James Worthy, Robert Horry X D'Angelo Russell React To Lakers GM2 vs Warriors | May 4, 2023

This video is sponsored by LeBron and Anthony Davis Merch Collection. Get now on 5% discount for a limited time. Link in description. Series is all tied up at one apiece. The Warriors roll in game number two. Golden State hits 21 threes for 50%. They made the adjustments. AD and the Lakers struggled. And the slot guys came really in the middle quarters. Remember the Lakers were up 33-26 after the first quarter. Quarters two and three, big game, James. 84-47 in favor of Golden State. That's 37-point differential. Onslaught. Key word. It's onslaught. You ordered some good pizza for us. Thank you. Appreciate that. Yeah, I mean, slightly different lineup for Golden State when they put the green in, started him, and he started to hit some threes a little bit. I think that helped a little bit. To me, the biggest key was Steph. Steph being a willing passer. And they put Steph into the point guard position at the second half of last game, and I think they found something with that. He's willing to penetrate because people forget. Steph Kerr is one of the best ball handlers in the game, so he's really elusive with the ball he can get through, and then he's a really good passer. He was fine in Draymond. And what I thought was different in last game is all those bigs were going downhill attacking. Draymond got a lot of points in the paint. Steph was willing to look for them, and then when they did collapse, they kicked it out, and guys like Jamaka Green, who ain't played in 20 years, knocking down threes. So what they got to find out, it's a lot of little mistakes that they did, that the Lakers did, they can figure out because on that rotation, nobody moved. They stayed put, just go. The guy who rotates rotates to the corner. It's little things, but I think it's a lot of little things, like I said, that they can figure out, and they'll be better game three. We're all watching the game together. It was a different team defensively, as Rob pointed out multiple times, weak side defense, really struggled. And a big difference, Brez, Lakers getting into the paint. I mean, remember, game one, only 28 paint points, six free throw attempts, different story, 48 paint points for the Warriors tonight, getting a lot of rim runs, a lot of layups. Yeah, I mean, the good news for the Lakers, big picture, they got the split on the road. The bad news is the way they lost tonight, I felt like the Golden State offense woke up. They had 34 assists through three quarters. I do want to talk about Klay Thompson. Brez mentioned him. It was definitely a Klay game. Unlike his Warrior teammates, a lot of his threes were contested with a hand in his face. He's coming off of pin downs. He's coming off of double screens, solo screens. He's coming off of dribble handoffs, and he is hitting threes, James, at such a rapid pace. He's got 14 in the series. He's 14 for 27. He was eight for 11 tonight. He's the all-time leader in the playoffs with eight threes in a game. He's done it six times. So this is nothing new to Klay. He's been down before. They didn't panic. They did what they had to do. But Klay was remarkable tonight. As Brez mentioned, he didn't play in the fourth. 30 points. With Klay, I think he came out very aggressive because if you look at last game, he kind of got hot in that last game. We know Klay, when he gets hot, he ain't got to put it on the floor. He's a catcher shooter. And for him to understand, like, let me see if I'm still hot from last game, which he was, and he kept shooting. And I think what's also the best for them is Steph said, OK, it's not my night. It's my Splash Brothers night. Keep going to them. That's the sign of a great team when they keep going to the hot guy. Because we sit in the green room a lot of times where we see guys score three or four buckets for the Lakers, and he might not touch it again. So you got to exploit the hot man. And the Warriors did that tonight. Listen, the Lakers struggled. Just 42 points in the paint this time, which means they weren't attacking. Not a lot of pick and rolls. Not a lot of A.D. in the post, guys. A.D., just 11 points. Five for 11s, only one free throw attempt. So what does that tell you, James, in terms of just whether the Warriors defended him that way or the Lakers just didn't get it going with him? Well, you got to meet force with force. You know, when they made the lineup switch and they put Jermon Green on him, you know what was coming. He's got to match that. Or either they got to find a way to set a pick for A.D. somehow to get it easier hitting him in the post. I guess if there's a silver lining, because it was such a beatdown, A.D. only played 33 minutes. I mean, it's well documented how many minutes he's been playing in that Memphis series and in game one. Remember, he played the entire second half. He just didn't have his legs, Rob. When you see on those little bunnies that he usually hits, those 8-footers, maybe a 15-footer, he's there. He's not hitting those. That kind of gets him off his game, right? When he's hitting those early, that's when he's going for 14 points in the first quarter. But when he's not hitting those, they have to find a way to give him some easy ones, right? Yeah. Because that can jumpstart him. Well, for me, I keep saying this, it's attack. You see that one in that play, just the clip we just showed, where A.D. was going to go set the pin and shoot away the moth. I'm like, go set the pick. You come off hard, A.D. roll. You got to dunk a lot. If Dre Parker just sit there and orchestrate the defense and see what's going on, he can play good defense. But you got to be quick with it. You got to keep it moving so he can't think fast enough to keep up with the offense. Do the Warriors maybe say, okay, we took Looney off the bench tonight because he wasn't feeling well. Do they stick with the same lineup? You know, coaches hate to change lineups after a win, especially one as convincing as this. Maybe Draymond and Jermichael Green are going to be their big men in two days here in L.A. for Game 3. And, Geet, I want to talk about the Laker backcourt, too. You mentioned A.D. not real sharp tonight. You know, D'Angelo Russell, 10 points. Austin Reeves, 7 points, shot 3 of 11. So I think Austin, you know, he's had a couple quiet games to start this series. He was kind of like the media darling in that Memphis series. I think he'll have a good bounce back here in Game 3. He really seems to really respond to playing in front of the Laker fans, but a very quiet night for the Laker backcourt, unlike Steph with a double-double and Klay hitting those 8 threes. He also, you know, when you think about a guy like Austin Reeves, too, he's playing an insane amount of minutes more than he's ever been used to. He's in that starting lineup, and he's also chasing a guy like Klay Thompson around. So it is an interesting thing to monitor, Brez, because he did get it going at times in Game 1, and I agree with you. I mean, his role's going to change throughout this series. He's needed on that defensive end, so how he navigates this series is going to be something that you've got to keep an eye on as well. He's never been in this situation, right? Never been here. President Thompson made his Lakers debut. Five points in the fourth quarter. He's in the locker room with Mike. Tristan, just first, thoughts of kind of getting on the floor, seeing how you felt physically, getting up and down. What are your thoughts on that? No, it feels good to be out there. Of course, I'd rather be up 30 than down 30, but, you know, as a pro, you've got to stay ready. That's what all the guys did. We give a lot of credit to our coaching staff to do the stay-ready runs yesterday. We've been doing it in between days of games just for us to stay ready because you never know with a long, deep playoff run, you know, knock on wood, so they just try to keep us fresh and just come out there and just have respect for the game and go out there and play. You know this Warriors team pretty well. You knew they were going to respond a certain way in Game 2. What were you anticipating that they did, and what are some of the things that you guys got to adjust to a little quicker? I mean, I knew coming into this game that we're going to get a heavy dose of clay and stuff. At the end of the day, their approach for, you know, being now 0-1 with Game 2 at their house. This video is sponsored by LeBron and Anthony Davis Merch Collection. Get now on 5% discount for a limited time. Link in description. You know, we weathered the first quarter storm. Second quarter, the first six minutes. He pulled Steph out with two minutes left in the first and put him back in the second to play with that second unit. And, you know, Clay and him kept shooting, made shots in the second quarter and put themselves in position. In the third quarter, we weren't able to weather that storm and kind of that was the game right there. Yeah, what's that challenge with them? It looked like they were giving Steph the ball earlier almost. He couldn't, like Vando, couldn't just keep him ball denial. And, you know, then they were playing a four-on-three. How much... We'll make adjustments. You know, that's the nature of this in the playoffs, right? We had a game plan game one. It worked for us. They made their adjustments going into game two. And now it's on us to look back at the film, see whether or not the adjustments we need to make or if we didn't have the same effort as in game one. So we'll see. And we'll get ready to play at home on Saturday. Chris, you've been through so many of these and you know the not get too high, not get too low thing because you've been through it. But for some of the younger guys, how can you impart that message to help them be prepared for the ebbs and flows of the series? Yeah, I know this series is going to be a boxing match. You know, we won the first round. You know, they won the second. You just got to stay with it. You know, this is a very unique team. You know, they shoot. Think about it. Game one, we try to limit their threes and they still got off 50 attempts. So that just shows you right there that they rather take threes than twos. Even if you chase them off the line, they're going to try to find a way to get three-point shots up. And that's what makes their team different than the rest of the league. Even though a lot of teams in the league try to copy them, nobody can copy the two best shooters that have played a game. So, got to make our adjustments. You know, this is part of the playoff. It's a great learning experience. And now we go back home and protect home court. All right, guys. Let's talk a little Steph Curry. Not a huge night scoring, but didn't need to, right? He had the 12 assists. And I know, Rob, you were talking about it earlier. So, James, I'll start with you. Just his willingness to not press and to not force and to kind of let others go and get everyone else involved. You heard Trudell talking about, you know, him getting the ball a little bit earlier. Nice adjustments by Golden State. And Steph is always the orchestrator out there. Well, yeah. I mean, Steph understands his awareness on the floor. You don't have to be shooting the ball all the time. You don't have to be scoring all the time to be a threat. The attention you have to give him before you know it, you got a quick hitter. Looney, they got a lot of layups with him. They got some shots from Green early. That's all because of Steph is roaming and moving and making it possible for his teammates to get open shots. We always talk about players' IQ. And Steph's willingness to make his teammates better is huge. Because, like we talked about, when he has the ball, all eyes are on him, except whoever's guarding Clay, which sets it up because now the guy's vision is on Clay, and the guy sets a pick, Clay comes off clean for the shot. But Steph is such an orchestrator. You know, we talk about great point guards. We talk about he's not a point guard. He's shooting up, but he's actually a point guard who can shoot the ball like nobody else has ever shot the ball. So for me, when he comes off that pick, they're attacking him, which they should to get it out of his hand because he's the most dangerous player on the court. But his willingness to give it up and then that person's willingness to give it up, which makes this team so dangerous because they love passing the ball. They don't mind sharing the ball. It's a hot potato, but it's a hot potato in a good way where they can get an open guy for an open shot. He barely got the 20 tonight. He's one of the few starters who did play in that fourth quarter. And, Geet, if you had told me before the series started, Steph's going to have 27 in game one and 20 in game two, I would have said, oh, you know, that's good for the Lakers. But then you start talking about what he did tonight to set everyone else up with the 12 assists. I mean, this kid really does so much, obviously, for this team. Darvin Ham, before the Lakers got on their plane to go up north a few days ago, their last practice was here in L.A. He said, we worry about Steph when he has the ball, but we really worry about him when he doesn't have the ball because he just runs around so much of that Laker defense. They are really preoccupied with him. Tonight, he was a facilitator and he was incredible. How about the Warriors at home? The last two games in this series, 42 threes, 21 again tonight. But this time, James, they did it on 11 less attempts. And there's other attempts in the lane, getting layups, like I said, 20 more points in the paint. But the three ball for the Warriors, it came from a barrage of guys too. I mean, you look at Wiggins with two, Green with three, Clay with eight, Steph with three. It's extremely hard when you gotta rotate defense like that to box out. But you gotta pay attention to the details. And if you really break this game down tonight, the Lakers didn't pay attention to the details. They didn't box out. They didn't get the guys going back though. They didn't communicate like they did the first game. If you go back and look at the first game, you saw the Lakers doing this and talking. You saw none of that tonight. You know, just like, oh, over here. You know, but that's one of the things when you're playing basketball. You gotta communicate. Not on the offense end, on the defense end more importantly because when you play a team like this, if you get beat, you gotta say, help. You gotta be attached to your man. You gotta pay attention to your next man and anticipate those guys coming off those screens and not let them go back though. I remember when I was in, the first time I ever learned that was we used to have to play North Carolina and North Carolina was a bad country. You gotta position your body so they have to go through you but also in a way where you gotta run them off the screen and the Lakers are becoming like, they're giving too much room for these guys to set the screens. And Brez, what was it? That spread jumped all the way to seven pretty quickly and then there was that stat that the home team in a playoff series was 16, it was 15 and 0 in game two after losing the first one. So, in the last 16 games now where the higher seed home team has lost game one, they've turned around in one game too. Yeah, we just saw that last night in Boston, you know, they crushed the Sixers by almost 40 points after losing that game one and tonight another one side of the fair. Guys, just two games into the series, I'm kind of thinking of an NFL metaphor. It's kind of like the Kansas City Chiefs, excuse me, with Mahomes, that'd be the Warriors, high flying, can score a lot of points against maybe the Tennessee Titans with Derrick Henry, smash mouth football, that's what the Lakers have to get back to in game three. LeBron driving, AD scoring in the paint, got to bring up the NFL, right? Remember, the Titans beat those guys in the playoffs a couple years ago. You trying to get me excited for... Robin, that first half thought it might be one of those LeBron games, right? I mean, he really kept them in that and had 14 in the first quarter, 21 at half, looked like he was on the way to 40 piece and then they didn't really need him anymore and he didn't play in the fourth. Yeah, you know, you think about great players and you think about when they struggle and LeBron's been struggling from three, you know, it's documented on the stats and then he came out and started knocking that shot and so hopefully this will roll over and he's fixed whatever issue he had with his three game, it's going to roll over to the next game, he's going to be able to knock down more Js. Yeah, 28 minutes tonight, not the minute, you know, that he's usually been playing, you know, 38, 40 point minutes plus, zero turnovers. That was a good sign for LeBron, you know, in the minutes that he did play, didn't turn it over at all when he sometimes, you know, has a few. So, yeah, one thing about LeBron, you know, he knows how to snap back from a game. It's just tough sometimes. Subconsciously, you don't even know it. When you win that first game, you go in and steal that one, you kind of just relax because you know you've accomplished what you wanted to do. It's hard to get that second one, especially against the defending champions. Kind of like what he just said. He said, look, give credit tonight. Golden State did some good things. We're still a very good defensive team, if not the best defensive team in the league. That's what we hang our hat on. And he basically said, just wait a couple days. We'll be back in LA. I have a feeling that the defense will be a lot better, James. You know, it wasn't very good tonight for sure. Alright guys, Steph Curry and the Dubs get the game two win. The series shifts to LA on Saturday night. Well, D'Angelo, I'm sure you expected Golden State to respond to game one. What did they do differently that you felt like started to slip for you guys in the second quarter? Oh, they made a bunch of shots. The shot was like 50 from three or something, 50 for the game. Simple as that. You shoot the ball, make shots at a high clip, you got a good chance to win it. Aside from adjustments and what you'll do to counter what they did, what did you learn in that first series, winning game one, losing game two, going home, kind of the importance of staying locked in a certain way? Oh, it's a familiar position to be in. We got one in Memphis, came back, took care of home court. I think they got one and we had a chance from that point on. I think we had the advantage going into game six. So, whatever we can do is just stay locked in and just stay the course. Obviously, you guys want to try to limit their threes, but they're not going to just succeed to that. What are the ways that you can still try to counter what they're doing from the three-point line? Just make it tougher. Make it tougher. Hope they miss. Is this an easier kind of look at the film, flush it, because you got that first game and you got the split? Sure. I mean, I think you learn something from every game. Going from game to game, obviously they're going to make adjustments and do little things that's going to give them an advantage. So, as far as washing down Adrian, we'll take something from this, get something from it, bring that with us to the next game.