There are two days until the Sacramento Kings and Golden State Warriors play Game One of their postseason series in Golden 1 Center. In anticipation of that, Anthony Slater of The Athletic joined the show and shared his perspective on the upcoming series.
Anthony’s time covering Golden State during their deep postseason runs gives him great insight into Kings head coach Mike Brown, which is where we started the conversation. Anthony explained how unique this situation is for both coaching staffs and the impact that being incredibly familiar with one another could have on this series.
Coach Brown, who just was named the National Basketball Coaches Association’s Coach of the Year, knows better than anybody the defensive weaknesses apart of Golden State’s roster and Anthony Slater shared what he thinks some of those could be.
🚨 NEW KP EPISODE 🚨
🔘Special Guest: @anthonyVslater
🔘The defensive creativity Coach Brown displayed in previous postseasons
🔘Expectations for Andrew Wiggins in his return
🔘Attempting to slow down Curry or Fox
🔘Potential rotational question markshttps://t.co/QaDCDzaB0G pic.twitter.com/HPAmgVVRB6— Brenden Nunes (@BrendenNunesNBA) April 14, 2023
Anthony, along with Shams Charania, broke the news earlier today that Andrew Wiggins will be limited to playing 20-25 minutes in game one of the series. I asked Anthony what he expects from Wiggins, what sort of limitations he may have, and the impact could have in games.
So, if not Wiggins, then who else could be assigned to De’Aaron Fox? We spent some time talking about potential other options including Donte DiVincenzo, Gary Payton II, and Jonathan Kuminga.
The inverse of the same question can be presented when it comes to two-time MVP Stephen Curry. Davion Mitchell’s offense could be an X-Factor with what he is able to provide defensively.
Anthony and I both laid out what we expect the rotations to be for the teams in this series and presented potential question marks surrounding some of the later pieces.
Other topics also covered:
- How much will Kevon Looney and Draymond Green be able to play alongside one another?
- The importance of rebounding on both ends of the floor
- Both point guards are able to attack mismatches
- Forcing the Warriors into turnovers
- And plenty more
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good podcast. However, the Warriors offering Barnes a contract extension for 4 years, 64 million, at that time in his career, was not exactly “kicking him to the curb”.
Well, considering Barnes signed for four years and $94 million with the Mavericks in a free-agency year in which Kent Bazemore got $70 million over four years from the Hawks and Evan Fournier got $85 million over five years from the Magic, I’d call the Warriors’ offer one that the Warriors themselves never expected Barnes to accept.
The Warriors moved on from Barnes to sign Kevin Durant. That’s what Slater was really referencing.
maybe “kicking to the curb” has changed meaning. Like “hilarious” as described by Louis CK.
He was being flip about it, but Barnes was never a guarantee to resign in Oakland back then. He got paid to go to Dallas and was badly miscast as the #1 option as we all know.
“Kicking to the curb” hasn’t changed in meaning, but I don’t think Slater really meant it in derogratory fashion as it sounded when he said it.
I am waiting for my wife to kick me to the curb so I can by a tiny house by a river, get a hound dog and a sprinter van . Work remote, fish, travel and mumble to myself
Tomorrow night when I tune in to watch the game I would really like to watch a basketball game and all the players in it not a circus show with Draymond Green being the biggest clown in the arena. The only way that’s not happening is to give Green two quick technicals send him to the shower now we can watch a really good basketball game. That’s all I want.
Yooo wassup guys Warrior fan here to talk ass and kick bubblegum . . . or something like that! In all seriousness though, I love that the Kings are back in the playoffs after such a long time, that 1999 team was so much fun to watch!!
Anywaaaays, I’m mostly here to learn more about the Warriors upcoming opponent and correct misconceptions and talk smack 🙂 Can’t wait!!!
It’s not that long of a time. It’s less than half of my lifetime. 🙂
Dubs are a cool team, but pretty soon you’ll have to change your username to “scratchandsniff”
You’re old.
“and I guess you could say the same about the Kings” in reference to going to the WCF against all Pacific Division teams…. I get it. Kings are unproven. But that irked me a bit. I love the underdog mentality but I have this feeling that Mike Brown knows how to put his men in place to succeed in any given 7 game series. Obviously the players still need to respond.
Major key will be tomorrow’s game like mentioned. We CAN’T let them steal that first one.
The Kings: Lots of problems that Golden State will exploit.
The Warriors: Hmm, let’s see…Jordan Poole sucks at defense, but he’s probably not going to play very much.
Go at him, Brendan! What is GS going to do about Sacramento’s historic offense? Who is going to stop Sabonis? If Huerter can’t stop Curry, who is Curry going to stop? Do they have anyone who is going to stop Fox from getting twenty-five per game? The Kings pose real problems for defenses, and Golden State’s is far from great.
Woe be to the Kings, who somehow have no chance.
Hey – Golden State has 4 future HoFers on their squad. They have the experience and the talent to win it all again this year for back to back wins. I don’t think they will do that, but it wouldn’t exactly knock me off my seat if they at least came out of the West.
I don’t think that is going to happen, but the Kings have to be the underdog here. The regular season record means very little – especially to the Warriors who have been to the NBA Finals 6 times in the last ten years. I can’t think of any motivating factor for the Dubs to get through the regular season other than to be in the playoffs and not be too banged up and to give the new guys playing time. They already have had the best regular season record in history (2016) and 4 Larry O’Briens. For them, it’s the Championship or bust. The regular season is meaningless other than for individual accolades.
The challenge is – are they able to throw the switch and be the GSW that they have been as late as one year ago?
Sacramento is going to have to blitz them. As someone on one of the other threads posted – that first game will take on a bigger step for the Kings then for Golden State. The Warriors were 33-8 at home – that’s a bigger hurdle to jump than Sacramento wants to avoid. If Sac can’t pull together Game 1 and/or Game 2 wins – it’s going to be over quick and ugly. If they can put a win or two together – they might just extend the series. If they can get to Game 7 – anyone can win (unless the NBA strictly forbids it – Bevetta style). That’s a lot of IFs, unfortunately.
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