Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Good morning and welcome to the NBA Daily for December 12th, 2025. I'm Dave DeFore here with Espera Henney. Coming up, the Rockets beat the Clippers, but man, it took a long time to finish that game. And Steph Curry's coming back. We're going to talk about his impact on the Warriors. And Jake King is here to talk about the Celtics and how they've been winning, except for last night.
Good morning, everybody. Good morning, guys. I love when we book a guest because a team's been hot or doing something interesting, and it's just like, oh.
The NBA Daily curse hasn't been going crazy this year, but we unfortunately got one with Jay tonight.
Well, we got the double whammy on the cup night the other night because we picked both the losers and, you know, hey. We were just rolling the dice out here. Speaking of. All right. Look, we watch a ton of basketball every single night.
Chapter 2: What happened in the Rockets vs. Clippers game?
And we've talked about watchability this season. And I don't want to be a guy who's like complaining about refereeing because like it's hard to ref. Reviews are going to happen. But what happened at the end of the Rockets Clippers game last night is just egregious. It was, you know, we these games are already taking forever.
That game last night, the final 17 seconds took 17 minutes in real life to finish. They were at 27 seconds left with about two and a half minutes left in Celtics bucks. And the press conferences were done by the time that game was over. Yeah.
Chapter 3: How will Steph Curry's return impact the Warriors?
That was absurd, man.
No, I mean, look, we have one of these every so often that just reminds us about the grueling nature of the end of basketball games. My wife always jokes with me, you know, she'll be like, oh, how much is left in the game? And I'll be like, oh, it's just like a couple minutes. And she'll be like, okay, I'll see you in 25 minutes.
Chapter 4: What are the Celtics' recent performance trends?
It's NBA time. It's NBA time. Right. And like between reviews and challenges and referees looking over things, the end of games have just become so grueling. And to add to the fact, I know this is something we both hate. Fouling up three has made it even more absurd because now I'm going through all this for nothing. Exactly. Right.
There's no, it's a three point game and there's no incentive for me because I know it's going to come down to free throws. It's going to come down to this battle of like, Hey, we have two seconds left on the clock. How many timeouts do we have? Instead of it being, Hey, we have a three, it's three points and we have an opportunity to score here.
I think that has to be somehow legislated out of the game. They have to find, maybe it's a technical foul. Maybe it's an away, the away from the ball foul, something that,
in order to allow teams to have an opportunity if they're down three well there's so many other rules that they're willing to just kind of look beyond or create new versions of to make it more entertaining and this to me is like the take foul the take foul was taking away from the entertainment factor of the nba and really the spirit of the game that's the other thing is like You're up three.
Chapter 5: How has Jaylen Brown stepped up without Jayson Tatum?
You should still have to play defense because there's a three point shot. And to win. Listen, I understand his strategy and it's smart. Yes, trust me. I know I'm a coach and we intentionally foul bad free throw shooters all the time. It doesn't mean that that's what I want to watch on television. Yeah, there's nothing wrong with coaches doing it.
Like, there's absolutely nothing wrong with coaches doing it. It's part of the rules. It's part of what's allowed. You have to have that gained advantage. But I think that's ridiculous. And to your point about the Rockets-Clipkers game, it was a fun game. It was back and forth. James Harden and Kawhi were making shots. Zubach had a great game. Ben Thompson had a great putback for the lead.
Absolutely. Steven Adams had an incredible Duncan transition. Like there were a lot of great moments for that to be ruined by challenges and reviews. It's just it's deflating.
You know, it's literally like imagine watching a great movie in the last 20 minutes. We're just people doing paperwork or something. You know, that's that's not really what we want. OK, enough complaining. It really was a great game until the last 20 minutes of the game. That was 17 seconds. Okay. Hey, Steph Curry is coming back.
Guys, the Warriors could use him, even though they went three and two without a mess. They did beat the Cavs in there, although we kind of feel like the Cavs are a little soft. So maybe that says more about the Cavs than it does the Warriors. But their offense could use him. Obviously, he's one of the greatest ever. How much better is this team when Steph is on the court versus off?
I mean, you know, Pat Spencer doing his best Steph Curry impression is still Pat Spencer playing basketball.
Hey, can I tell you guys something? The Warriors are about to have a week off. You know, they last played on Sunday. They're going to play on Friday. They've had five days off. And for an old team, that helps a lot. So if we talk about NBA Cup scheduling, by the way, it helps tremendously. Yeah. That there's a five-day break for one of the oldest teams in basketball right now.
And to your point about Steph Curry, yeah, it's great to have him back because the Warriors offense craters without him. They've been playing fine without him and beating the competition that they're supposed to. You mentioned the Cavs game, which was atrocious from the Cavs perspective. But they're 10 points per 100 possessions better offensively.
on offense with steph curry on the floor this season and that includes games where he hasn't played he's huge for what they do we we don't have to debate that in any sort of way their ceiling is so much higher when he is there and on the floor and knocking down shots and doing the steph curry things we've seen him do for a decade plus now the question moving forward is like all right
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Chapter 6: What are the implications of Jayson Tatum's potential return?
and Steph Curry a little bit more of a chance than it currently has in the Western Conference.
Yeah. Guys, before we go to the break, don't forget you can join our Discord. It's in the show notes if you're listening on the pod or it's in the description. Come hang out. If you're watching us on YouTube, come hang out. You know, we're trying to spend a little bit more time there. And if you're going to be in Vegas for the NBA Cup, say hi. Reach out. Say what's up. Guys, stick around.
After the break, we've got Jay King to talk about the Celtics. And I asked him if Jason Tatum's coming back. The Boston Celtics have kind of surprised us the last few weeks. They've been way more competitive this season than I think anybody expected. Mostly because we really thought they were going to try to get under the tax and maybe tank this season. But they're too good to tank.
And Jason Tatum might come back. And Jay King covers the Celtics for us. The third Jay in Boston. That's right. The first Jay in Boston. The most important Jay. Yes, Jay.
Jay, you know, when we were getting you on the show, I assumed going to play the Bucs without Giannis that the Celtics, who had kind of figured out this identity this season and really was on a nice little roll, were going to go in and handle business, but they got They ran into Kyle Kuzma and Bobby Portis. Come on, man.
They got Bobby Portis, man. It was an incredible display by him. He can just touch God every once in a while. And that's what he did. Celtics missed 16 straight threes. When the announcers are bringing up the Houston Rockets' streak of 27 straight misses during the game, you know that's not great. It's not good. And... Yeah, when that happens, you're going to have some tough nights.
But it wasn't just Porter. Kevin Porter Jr. was hitting some tough shots. Kyle Kuzma was getting whatever he wanted. That was a problem. So as many shots as the Celtics missed, I think what really doomed them was their defense. They weren't able to get Portis and Kuzma and those guys out of rhythm.
Yeah, this Celtics team has been so fun to watch offensively this year, especially over the last like two or three weeks where they've just been dominant. Do you think, you know, I guess for the last couple of seasons, we've talked about how hot shooting can help the Celtics. And then when they're cold, it's like a completely different team.
Is that still the case with this version of the Celtics?
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