four

Do you feel like youve lost some momentum here um a little bit for sure I mean you know the record shows that but um I still like uh who our team is um you know we’re hoping to get sta back um for Saturday um I like uh the team a lot

Better now than I did um you know a couple months ago where we were really sorting through a lot of things so I think we have um we have an identity I think we know who we are I think um we’ll we’ll bounce back here and I’m

Excited about you know the last part of the season did the standings become a little daunting though no you do you can’t worry about it I mean we look at them every day obviously but uh there’s nothing we can do about that but um you know the season it really is a marathon

And and at at any point in the season um you know you rattle off 10 wins in a row then you know that that matters whether it’s in the beginning or the end it doesn’t matter and I still have no doubt that this team can can get on a great

Run and and um make a good push seemed like you guys kept Luca in check for the most part um how do you feel you guys executed the game I thought our our half court defense was pretty good you know they they missed some shots that they

Could have made clearly but um overall I thought um you know our defense was not the problem it was much more our offense um they had 13 block shots a lot of those were just us kind of wildly driving into you know Gafford without you know getting a body into him first

To take him out of his shot blocking position and um and then just a lot of stagnant position uh possessions um not enough flow not enough Movement we are tracking tonight’s keys to success courtesy of my fitness pal the number one nutrition food and food tracking Gap patience is a virtue on

Offense in a Warriors forc a lot of shots will he got especially early on they settled down to the second quarter but you saw more of the same from the first quarter in that second half yeah as Steve ctis said not enough ball movement body movement and disappointing

Because the Dallas Mavericks are not a good defensive team no doubt stri the numbers you needed that Warriors bench you needed everybody all hands on deck didn’t get it done Dallas out scores them 37 to 28 Off the Bench and going out Luke on defense on offense on both

Ends on the floor slow him down a little bit offensively but I don’t think they did enough to attack him defensively M no no they did a good job on Luka de offens def stopping him offense but defensively yeah they could have exploited him you can’t let a back court

Of Luca and Kyrie hold you to 7 and 25 and that’s what Chris and Clay had tonight so that’s that’s where they fell short I mean the Warriors defensively you know there are some ups and downs but offensively they just never really found anything now luuka went seven of

18 21 points he didn’t drop a triple double so let’s break down what the Warriors did to contain LCA donic and we talked pregame about being disciplined and having uh kyp know your personnel staying down on head fakes here R rookie Trace Jackson Davis does a nice job

First and foremost keep him to the left side of the Court this is a shot he can make perfect contest let’s get this rebounding go out really good job there by Trace Jackson Davis here gp2 passes him off on the switch again what which way you want to send him gp2 nice help

Defense hanging in the paint as a help Defender no middle tjd gets him go to Baseline here’s the help by uh gp2 nice team defense nice good good Personnel here what we got here so got Andrew Wiggins here this is the play you love oh this is a nice one-on-one

Defense here just oneon-one Luca Cooks people in this play Andrew stays down takes up the space contests without fouling perfect you can’t do any better than that against LCA donic and this is a shot he can make we said before the game the plays like that if he make it

Yeah you got to go back and play defense but I thought overall nice adjustments there and pretty um to me positive when you talk about this they may see this team in the playin right so individual defense is going to be key for this Dallas team whether it be on Kyrie or

Luca and we said earlier I think for the Warriors they match up physically better against Kyrie against Luca Don they could throw much more bodies at him no I agree and the thing about tonight’s game in Dallas is that Luca has a way when he gets going on that Court for in Dallas

That whole Arena lights up and the wor never let that happen tonight so again they didn’t win this game on that end they lost they W lost the game on their own offensive end so uh if they could play that way against Luca and every

Time they see him they’ll win a lot of those games which is very rare It’s usually the other way around right this a good tape to show Wiggins JK tjd for the future especially in those two matchups in the final 17 regular season games speaker to JK for I I You spee spee spee Foree fore speee Foreign speech speech for speech speech For away foreign foreign Fore MO [Applause] for speech speee speech spe spee To Foree for For stop for [Applause] fore C Your Love gring the way Ni Foree I’m moving Sal I’m Da fore spee spee for [Applause] for Foreign speech speech spee Speech for

“Luka Doncic is the hardest guy in the league to guard” – Steve Kerr on Warriors’ loss to Mavericks