Jimmy Butler connected on all 11 of his free throws to lead the Golden State Warriors to a win over the Milwaukee Bucks in spite Steph Curry’s absence. Dave DuFour and Zena Keita discuss the Warriors win, the Bucks issues scoring, and Kawhi Leonard’s performance in the Clippers win over the Cavaliers. Then, the Athletic’s Shakeia Taylor joins the show to go deep on NBA referees, the sports referee crisis, and how the league’s rules are interpreted.Host: Dave DuFourWith: Zena Keita & Shakeia TaylorExecutive Producer: Andrew SchlechtAudio Producer: Grayson MoodyRead Shakeia Taylor on referees: https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6197306/2025/03/17/nba-refs-referees-officials-officiating-basketball/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Chapter 1: How did the Warriors win without Steph Curry?
Good morning, everybody. Welcome to the NBA Daily. Coming up, the Warriors won a game without Steph Curry. What? The Clippers beat the Cavs. And Shakia Taylor stops by to talk about referees and the referee crisis in America. Good morning, everybody. Good morning, Zena. I don't know if I could have sounded more serious in that rundown, the referee crisis in America.
But anyway, we had a great conversation with Shakia Taylor from The Athletic. She wrote an interesting story about how the NBA is training referees or not training referees. So we talked to her after the break. I hope you guys really enjoy it. Zena. Not a lot of games last night, but there were some really important games, at least for the teams that got wins. Steph Curry, apparently exhausted.
gets the night off, and I'm thinking to myself, and I text you, oh, Steph's out. Okay, so the Bucs are just going to roll. And what do you know? Another night where the Warriors surprise us. They surprise us by not showing up when Jokic and Jamal Murray weren't out there, and they lose to the Nuggets.
Right, that's true.
And then they surprise us by showing up when Steph Curry isn't out there and they beat the Bucs. I mean, and honestly, they handled them the entire game. You know, it felt like they controlled the entire game. And I really don't know where you hang the credit for this because it was such a weird performance.
I would say they handled them the entire game except for that 10 turnover third quarter where things went awry for the Warriors. It was very strange. It's hilarious. It's almost as if, Dave, you were not with me in that conversation with Eric Name just very recently about the Bucs and how much you cannot trust particularly
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Chapter 2: What were the key moments in the Bucks vs. Warriors game?
their offense and also like their desperation defense the Bucks got within three after being significantly down earlier in the game got within three in the third quarter uh and flipped the game pretty much on its head got the lead and you see their defense pick up a little bit you see Jay Lillard chasing down folks on screens switching people off I mean it was amazing And then it went away.
It was as if it just like they're like, oh, this is enough. We'll keep our three point lead. And of course, in the fourth quarter, the Warriors remembered we're at chase. We know how to hit threes in this arena. Let's go ahead and do that as a team and came back and just obliterated.
The Bucs defense, it was a night and day performance from what the Warriors looked like against Denver in terms of being able to have their offense be led by their defense. They kept the Bucs to under 40% from the floor. Big difference. Big shout out to Draymond Green for making life hell for Giannis Antetokounmpo, who finished 5-16 from the floor.
Giannis struggled inside, and it was because of Draymond Green's physicality. It was him playing rover on the back line of the defense. He was showing up in places that the Bucs couldn't imagine him every time they turned around. And then, of course, the scoring ability of Jimmy Butler. This has been a... slog of news and press around this, but it can't be said enough.
He is a free throw machine as put in our, some people would say, I mean, listen, you shoot 11 free throws in a game. You are, you are making your money at the line at that point. Right. Jimmy Butler goes 11 for 11 from three or from the free throw line. Excuse me. Quentin Post hits four threes. Brandon Pajemski hits four threes. Buddy Hill hits four threes.
And they never shoot like this when Steph is out there. And so you start to, you know, you start to get a little bit of hope. And look, we've been hitting these guys since Jimmy Butler got there. They haven't played anybody. They lose to the to the Nuggets without Jokic and Murray. And we start saying, oh, OK, so our. our gut feeling that maybe they're not quite this contender yet might be right.
But then they have a game like this and you see them without Steph holding the Bucs to 93 points. And I know that we've talked about how bad that Bucs offense can be, but that is huge to know you have that sort of defense in your back pocket when you go into the playoffs and Steph can't play 48 minutes. Right.
It's massive. It's major. It's major. And the fact, you know, I really do look at the Milwaukee side of this. Like there are some glaring concerns, especially because they're in that conversation of the four, five, six situation on the east side with the Indiana Pacers and Detroit Pistons. You're looking at a team that cannot get creation out of their bench.
And they also can't get another shot creator besides Dame Lillard. Like this is when you see the absence of Bobby Portis is so imperative for the Bucs. Not only from a defensive perspective, but again, a guy that can create his own shot willingly and easily. And so I do give credit to the Warriors for stepping up in the way that they did.
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Chapter 3: What challenges are the Bucks facing this season?
Now you're talking about someone that even if they're not running in transition off of their deflections or running in transition off of just stolen passes and getting high-flying alleys to Derrick Jones Jr. or wing threes coming out. No, no, no. Put that to the side. That's great. That's on the side for what they can do. They now in the half court have Kawhi cooking like he was before he was out.
And if his knees hold up And that's huge, right? That's a major factor. That's like my back, if my back holds up. But yeah, but if Kawhi Leonard can stay healthy We haven't even seen the tip of the iceberg for the Clippers.
Yeah, it does feel like he sort of played himself into shape. You know, obviously, you know, a little bit of rust when you take all this time off that he that he had to miss. You know, Bogdanovich comes off the bench with 20. Evita Zubac, as you mentioned, 28 and 20 on his birthday.
On his 28th birthday.
Yeah, you know, it feels like they probably ran it up a little bit there to get him that 28th point. And look, the one note I have for the Cavs is that this is another, you know, this is another game on film where physicality on the perimeter was able to get them out of their game. Garland and Mitchell combined for 35 points in this game.
That's a little bit lower than what we're used to from them. Evan Mobley in this game, minus 27, right? This is very much in, like, you can see where the Clippers dominated.
I think if you're Boston, if you're the Knicks, if you're one of these teams that you're going to have to go through Cleveland, this is one of the games that you're going to do a heavy scout on because, again, more of this physicality.
I'm smiling because let's look at the two teams that they lost to after the 16 game streak, Orlando and now the Clippers. What are those two teams? Teams full of wings. They're just wings basically. And then one center on the inside. And what's hilarious about this is I was actually watching the, the coach took,
cast or coaching cast basically it's a coach cast of the same game it was phil handy and um adrian griffin and some other folks just talking about the game and they adrian griffin mentioned that what he loves about the cleveland calves is that they look like what the league looked like when he got in there traditional four or five yeah right traditional four or five big and it's great that cleveland has been able to get those bigs working in tandem in the way that they have
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Chapter 4: How are the Clippers performing lately?
They haven't been able to match up. So this is now another game of film, as you mentioned, where playoffs come. Coaches can say, let me look down my bench. Let me take some risks. Who's big? Who can get in front of these guys and make things a little bit difficult for them?
Yeah. And the Clippers match up nightmare for a bunch of teams if they're going to be healthy for the playoffs. Guys, stick around after the break. Shakia Taylor, we're going to talk about refs. We're going to go deep on that. So please enjoy. NBA referees are always a hot button issue.
Zena and I have been talking about them all season long, whether it comes to replay reviews, the rescinded technicals, the last two minute reports. We've got our issues, but mostly they do a pretty good job here to talk about what the NBA is trying to do or rather not doing to increase their pool of referees. Shakia Taylor from The Athletic making her debut on the NBA Daily. Welcome.
I enjoyed the piece on the refs. How are you?
Thank you. I'm very excited to be here. Thank you for reading the piece as well.
Yeah, it was really good. Super insightful. You talk about a company called Ref Masters where essentially they're taking on the educational component for up-and-coming referees. And, you know... I don't want to get into the app. Guys, I'll put the link in the show description. So go and read it because it is eye opening.
But to me, I think that the crux for me and NBA fans in general is how come the NBA isn't actually running this program where they're trying to educate up and coming referees because they do have a referee issue.
I couldn't answer any questions as to why the NBA isn't doing it, but I know that, you know, this program, this app was created by two NBA referees and they got the idea in the bubble.
I tried to kind of push as to like what in the bubble made that, you know, a thought considering there weren't fans there to go at them the way they are now, but they had the idea in the bubble and it was James Williams, who people call Gucci and Kane Fitzgerald, who is now in Secaucus at the main, you know, officiating center for the NBA. And their idea was, Hey,
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Chapter 5: What insights does Shakeia Taylor provide about NBA referees?
Absolutely. I think about my Santa Cruz days when I was a sideline reporter and seeing the referees come in and come out like with their little bags and they and it's people are rarely happy to see them. Like, you know, as they're walking in, they're smiling and such, you know, especially when you're on the broadcast desk, they come in, they, you know, give you a little fist bump.
And that's usually the only smiles they'll get for the rest of the game. Unless it's maybe a player coming up to just be like, you know, tease them about something, but they get in and they get out. And I cannot imagine what that feels like. You talked about, you learned a lot throughout this process.
You mentioned one of those things that is also surprising to me about the fact that the rule book is not made with the referees. Explain that.
So the rule book, the NBA rule book is 75 pages, right? So this is 75 pages of rules that all of these referees have to know. So you have to learn this, but they have no participation in the making of the rules. The way James explained it is the rules are made by lawyers, right? So it is not someone who is on the court looking at a game in flow.
It is made by someone who is just saying this is what we don't want in the game. Right. These are the things that we don't want to happen. So not only do you not help create the rules, but you have to have the mind to store that. how many rules are on 75 pages y'all? Like they've gotta be, it's gotta be a ton.
It's pretty small type.
There's gotta be a ton of them. So your, so your, your body has to be able to run five miles a game. You gotta be able to keep your feet in position. You gotta sequence your eyes. You gotta follow the play and you gotta run through a 75 page rule book as this is happening, right?
This is a mentally and physically taxing role on the court that we mostly don't pay attention to until something happens. Right. I just thought that was really fascinating that there is no participation from officials in court. What is, you know, the part of officiating that matters? The rules.
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Chapter 6: Why is referee training important in the NBA?
Well, the lawyers like to draw up the rules so that they can come up with ways to break them. I mean, that's just and you can't have the referees involved because then it's collusion against yourself. You know, we can't have that. OK, so I guess what should we be looking for here in the next month?
You know, like when we're paying attention to the refs, you know, last year there was this huge change in style of officiating. And we know that it's a different sport now. Once you get from regular season NBA to the playoffs, but you know, is there something that, that maybe you picked up on that you feel like you now notice about referees that you didn't before you worked on this?
Absolutely. Something that came up a lot in my conversations because I didn't just talk to James. Right. I talked to Monty McCutcheon of the NBA. I talked to other people at Refmasters and I talked to someone who is using Refmasters to sort of help improve herself as a referee. And what I thought was interesting was everyone mentioned up, down, rebound.
So now whenever I'm watching a game, I'm looking at up, down, rebound. Right. Because I want to see what they're seeing. That's not something that I really as a normal watcher, you know, I'm like paying super close attention to. But they talk about how like what they're watching, where they have to be standing, the way their bodies have to be positioned. for that one thing.
That's not including everything else.
And then the other thing that I- For our viewers, Shakia, sorry. For our viewers, can you explain when you mean up, down, rebound? Can you like add a little context to that?
I feel like I would not give a good explanation for that.
If one of you wants to explain it, that would be great. No, no, no. But from what you, I mean, no, I want you to say it.
From a referee perspective. From a referee perspective.
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Chapter 7: What are the current concerns regarding NBA officiating?
So as it was explained to me, when a player goes up, right, for the rebound, you're watching not only their hands, but you're watching their feet and you have to watch everyone around them. Right. So you can't just watch the ball. So your eyes have to go. I'm sorry. I'm using my hands as if people can see me on YouTube.
So so your eyes have to go up, down, back to the ball incredibly quickly because you have to have this sequence of events. in your mind with your eyes. So you can make the correct call, whether this person is touched, whether there's, you know, someone sticks a hand out or whatever. And now that I've heard that I start looking, you never realize how many hands are going toward the ball.
So you're watching who's got the ball. You're watching for possession. You're watching for who taps it. You're watching for the slightest alteration of the movement of the the ball and it happens in seconds.
Yep.
That was great.
If you're poorly positioned, you have no idea if it's an over the back or not. I had a player fouled out on an over the back that was called from half court, Shakia. How could you see it from half court? I don't know. I'd be mad. Shakia, I really enjoyed this. It was a fascinating piece. I look forward to what you're working on next. Everybody go and read Shakia over at The Athletic.
If you follow her on the app, you get notifications when it pops up. If you're watching this on YouTube, Like and subscribe, please. Leave us a comment. If you're listening on Spotify, iTunes, however you get your podcasts, please leave us a five-star review. We're working pretty hard over here, having a good time.
For Shakia Taylor, for Zena Keita, I'm Dave DeFore, and this has been the NBA Daily. Thanks for waking up with us.
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