Without Klay Thompson, Warriors get defensive - and maybe better | The Kevin O’Connor Show
Yahoo Sports senior NBA analyst Kevin O’Connor is joined by David Thorpe to discuss Golden State’s early start to the season, headlined by an improved defensive effort. Hear the full conversation on “The Kevin O’Connor Show” and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you listen.
Video Transcript
It feels like something's different with this Warriors team, whether that's all due to clay, you know, leaving in the locker room chemistry is better.
There's been a lot of passive aggressive comments coming out of that Warriors locker room about the, the nature of the team right now.
Despite the weaker schedule, it feels like going into this really tough stretch they have coming up, they get three games in a row.
Boston Cleveland and OKC and then they're back home against Dallas and Memphis.
I'm feeling really good about this Warriors team right now defensively.
They're dynamic and they're doing it with, uh, interior defense is excellent.
Teams are shooting poorly.
Maybe it's because they're bad shooting teams.
We don't know yet.
It's only been six games.
That combination of Jackson Davis and looney is outstanding.
Looney.
Looney might be the defensive player of the year right now, Fred were playing less than 16 minutes, 17 minutes a game.
He owns the paint.
He reminds me of Marc Gasol, uh, uh, just mucking things up all the time in the middle.
But trace is doing a good job too for a guy that's only his second year.
Uh, I think Steph's been a great leader.
The vibe is good.
Go stay playing defense and have that vibe.
That's, that's kind of their thing when they were Clay is gone.
Is that, is that why is it because Clay's gone?
Is it all because of that?
You know, I, I've never heard from anyone there that, that was happening in, in the last few weeks.
I, I'm in touch with them.
I don't think it's a stupid thing to, to suggest bad vibes is bad vibes and clearly he's not hurting what Dallas is doing, but there's just a, a refreshed feeling it seems in the way they're defending.
I also think to be fair, Kenny Atkinson ran their defense last year doing a great job in Cleveland.
He ain't running it in Golden State and I don't think they loved from what I've been told.
I don't think they loved his approach compared to what they had done previously with Mike and Mike Brown.
They're, they're, it's working now.
We'll see what happens.
You just said their schedule.
It, it gets dramatically tougher.
We'll see how they're doing there.