Michael Shapiro

So when he's given you that level of effort, when your 37-year-old leading scorer is getting after it on defense that way, it's only natural that guys are...

are going to follow.

And that's what I meant in the aftermath of the burner scandal when I mentioned that it's not going to affect KD.

We can see from 2017, there were some pushbacks saying, well, that Warriors team is way better than the current Rockets.

Yeah, they are.

But the point of that comparison was to say that expecting the scandal to impact the team's play, it's sort of like expecting the tail to wag the dog.

What's going to impact the narrative and how they play together and how hard they play is whether they're winning games.

And if they're able to put it together tonight and they win at a high level, and this is the same team that started 13-4 with a dominant net rating, and now you have Dorian Finney-Smith getting healthy,

Like there's reasons for optimism.

Now, if they lose games, is it possible that the scandal becomes, you know, even more of a distraction and, you know, it becomes, you know, more of a thing in the locker room?

Maybe, but where it starts is that you're losing games.

And so I think that's what you've got to look at first is the on-court production.

And Kevin, if anything, there was a comment earlier in the chat, Dave, like KD is fueled by the Twitter trauma, I think.

If nothing else, it's bringing the best out of Kevin Durant, not just offensively, but defensively.

And at least in the short term, it might actually benefit the team because when KD plays this hard, I think it's natural that other guys are going to follow.

Now, you can certainly question

what it means long term.

And I'm not going to speak for any of the other guys because this is their business.

It's not mine.

But at least in the short term, they might rally around this.