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00:00oh i know this isn't going to work but i still want to try okay okay and i'm here for you and
00:03i'm i'm going to support you it's it's fine like i'm not like i'm not gonna it's not going to be
00:08some sort of an ego slap if it doesn't work okay um then again there's a piece of this that will
00:14100 work because it's up to us which is do we want to simply put this to bed until there is
00:23something new on the jonathan kaminga front and and and i think for the most part here in this
00:28back half of the week we have we wanted to ask the questions that we asked to steve and we did
00:35and if you are just joining us here's answer number one when i said i asked steve kind of how are you
00:42taking it that you've achieved this and you're winning and you're in the playoffs but so many
00:47people still just want to uh to talk about jonathan kaminga you know mostly i feel for for jk because i
00:54i i like him and he's been here four years and and uh he's a talented guy and you know sometimes
01:00things uh go in a different direction um and what i think what happened here is you know it's pretty
01:07obvious i've talked about it but jimmy butler came in and when when jk was out we traded for jimmy and
01:13they play the same position and our whole team changed we became an iso team with jimmy you know
01:18the movement of steve iso with jimmy and jimmy's one of the best players in the league so it's not as
01:24simple as just saying oh okay we'll just we'll play them together it doesn't basketball doesn't
01:28work that way um the puzzle has to fit we found you know a a really good formula uh when jk was
01:36injured j and and we got jimmy i think we went 18 and 2 or something right away so we found we found
01:42lineup combinations that have clicked and we're winning and we have to stick with that and it's um
01:47it's brutal for jk it really is he's a young player who wants to play and he's and he's absolutely
01:52talented enough to play um and he still may be a part of the equation in this series and and you
01:58know the next series after that and after that so we we we just have to keep plugging away and keep
02:04moving forward and and he's doing a good job of that but i i definitely feel for him so there's one
02:09more that we want to play but what i sort of want to propose to everyone is after listening to what i
02:14thought was measured i thought it was fair i thought it was descriptive logical i thought it was clear
02:22like do you accept these answers and then rockets warriors whoever's in the jerseys that are on the
02:32court let's do rockets and warriors starting this weekend do you accept these answers here's one more
02:40because i did throw him at the end a lot of people are making this what feels like a very sort of
02:47intuitive a to b the rockets are young and bouncy and and athletic so the only way to combat that
02:58is well you need to have some young and bouncy and athletic and that's jonathan so does this series
03:06match up better for him to play and i thought this is where i sort of came to critical mass
03:13on the whole thing listen to this i have to read what we need i have to read you know who's playing
03:19well together and to be very frank uh the jimmy uh jk combination um has not been great and and that's
03:27the uh that's the tricky part here and uh you know i'm playing jimmy 40 minutes a night because jimmy is
03:32uh one of the very best players and in the league and there's a reason we're we're here and we're in the
03:38seventh seed and we're you know we won whatever it was 24 of our last 30 games and uh the reason
03:44is jimmy and so it's my job as a coach to keep the team on a path that i think gives us the best
03:49chance to win and and for now that's um that's why i've been leaning into the lineup so that i have
03:54okay so i actually do not think and i know a lot of people do well he's gonna play in this series
04:02not to start not necessarily not to start and if he does it's going to be just for little bits and
04:08pieces and i guess what i'm getting at is when i listen to him talk that whole thing out late
04:14yesterday afternoon i went agree or disagree that makes sense i get what you're saying i get what
04:23you're doing and i don't really think that there there's no fact that exists that doesn't sort of
04:31lean in the favor of what they're doing there are emotions there are opinions that can lean in the
04:39other direction i don't think there are any facts he's got them in his favor i understand what he's
04:45doing you don't have to love it but do you accept it i accept it you either accept it or you don't
04:50and you just look at what he was describing and in his subsequent answer he talked about what
04:56combinations might work and it almost seemed like he was working it through in his own mind and he
05:01talked about a a combo of draymond and quentin post and kaminga and how that might be a trio
05:07that could potentially work but when you think about that trio you're dealing with about eight
05:12minutes that jimmy butler's not going to be playing because jimmy's playing 40 minutes and
05:16steve even said that he's like i'm gonna play jimmy 40 minutes and if jimmy and kaminga don't do well
05:21together and the analytics would prove that to be true well then where is the leash for jonathan to go in
05:27there and play because if he and jimmy don't play well together and jimmy plays 40 minutes now you're
05:32left with about eight minutes where kaminga could possibly play and then he even said you want maybe
05:37it's quentin and draymond and kaminga and then you're gonna have maybe stefan pods or gp2 or whatever
05:44but you're starting to get into a really tight window of where jk could even fit without jimmy butler
05:50when i look at warrior basketball in the playoffs here's what i don't buy i don't buy that you fight
05:56fire with fire i don't buy that and i think that's what they've never done that no and that's what
06:01people are suggesting you're like oh the rockets are young and bouncy so this is a kaminga series no
06:06no i'd argue it's even less one maybe maybe because you know what jonathan does well they can do it too
06:13so they can stop it they're phenomenal on defense they're big tall lanky bouncy and young so jonathan's
06:20gonna walk out on the floor and i know he's played well against houston i get it yeah circumstances
06:25steve even pointed to that but i don't see this as that like these games are not those games um those
06:32games largely didn't have steph curry in them right right so and they didn't have jimmy butler either
06:37those games are not these games so i i just don't i think what the warriors do so well
06:43is that they don't fight fire with fire how many years have we been going i even saw brian windhorse
06:49just do this today he was doing a thing where i guess he books hotel rooms at the beginning of the
06:57year for june based on the cities that he thinks are possible sites for the nba finals they asked him
07:05veteran yeah one he asked about san francisco and he said not then and still not quite yet
07:13and the first thing and the only thing he said was they're just too small and i went perfect where's
07:21leandro barbosa because it's the exact same thing that they said three years ago they've always been
07:27too small always been too small and what do they do do they go we better fight fire with fire but get
07:34some tall people right no they make you get small right steve martin let's get small let's do what
07:40you don't do well and let's battle you there i mean look uh you know who's really tall zach edie
07:47so they made him guard jimmy butler how'd it go yeah not great for zach i mean he was able to get i
07:55think 11 offensive rebounds on the other end and unfortunately for zach when he gets a rebound a lot
08:00of times he puts the ball down where everyone can swipe at it swipe or no swiping shout out dora the
08:05explorer but second reference that's what zach edie was doing and i'm just looking at the the reality of
08:12what has happened this year jk gets hurt and the warriors over the next 17 games they go 7 and 10
08:17then they acquire jimmy butler and jk is still out but now you have jimmy and you go 12 and 2 over the
08:25next 14 games with jk out jimmy in before that you had no jimmy and no jk obviously and you struggled
08:32and then when you've had jimmy and jonathan kaminga together you have still been as good as you were
08:39before jonathan kaminga even came back so you've won when you had jimmy butler the one common
08:44denominator in the winning is jimmy butler it's not jonathan kaminga um you're listening to 95 7 the game
08:50kgmz fm and hc1 san francisco and odyssey sports station always live on the free odyssey app and
08:55now coming to you live from the laughing monk studios magic johnson sent out a tweet today okay
09:00and said um it was a long lengthy one i don't want to read it all because his tweets are the funniest
09:06most but most boring things i've ever seen but anyway his point was oh there's going to be a lot
09:11of action in that series and it's going to be interesting because the rockets have all of this
09:17young athleticism but the warriors they've got some some veteran know-how um but at the end
09:27i think the warriors can do well provided that jonathan kaminga is the x factor yeah boy and i was
09:35like oh magic doesn't send his own tweets or he doesn't watch ball it's possible he sends his own
09:43tweets it's possible and it's possible that he sends his own tweets well i don't know how it's
09:47possible that he doesn't watch ball but i'm like it could be both i don't know how closely like when
09:51i read his tweets i read them maybe in his voice and so i think that he sends them but it just sounds
09:56to me like he sends them because you know it's it sounds like it's coming right from irvin magic
10:02johnson and it's a guy who's probably not watched a lot of warrior basketball and maybe he hasn't
10:07watched a lot of warrior basketball of late because if jonathan kaminga is the x factor then the
10:13warriors are getting swept because jonathan kaminga is probably not going to play that much
10:17um i will be glued to my tv during this year's playoffs and i'll be at every lakers versus
10:23timberwolves game watching three of the nba's most exciting players lebron james luka donchich
10:29and anthony edwards okay good i mean that that's a that's an accurate there we go you'll be there
10:37and they are really good players he said i'm scared for my lakers because the game's most exciting
10:42player superstar anthony edwards is a matchup problem okay i mean these are these are tweets that
10:48i don't i would not imagine that someone on his staff is sending these out i can't feel like
10:54they're straight from magic himself and you know if you're not watching warrior basketball
10:59or you're a casual or you're looking at it from the outside and you've not been paying attention
11:03then yeah jonathan kaminga would be an x factor because he's a really good young player and if
11:09you're not watching what's actually going on you probably think yeah they need kaminga to play well
11:15in order to be able to beat houston um he picked the pacers to win over the bucks four to two
11:21and then he tweeted again an hour ago i changed my mind boy i think yannis
11:28attend a combo will put the milwaukee bucks on his back and lead them to victory over the indiana
11:33pacers yeah and the news about dame makes that prediction i think more accurate because dame
11:39lillard will play coming off of the the blood clot situation and doctors are saying it's a
11:45lightweight miracle that he was able to get over this in just three weeks i mean we thought
11:50he was quote unquote out for the year i think this is still the year so yeah this is a that that's
11:56completely shocking um i still don't know how connected the bucks look but yeah anyway i don't
12:01want to go too far uh down that whole though that whole rabbit hole um look i know that everybody has
12:09had their commentary on this their emotions are in it they're they're and that's fine and and fair
12:16and i actually you know i would not make the same uh sort of proclamation with you that i did
12:22going into the game against the memphis grizzlies where i took the under on 30 seconds i do think
12:28he's probably going to get on the floor at some point in this series probably there are a bunch of
12:33different scenarios that could lead to that but one thing was clear after talking to steve yesterday
12:39it's not in the plans it's not the plan warrior basketball that's not the plan
12:46and and and so i just wonder if people are ready to accept that because what he's very very clearly
12:54saying is jimmy butler plays that position he's very good you all accept that they don't play well
13:04together so i'm going to play jimmy butler and i i i just don't know how we don't arrive at a spot
13:13where that that should make sense to everybody that should make sense i'm not saying you have
13:19to love it i think you have to accept it though you have to accept reality and they and they're
13:26winning right there we're here go back to the last time the warriors were in the playoffs and i know he
13:31was in his second year and i'm looking at it right here they played the lakers best of seven game one
13:37jonathan kaminga dnp game two he played nine minutes and 43 seconds and they won by 27 i believe
13:44all of that came in the fourth quarter when the game was already decided game three he played nine
13:49minutes and 11 seconds they lost by 30 that was again garbage time game four he did not play game
13:57five they won by 15 he got two and a half minutes game six they lost by 19 he got less than four minutes
14:02all of that was non-consequential we need a body playing time so i know he's a different player
14:09than he was two years ago but it shouldn't surprise us that jonathan kaminga is at a spot where he's not
14:15going to be in the playoff rotation yeah yeah so that that's kind of what i i have and this is you
14:22know look you're all welcome to call the show all the time that's what we do here you're all welcome
14:29to think whatever you want and feel whatever you want and express that and and and dibs has his
14:34positions and i have my positions i i would like i would like to not go too far deep into this
14:44once the playoffs start unless there is something new that happens i think that everything that was
14:51said yesterday was lengthy it was definitive it was clear this is where we are and and so it shouldn't
15:00surprise anybody anymore and i just i don't i don't think it's uh i don't think it's productive
15:06to be quite frank well it's not even a story anymore like jonathan kaminga is back-to-back games where he
15:12did not play they weren't both must wins but they were treated as such and the rotation was limited and
15:19he didn't play in either game and then steve you just played the sound and we heard the interview
15:23again and steve was pretty clear with the reasons and the approach now jonathan might play he could
15:30play but i don't think that it's very likely and i look at the clipper game and going in the matchup
15:37the way the clippers play i thought okay it makes some sense that jonathan kaminga wouldn't play in
15:42that game but then the memphis game and that's why i made the bet with you i thought that that was
15:46more of a kaminga friendly matchup with the up and down the frenetic pace which is what the game
15:51was the game was everything i thought it would be high scoring it wasn't over it was not close and
15:58then it was close and then it was not close and then it was close and he didn't play in that game
16:02either so if you take a slow game and he's not playing and then a really fast game and he's not
16:08playing then what are we doing you know what's the what's the debate point there is no debate that's
16:14what i that's what i i i took from yesterday this is not it's not matchup dependent the warrior
16:20basketball like you could make your little whatever like strength in numbers or uh what have we said
16:26we believe or uh warrior basketball right now we're not playing him yeah it's not a good slogan
16:32it's not it's it is it's true warriors basketball okay but not jk it's better than okay thank you
16:43thank you
16:48you
16:49you
16:50you
16:52you
16:54you
17:00you