The Athletic NBA Daily
Mavs & Warriors shoot the lights out | Lakers & LeBron reunite
Mon, 16 Dec 2024
Luka Donćic recorded his 80th career triple double as the Warriors and Mavericks combined for 48 made three pointers. Dave DuFour, Zena Keita, and Anthony Slater discuss the offensive explosion from both teams, the Warriors new lineups, and how things will look after trading for Dennis Schröeder . Then, the Athletic’s Law Murray joins Dave and Es Baraheni to discuss LeBron’s return to the Lakers after some time away, Anthony Davis’ monster performance against the Grizzlies, and Kawhi Leonard’s impending return.Host: Dave DuFourWith: Zena Keita, Es Baraheni, Anthony Slater, & Law MurrayExecutive Producer: Andrew SchlechtAudio Producer: Grayson MoodySubmit your questions to The Athletic NBA Daily mailbag: https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5939460/2024/11/25/nba-podcast-mailbag-athletic-daily/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Chapter 1: What happened during the Warriors vs. Mavericks game?
They're starting buddy healed. They didn't start Draymond Green and they got off to a really bad start in the first and third quarters. Maybe that's criticizable, right? I mean, part of the reason they were poor defensively is their best defensive player on their team is coming off the bench all of a sudden. So, yeah, again, I think I would probably just credit mostly really the shot making.
It wasn't like, you know, a lazy all-star game type atmosphere out there. It was just a lot of guys making shots.
Yeah, final score 143-133. I do feel like this game overcorrected for all of the defense that you saw in Houston with the Warriors, what you saw at NBA Cup weekend even. But now I'm looking at this team, speaking of overcorrecting, and I'm looking at the way that Andrew Wiggins played. And I'm looking at the way that Jonathan Kaminga played, who both I think were really... Phenomenal tonight.
And now you've got this Dennis Schroeder trait that's come in. And now you're looking at what are the Warriors going to do in terms of incorporating Dennis Schroeder into this mix? From what you've been hearing, even just the fact that he was people expected him to be with the team already today, but I believe he's coming in on Monday.
Chapter 2: How did Dennis Schröder's trade impact the Warriors?
What are you hearing about the way he's going to be incorporated into the Warriors mix and starting lineup?
They're talking pick and roll. You know, the age old Warriors question. Steve Kerr is saying he wants them to run more pick and roll. I mean, Steve Kerr had a stat pregame when he was talking about it, that they were dead last and pick and roll efficiency over the last 10 games. And they were the worst offense in basketball. I mean, like they.
It's crazy because, again, the game that we're talking about this off, they just gave up 143 points. But his point pregame before that happened was they feel confident that they are a top five defense. A third of the way through the season, they have this kind of defensive backbone. but they need to at least be like a league average offense.
And he said, this trade is about juicing up the offense and getting Steph Curry, you know, an extra pick and roll ball handler out there to play next to him. Steve Kerr wouldn't go fully committed that he's Dennis Schroeder is going to be the starting two guard on Thursday in Memphis necessarily, but it's clear. That's the plan. He said he thought he would be a perfect fit next to him.
I chatted a little bit with Draymond postgame. He seemed to kind of think like, yeah, Dennis Schroeder probably going to end up being the starting two guard. He's averaging 18 a game. He's hitting 38% of threes right now. Again, they are saying that they're going to allow him to play like Dennis Schroeder. They're not going to say, hey, come in and try to do a lot of the off-ball movement stuff.
Steve Kerr actually compared it to Chris Paul last year, saying if you look last year, they let Chris Paul run a lot of pick and roll. They were seventh in offense last year. Defense was the problem. His point was, we've corrected the defense. We're bringing in a pick and roll ball handler. We need him to run those pick and rolls, which I think will help Aminga and will help other guys too.
But also, let's not forget, Dennis Schroeder, he can guard. This is not a guy who is just a turnstile. I mean, he can guard. We've seen him do it. For the Lakers, he was their point-of-attack guy for a little bit. And I think that that's one of the secrets to being able to move him into the starting lineup is that there's maybe not that much of a drop off defensively.
And you're going to get such a higher floor on the offensive end. And then what I envision is when Steph's not on the court, man, this is where they've fallen apart and they don't have that number two guy yet. You could see like Kuminga kind of showing flashes, but now they've got a couple of guys who can, you know, if Wiggins can keep scoring, if Kuminga can keep scoring.
And now you add Schroeder to that. When Steph's sitting, their offense won't die.
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Chapter 3: What is the significance of LeBron's return to the Lakers?
Chapter 4: How are the Warriors adjusting their lineups?
Chapter 5: What are the ongoing challenges for the Warriors' defense?
And he said, this trade is about juicing up the offense and getting Steph Curry, you know, an extra pick and roll ball handler out there to play next to him. Steve Kerr wouldn't go fully committed that he's Dennis Schroeder is going to be the starting two guard on Thursday in Memphis necessarily, but it's clear. That's the plan. He said he thought he would be a perfect fit next to him.
I chatted a little bit with Draymond postgame. He seemed to kind of think like, yeah, Dennis Schroeder probably going to end up being the starting two guard. He's averaging 18 a game. He's hitting 38% of threes right now. Again, they are saying that they're going to allow him to play like Dennis Schroeder. They're not going to say, hey, come in and try to do a lot of the off-ball movement stuff.
Steve Kerr actually compared it to Chris Paul last year, saying if you look last year, they let Chris Paul run a lot of pick and roll. They were seventh in offense last year. Defense was the problem. His point was, we've corrected the defense. We're bringing in a pick and roll ball handler. We need him to run those pick and rolls, which I think will help Aminga and will help other guys too.
But also, let's not forget, Dennis Schroeder, he can guard. This is not a guy who is just a turnstile. I mean, he can guard. We've seen him do it. For the Lakers, he was their point-of-attack guy for a little bit. And I think that that's one of the secrets to being able to move him into the starting lineup is that there's maybe not that much of a drop off defensively.
And you're going to get such a higher floor on the offensive end. And then what I envision is when Steph's not on the court, man, this is where they've fallen apart and they don't have that number two guy yet. You could see like Kuminga kind of showing flashes, but now they've got a couple of guys who can, you know, if Wiggins can keep scoring, if Kuminga can keep scoring.
And now you add Schroeder to that. When Steph's sitting, their offense won't die.
He might be their number two. You mentioned it, but this is about their starting shooting guard spot. When they were in Hawaii for training camp, it was this three-man competition that felt very competitive.
It was the Anthony Melton, the offseason signing, who fit perfectly and played six games for the Warriors and seemed like they had kind of completed their starting lineup from a two-way perspective, as you mentioned. Obviously, Terrence's ACL, which... in a lot of ways sent the Warriors into this little mini spiral.
And then Brandon Pajamski was the young upstart who was like, you know, I think for the future, they wanted him to grab hold of that starting spot. He's just having a bad season. He's shooting 38% overall. It's like fourth worst in the league among like volume shooters, 25% from three. He was bad in the 16 minutes tonight. You guys probably saw the embarrassing play.
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Chapter 6: What does Kawhi Leonard's return mean for the Clippers?
Still feels like, you know, December 15 now, right? Teams are going to start talking about trades. And so we know the Lakers are going to be one of those teams that's constantly calling, seeing who's available, what upgrades they can make, et cetera, et cetera. Another team that I'm interested in, at least when it comes to the trade deadline, is the L.A. Clippers.
Let's go to Inglewood for a second. They've lost their last three games, Law. But in general, they got off to a start that we sort of talked about a couple weeks ago in terms of beating the outside noise and expectations. How does it look now with Kawhi Leonard, quote-unquote, around the corner, if that's the way to describe Kawhi? Is he around the corner? Can they expect him to come back?
What's the vibes in L.A. on the Clippers side now?
I think big picture, things are looking pretty nice. They're safely over .500. They played well enough to be able to take and absorb this poor stretch of play that they've had for almost two weeks now. Kawhi coming back to practice in a limited capacity, being on the floor, getting his hair done, like all that stuff matters. You know what I mean? Like everything for them, this isn't,
Nah, that stuff matters, man. He ain't messing around with the box flats no more. Like he's actually looking like he is planning on playing basketball games. And that's, and that's huge. You know, this isn't last year's team where that team was on a 66 win pace for 41 games due to Matt that's half the season.
And guys were still tripping as if to say like, you know, it's 10 different guys doing their own thing, you know? So, um, they need Kawhi because they need him, but they also need to start the clock on several things. You got to get Kawhi on the floor so that Kawhi can go through his ramp up in NBA games.
As we saw with Joel Embiid, Chris Middleton, and some of these other dudes who have delayed their start of their season, you know, they're going to, you're not getting all NBA. You're not going to get all NBA Kawhi in his first week back because You know, here's why that's relevant. The Clippers are always open for business.
There's not a single season that Lawrence Frank has been in charge of the front office that they have not completed a trade in between October and the February deadline. And I would expect that to be no different. But for them to fully evaluate what they need and how they are going to go about pursuing what they need, they need to see Kawhi play with these guys.
They need to see who stays in the rotation, who's out the rotation. You know, he's going to make the guys who have been doing way too much right now better and more efficient. Okay. Like how do we proceed? So that's the most interesting thing to me.
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