Warriors look SLOPPY in loss to Magic + Steph Curry tweaks ankle | NBA Reaction

Warriors look SLOPPY in loss to Magic + Steph Curry tweaks ankle | NBA Reaction

So, the Warriors took their last lead in this game with about five minutes left in the first quarter. The Magic essentially controlled this one throughout. It was one of those games where like the the lead kept hovering in that five to 15 range. Like the Warriors would make a run and cut it down to like five and then the Magic would make a couple plays and stiff arm them and then the Warriors would come back and cut it to five and then the Magic would stiff arm them. It just kind of hovered in that range and then the Magic ended up winning by eight. I thought this particular game essentially came down to two things. one. The Magic got much better production down the roster after their stars. Anthony Black tortured the Warriors for 21 points in this one. Everything was at the rim. And this has been a consistent theme for the Warriors this season. Some of these bigger, stronger, downhill athletes can do some damage to them attacking the basket. Fronn did a ton of damage in this game getting close to the rim and going through and over smaller Warriors players. And Anthony Black was no exception. He scored through Draymond at the rim a few times. Threw Jimmy at the rim. He got a big one late where Buddy Heield botched a switch. And we’ll talk about Buddy Heield later because he definitely was not good especially in the second half last night. But he got a big baseline dunk just kind of blowing through Buddy Heield’s uh left shoulder for uh along the baseline. He did a bunch of damage in transition. Got a couple of big transition dunks in the second half. One where he caught Moses Moody sleeping and not getting back to the rim. Just a nasty little right left like tomahawk along the baseline. Anony’s had a nice week by the way. He’s averaged 15 points per game on 55% from the field over his last four games. Tristan Dilva had 15 hit some big threes early in the game. His three-point shooting has been a godsend for this Orlando Magic team as of late. And then the Magic Bigs did a lot of damage. The size disparity was screaming off the screen last night. Wendell Carter Jr. had 17 points and 12 rebounds. Just killed the Warriors inside. It just looked like a man amongst boys down there. Like grabbing offensive rebounds over smalls when the Warriors would get up in rotation. Inside catches against Warriors guards when they’d end up in rotation. He’d either just go up and score, he’d go up and draw a foul. I thought Goa Patad kind of kicked Horford’s ass in the bench groups. Had a block on him, was getting behind him on rolls, had a nice cortat screen that set up an easy layup. Like I thought Goa just played a lot better than Al Horford did. Ty Jones only had eight points but on only three shots and every one of them was important. hit a couple of big threes including like a deep like 28-footer from the top of the ki that busted a Warriors zone look. He hit a floater out of a ice coverage on the left side of the floor. And then for the Warriors, it was basically just Stepher Jimmy or bust. Like those two guys had 67 points on 39 shots. Moses Moody, Brandon Pajky, Buddy Heield, Quinton Post, and Al Horford combined for 24 points total on 26 shots. So Anthony Black almost by himself managed to match the production of half of the Golden State Warriors rotation. It was an outclassing down the roster from the deeper bench players of the or I should say everybody after the stars of Orlando compared to the Warriors. But the second piece of it and the second reason why I thought Orlando won this game was the margins. The Magic seemingly paid off every single mistake the Warriors made last night. If they turned it over, Orlando t ran out and got an easy two. Someone fell asleep in transition, they’d get behind him and get a dunk. Oh, you don’t pick up Anthony Black. Boom. One-handed hammer going down the lane. Oh, Moses Moody doesn’t stop the rim in transition. Boom. Anthony Black along the baseline. Uh, a tomahawk dunk off of two feet. Like, if they missed a box out or like left a guard on Wendell Carter Jr., they weren’t getting an offensive rebound and they’d either get a foul or they’d get a bucket. Orlando had a 14-8 advantage in second chance points and a 28-6 advantage in fast break points. That’s basically the difference in the game. And it’s one of those things where like, you know, Steph and Jimmy can do a lot to make up for what happened down the bench. Like, yeah, the the deep rotation guys for the Warriors didn’t play well, but Steph and Jimmy were so good that they still had every chance to win that game, but every single time they cut it close, they would make a mistake. They’d have a turnover. They’d miss a rotation on defense. Buddy Heel would get lost and lose Anthony Black on a baseline drive. They’d give up an offensive rebound. Orlando consistently made Golden State pay for every mistake they made in this game. Orlando’s now won seven out of 10. This was a trend that started before Paulo got hurt and has now continued without him. They’re sixth in defense in that 10ame span after a rough start to the season. Fifth in rebounding, 13th in offense over the last 10 games. And I want to zoom in on this concept for a minute because I’m seeing some real growth there. Starts in transition and this is fueled by their defense. Again, they got off to a rough defensive start to the season, but because they’ve been better on defense as of late, they’ve been able to get out in transition more. They had 37 points total in transition according to Synergy. Uh last night they’ve been averaging 30 transition points per game over their last five games. that has bumped their season average up to 28 and moved them to the sixth best transition offense in the league to start the year by volume. And again, that’s fueled by their defense. And then in the half court, they’re moving the ball really well. In their one and four start, only 53.6% of Orlando’s made field goals were assisted. That ranked 27th in the league. That was during that horribly ugly offensive stretch that I was complaining about every single time I came on the show. But in the seven and three stretch since then, they’re assisting 65% of their made field goals, which ranks 12th in the NBA. And you’re seeing a lot more of those like tic-tac-toe sequences, the stuff that leads to great looks, like running a Bane ball screen where you bring the second defender to the level that ends into a short roll pass that ends up getting skipped to the corner for a wideopen three. higher level driving kick sequences. Allah some of the stuff we’ve been talking about with Toronto because they do have some like Desmond Bane adds an aggregate playmaking talent to this group because of his ability to dribble, shoot, and pass. And when they have these lineups that have like Anthony Black and Desmond Bane, Desmond Bane and France Vagner on the floor, like there’s some offensive skill there and they’re able to like make some of these higher level dribble pass shoot sequences that can get some really good looks. Desmond Bane’s broken out of his uh se early season slump that he was in. Fron is averaging 23 points per game in this 10game stretch. Tristan Dilva is now hitting 43 uh% of his threes on five attempts per game. Over five attempts per game in this 10game stretch. Like the Magic are showing some real signs of life. Starting to play some serious good basketball down there in Orlando. And again, like I don’t I think this started before or uh Paulo left. So, this is not like a, oh, now that Paulo’s gone that like as a team, they’re just starting to play a lot better basketball on the offensive end of the floor, recapturing their defense and rebounding identity, recapturing their transition identity, and getting a lot more done on that end of the floor. On the Warriors front, again, some of their personnel limitations were on display in this game. Like, they looked really small at several points, especially around the rim. like Al Horford looking kind of old and slow to start the season has made their center rotation look like it’s lacking. Also like guarding these bigger downhill athletes. We’ve seen that we saw this be an issue uh in the Portland game earlier this year. Like we saw this be an issue in the uh in the Milwaukee game like tried to uh to deal with Ryan Rollins. Like these some of these bigger athletes when they start attacking downhill, they can cause a lot of problems. and Anthony Black and Fran Vagner in particular, they looked really comfortable getting downhill and getting to their spots with ease. Obviously, some frustrating inconsistency on offense uh with their role players that’s hurting them. Like Moses Moody got some really clean looks out of the corner that didn’t go down. Brandon Pajki missed some easy ones. He smoked he like straight up smoked a wideopen right-handed layup in this game and like that hurt them especially in the context of how well Orlando’s depth played. But I don’t want to focus too much on that because ultimately it came down to mistakes. Like whatever downsides you got down the bench, you got 67 points out of your stars which gave you a chance to win the game. But just too many turnovers, too many bad transition defense possessions, too many offensive rebounds, especially in key portions of the game that stopped their runs. Like they’d cut it to five and then they’d make a couple of mistakes and it’ be back to nine and 10. Buddy Heield stuck out like a sore thumb in this respect, especially in the second half. Like he had a really bad turnover where he left his feet in the middle of the floor and ended up throwing the ball right to Anthony Black, but it was mostly on the defensive end like kind of overreacting to screening actions and getting out of position and then giving up slips or giving up cuts or giving up drives. He had a bad one against Anthony Black where he gave up a dunk. Warriors cut it to five and then Steph is getting ready to switch out to the perimeter and for some reason Buddy Heel decided he should stunt that direction. Anthony Black is standing in the corner and he’s like, “I’m open.” Gets the ball, just racks baseline. Buddy’s out of position, he just blows through his shoulder and gets a two-handed dunk along the baseline. That’s a critical mistake that instead of getting a stop and going down and cutting the lead to three or two, now it’s back up to seven and you’ve lost some of that momentum. And so, like, it’s really hard to win on the road against good teams. Like, Orlando’s really good. Like we talked about on playback last weekend, the Eastern Conference at the top has been very good this year against the West. You’ve got to bring your agame against them or you’re going to get beat. I just thought the Warriors made way too many mistakes and it’s hard to win on the road against good teams when you make that many mistakes. No rest for the weary though for the Warriors. They’re back on the road again tonight in Miami. Although I’ll be curious to see if the Warriors even play their vets in that game. Uh tail end of the road trip. So, I wouldn’t be surprised if they maybe consider um uh benching guys and getting some rest, but we’ll see. They play tonight, I believe, at uh 4:30 Pacific time or 4 Pacific time. Uh we’ll uh we’ll end up seeing if they have a response for that Miami Heat team that also can be very feisty.

Jason reacts to the Golden State Warriors losing the Orlando Magic, how the team played poorly outside of Steph Curry and Jimmy Butler, and why Desmond Bane, Franz Wagner, and the Magic deserve credit for playing hard as they improve to 8-7 on the NBA season.

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