Tough And Tougher
Man, yesterday was tough. And I’m not talking about that boring Giants game. Why do all of their SP’s punch us out 10 times a game?
I’m talking about the Warriors. That was ugly. Straight up embarrassing. It was shocking how slow and clunky they looked. The Kings were playing at a different speed. Klay looked like a bewildered high school player out there. Steph got his pocket picked like an old lady in the park. And to make matters worse, I lost a round of golf to my main men in Sacramento, Eric and Hal. The dreaded beam has been lit.
Time is undefeated. There will be a transition that will be tough for many Warrior fans. Personally, I am excited about it. They have some useful, fun young guys. Time to embrace them and build around them.
A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball 
3 weeks into season and Giants have only won back-to-back games once (opening weekend in San Diego). Enough said.
I think I noted here after the first Dubs game of the season and watching them trying to figure out how to utilize Chris Paul that the Dynasty was over. That acquisition made zero sense then and after that laughable second half last night more so. Poole has showed himself to be the fool that the Dubs vets obviously had seen, but dumping him for Paul made no logical or strategic sense.
I was frankly surprised we were able to bring Draymond back and I had expected him to be a Laker instead because the Fakers could use more size and ball handling if they think they can beat the Nuggets. Well we will see now. But your comment of how embarrassing last night was. And typical Kerr thought he could pull some magic starting Jackson-Davis (whom I love and will be a significant factor going forward) instead of Kuminga and we saw the deer in headlights one would expect with a rookie. Moody has been held back all season when he should have been a significant rotation piece all season and we saw his impact last night. Enough toying with holding back the young guys. Kuminga smartly played the media to change Kerr burying him on the depth chart. Sadly but must be a turning point that they have to eat Klay go and see if there can be a taker for Wiggins who could be a helpful piece to a team like Orlando or even Indiana who are playoff level teams ready to take another step next season. We’ll see but the run was amazing and we got four championships out of it.
If Lacob was pissed off enough after results vs. $$ spent in lux tax hell last season to demand changes had to be made, he’s gotta feel worse now. So jettison overpaid underperformers and make Kerr’s decisions on playing time and rotation easier.
That’s a Kings team last night minus starting shooting guard Huerter and potential 6th man of year Malik Monk, who lit them up. They have very little guard/wing depth and ponderous Alex Len as backup C, as JaVale hardly ever plays anymore. Was cool to see him slam one.
There was Tim Kawakami column in TA talking about Warriors needing 3 Ws–beating Kings and Pels, plus 1 vs. OKC, to be get 8 seed (and home playoff games w nice paydays) and finish off season in upbeat mode. Sounds pretty silly now, huh?
even worse in the post game, kerr saying they are gonna run it back next year. Gotta pray lacob puts a stop to that
Bit of redemption for Harrison Barnes too, 17 points vs. old buddies as his team moves on. Sometimes it’s less of one guy being better than another, it’s who fits best w group. Kerr has struggled all year to try and find group of 5 guys that work together at both ends, and combine shooting/scoring/ball handling w defense and rebounding.
Maybe last night lent more clarity, maybe not. But something that’s become evident is days where Steph can just take over and get 50 like he did last year vs. Sac are mostly gone, and GS needs to put more talented and diverse group around him.
Harrison Barnes is the person most likely to go on to have Steve Kerr’s post-playing career. He’s a first rate interview and on-air speaker. Probably could be as good a GM as Kerr, maybe better. Won’t win four championships as a coach, but might be hired in that capacity.
wow. That’s utter lunacy
Utter lunacy on my part to interact with the alter-egos of ghosts.
If you look at the way HB engaged with the press on Media Day before this season, he’s definitely moving on to something bigger when he retires, maybe in a different field altogether.
Being a GM IS far-fetched, as NBA owners are an exclusive club and he’s a pretty humble guy. He’d be a great TV analyst and probably a successful coach.
Oh, I guess you can’t link to videos here.
Here’s more lunacy. Steve Kerr would win in a landslide if he ran against Trump, although Popovich would be a better President.
come on. If Klay could do anything Steph would be able to put up more points. As it was they threw everyone at Steph.
Fucking Barnes. He was Wiggins before Wiggins got here. Mr. Disappearing Act. My only joy is knowing the Pels will stomp the shit out of the kings.
I just don’t get why Kerr went away from starting Kuminga and playing Klay off the bench.
Losing GP 2 hurt as well but Klay was atrocious. We’d better not sign him unless it is a huge pay cut and he isn’t a starter anymore.
I fear without Dray though, this team gives up 120 per game. Payton can’t stay on the court, Podz is scrappy, but we need an inside defender beyond Dray, and the rest don’t play very much defense.
NBA has become more of an offensive league. # 1 seed in West OKC was 3rd highest scoring team in league, only 11th best for D and had minus overall rebounding numbers. They gave up more boards than they grabbed. TWolves and Denver both have high scoring players at multiple positions, inside and out. Warriors don’t match up well with those teams–they can’t stop guards like Anthony Edwards Jamal Murray Shai Gilgeous Alexander or handle Jokic Towns or even Holmgren.
For them to return to relevancy the younger guys like Podz Kuminga Jackson-Davis and Moody have to be lot more efficient at both ends of floor to handle starters of better teams. Won’t happen overnight.
Well, Denver is pretty tough on defense so they have an advantage over teams like OKC.
Zion’s injury is reportedly a hamstring. The Pelicans should be favored still, but the Kings just had no answer for him in their earlier meetings this season, and the injury is an X-factor. I am truly NOT glad he’s dealing with the injury, and I hope he’s OK for Friday. He was having the best game of his career last night before the injury. The Lakers had no answer for him, either. He’s in the best conditioning of his career, and was showing he can be an NBA MVP someday. But….he gets injured a lot. Very frustrating for Pelican fans. Kings had the same frustration with Bagley. Great potential, but injured a lot.
But I should also say, if Zion can’t play, I’m not going to feel sorry for the Pelicans. Nobody feels sorry for the Kings losing Monk. That’s the way sports are, nobody feels sorry for anybody.
in his 11th season, Soler’s cumulative bWAR is 6. Of that, 3.5 came in 2019. Last year was 1.8. I’m struggling to adjust my expectations.
Looking like a fairly sad season for the Giants. The way the hitting is going it feels like we need to hold teams under 3.
They may have to hold it under 1 to win this one.
Heh heh. Yep. The margin of error is non-existent.
I saw a photo of one of the Kings in the locker room after the game last night, doing the Curry “night, night” pose. I love Curry, but he did the “night, night” thing near the end of the game 7 last season, and that did stick in the craw of the Kings players and fans.
Kings knocked off Warriors in Game 6 at Chase to force Game 7. Yes, Steph got his 50 and GS won but losing that home game set them up for what happened later. GS had to open next round in 2 days instead of resting, and rested Lakers won road game to turn series around. Warriors went 0-3 in LA and were eliminated.
Boo hoo. The Kings are going nowhere. They seem to think this is their ring moment. Which is why they aren’t gonna go too far.
Yeah, the Kings are going nowhere. They’re staying in Sacramento, after almost moving to Seattle several years ago. And a new downtown arena got built. Hopefully they win a championship in the not so distant future. I don’t regret the not drafting Doncic. He doesn’t thrill me. He’s kind of a ball-hog.
This has 2-1 loss written all over it.
Hope Winn is OK, yikes.
More and more troubling the Giants can’t score with RISP. Soler and Chapman underwhelming at the plate so far…
And like on cue the Giants leave the bases loaded and don’t score!
RISP is going to be a nightmare all year long..
And of course the Marlins just tie it up on a HR it’s so predictable..
Wow Bailey guns down Jazz at 2b inning over. Nicely done.
It’s a run anyway.
Mel Stottlemyre Sr. was one helluva of a pitcher for long time. Career 2.97 ERA in 356 starts and over 2600 innings. Only got into 1 WS, 1964 won by Cards.
He basically won them the pennant as a rookie call-up. Fritz Peterson who passed away the other day was damn good too for some terrible Yankee teams of that era. It’s a shame that most people only remember him for the family swap…
Nice inning by Miller didn’t know he had 100 mph fastball in his arsenal..
https://x.com/pavlovicnbcs/status/1780658583488885191?s=46&t=k0FDC_rVBvlG86Y-OHTiNQ
Chapman back over .200!
Nice 2 out hitting from Lee Soler and Chapman, all opposite field line drives for important insurance run. Chapman w RISP double to RF.
Jeez Louise, seems every game our guys look like they couldn’t dominate my gramma’s geriatric club in a game of 16 inch .. and she is long dead.
Even after a Bailey steal of all things no outs he’s on 2nd Ahmed &Fitzgerald take strike 3 down the middle and Yaz lines out as they don’t score again…
Wrap it Up, as Camilo finishes them off.
Two outta three.
Series Winn!
Amazing they got the Win for Winn it’s the Marlins but taking 2 of 3 for the 1st time since 2016 in this dump is great!!
Keaton Winn great pitching!Too bad the Giants don’t have Randy Winn anymore cause that would of been a Winn Winn game..
A bit torturous, but good win.
The Ks looking seems to be an issue among more than a few Giants. If you’re going to K, go down swinging. Either these guys lack confidence in their swings, or they are being consistently out-foxed on situation and pitch selection by the opposing battery. Pre-game scouting reports should limit that, though. Need to really figure that out…
I think I noted here after the first Dubs game of the season and watching them trying to figure out how to utilize Chris Paul that the Dynasty was over. That acquisition made zero sense then and after that laughable second half last night more so. Poole has showed himself to be the fool that the Dubs vets obviously had seen, but dumping him for Paul made no logical or strategic sense.
I was frankly surprised we were able to bring Draymond back and I had expected him to be a Laker instead because the Fakers could use more size and ball handling if they think they can beat the Nuggets. Well we will see now. But your comment of how embarrassing last night was. And typical Kerr thought he could pull some magic starting Jackson-Davis (whom I love and will be a significant factor going forward) instead of Kuminga and we saw the deer in headlights one would expect with a rookie. Moody has been held back all season when he should have been a significant rotation piece all season and we saw his impact last night. Enough toying with holding back the young guys. Kuminga smartly played the media to change Kerr burying him on the depth chart. Sadly but must be a turning point that they have to eat Klay go and see if there can be a taker for Wiggins who could be a helpful piece to a team like Orlando or even Indiana who are playoff level teams ready to take another step next season. We’ll see but the run was amazing and we got four championships out of it.
They dumped Poole to get rid of that hideous contract. It had nothing to do with CP3. CP3 was much better than Poole anyway. The biggest problem with the Warriors this season was Kerr’s inability to get Kuminga going fast enough. He stuck with Wiggins and Klay more than halfway through the season as they were both playing like shit. Kuminga would play his ass off and then get benched to watch Klay fire bricks in the 4th quarter. Moody, prolly the best bench guy, was tossed out of the rotation in favor of fucking Joseph. Kerr made a LOT of terrible decisions with this team this year.
Kerr was WAY TOO SLOW in reacting to the fact that Podzinski and Kuminga were outplaying Wiggins and Klay. Moody needed more minutes. TJP could have been rotated in earlier, but he didn’t suffer the fate that Kuminga did.
Benching Klay seemed to get him rolling with Klay and CP3 on the 2nd team. But of course Kerr killed that idea and rode it to an 24 point loss last night. Not sure why.
The only reason Kerr started Klay Thompson was he knows that was going to be his last game in a Warrior uniform,it was just out of respect.They had no chance of winning this game the Kings beat them up in every phase in stats..
Stupid that Kerr started the overwhelmed Jackson -Davis over Kuminga who’s way better and creative.Kerr’s got some personal vendetta against him, he should have been starting ALL YEAR!!
Wow, Dodgers shut out at home by the Nats and lost 2 of 3, next they get the red-hot Mets this weekend.
maybe the Mets will blow off all their steam down there, before heading here.
Cubs beat DBax (9-10) again 5-3, taking 2 of 3.
AZ in for 4 starting tomorrow, Webb pitches Thursday.
Going to our first game tomorrow. Don’t know if we’ve ever been there for a Webb start.
Saw Webb last year pitch a complete game shutout. The game was barely over 2 hours.
Crazy.
Fun fact I didn’t know:
the late Ken Holtzman won more games (174) than any other Jewish pitcher including Sandy Koufax (165).
RCs beat OKC (Dodgers AAA) 3-2 yesterday on 3 run HR in first by Casey Schmitt. That’s his 4th and he is on 12-25 tear after slow start. 2 hits each from Ramos (.357 w 1.125 OPS) and Luciano (.352 w .904 OPS). 5 innings 1 run 4 hits 0 BBs 7 Ks from SP Carson Seymour.
Matos 1-4 hitting .217 .693 OPS.
Schmitt, Ramos, Luciano, Matos … at least one of them has to turn into an ok major leaguer, right?
Having so much trouble getting into this season…