Chapter 1: What were the highlights of the recent Warriors vs. Mavericks game?
Good morning and welcome to the NBA Daily presented by Amazon Prime for January 23rd, 2026. I'm Dave DeFore here with Espera Henne. Coming up, the Warriors are in even bigger trouble. After last night, we're going to talk about that a little bit. The Clippers looking kind of hot. And Tony Jones is here again to talk about Joel Embiid. And we're going to wonder, is he back?
Good morning, everybody.
What's up, S? How's it going, buddy?
Chapter 2: What impact did Jonathan Kuminga's injury have on the Warriors?
Morning, man. Yeah, always good. Great night in the NBA again. A little bit of a scare.
Let's be honest here. Rivalry week is kind of not... that great. Right. It's a, it's a marketing thing. Sure.
Chapter 3: How did the Clippers perform against the Lakers?
I mean, we, what do we have? We had the Oklahoma city thunder versus the Milwaukee bucks. Yep.
The other night versus the Cleveland Cavaliers, which is just for the, you know, we got Hornets magic.
That is actually a rivalry, right? Yeah. You know, any of the newer expansion teams. Yeah. You came in around the same time, you know, only a few years apart, but,
I can't think of classic Hornets magic games.
Chapter 4: Is Joel Embiid back to his MVP form after the Sixers' win?
I'm sorry.
Well, no, but it's funny because they've probably played more inconsequential games against each other than maybe any two other franchises in the league, right?
You know what it is? They got to make divisions matter more. That's the thing.
Like maybe they need to wait it. But then the problem is just like this East-West thing where you get an East team. I mean, the Phoenix Suns, currently the sixth seed in the West, they would be the two seed in the East, right? I think if anything, you want to get rid of that and go to a more balanced schedule. The truth is, I think that the individual rivalries is where they try to go.
Chapter 5: What were the key moments in the Sixers vs. Rockets game?
Yes. When you don't have a natural one, you know, like Chicago, Milwaukee, that's a rivalry. Great.
I think the only thing that's closest to a rivalry that we have right now is OKC San Antonio. And can you even call it a rivalry when one of them is a champion and one of them has not? And one of them has won three games to one this season.
I know. Right. One of them is on the way up. The other, the champ, the old champ.
Chapter 6: How did Joel Embiid's performance compare to his past games?
Oh, OK. I see. I get what you mean.
Now, we did get a rivalry game last night between the Lakers and the Clippers. And let's just start there. Clippers get the win. Lakers fans will be mad you call that a rivalry, by the way. I agree with that. I'm actually going to get there because this game was at Intuit Dome. Steve Ballmer sitting courtside.
Chapter 7: What roster moves do the Sixers need to consider before the trade deadline?
And as it sounds like a Lakers home game in there, I mean, we can pick on the Clippers all we want. For certain things, this one's just something they're never going to get past.
They are never going to leave the city, the state of California.
Right. Take them to Seattle. Right. Like Palmer and Microsoft guy anyway. But the Clippers, they're eight and two now in their last 10. They hold off the Lakers, who actually went on a great run in the second half. You know, the third quarter, beginning of fourth quarter, this game, which was the most entertaining portion.
Chapter 8: What does the future hold for the Sixers in the Eastern Conference?
What, you know, crazy moments from LeBron James, the Coastal Coast Dunks, the athleticism, what you expect hitting ridiculous fadeaway threes.
I mean, the Lakers, they put together everything there in that comeback. Jared Vanderbilt, you know, cutting off of Luca and LeBron, like making plays happen. But the Clippers were able to hold on. Kawhi Leonard came back last night after missing a couple of games. What do you think about how Kawhi looked?
Yeah, Kawhi looked like Kawhi. Obviously, they were kind of cautious with putting him out there. Minutes restriction-wise, he only played 25 minutes. It's sort of expected for a guy who obviously has a bunch of lower body injury history. I kind of want to see how he incorporates himself within this offense because at the end of the day, all of January, the Clippers have been a top 10 offense.
Now, part of that has been with Kawhi, right? So it's important to mention that. But I think overall, like... This team is clearly surging. You know, they've got themselves to a playing spot already. This is a team that started the year, you know, six and whatever. This is a play in preview last night.
Right. I mean, it's the way I looked at it. Yeah. And if I if I'm the Clippers, do I even care if I play at home for that play in game? You know, it doesn't doesn't really matter all that much. Yeah. The wall. I couldn't hear the wall, man. No, the Lakers fans completely negated the wall. That was something else.
To the point about the Clippers, though, I will say, I think they do have, and we've talked about this over the last couple weeks, but they have some found money with their rotation players in Kobe Sanders and Jordan Miller. And on top of that, John Collins is playing some really, really good basketball, especially offensively over the last month.
Like the shooting has popped from him in a major way.
So Brook Lopez bounced back quite a bit from getting DNP'd. I will say in this game last night, James Harden and the starters that were not Kawhi were excellent. Kawhi and the bench struggled. That was kind of where the Lakers really triggered their comeback. But, you know, that's going to happen from time to time. Clippers, though, I mean, again, play in team.
I expect that they're going to make a move or two at the deadline. John Collins is a guy with a contract that – You know, is expiring that could net them a player boy on Bogdanovich, who we've talked about quite a bit as being a guy who's probably getting moved at the deadline.
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