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00:00While we're sitting here talking warrior basketball, here's something I wanted to do to sort of
00:04extend the conversation we were having yesterday with regard to quote, too much optimism, which
00:10I say tongue in cheek because there's nothing wrong with optimism, obviously.
00:15But a warrior fan, I think, is walking around a foot above the ground right now feeling
00:19like they got a bulletproof vest on.
00:21And so here's my question.
00:24As you still try to hang on, hanging around, hang on to that six seed or go higher, obviously
00:31Timberwolves at Denver tonight, warriors of vested interest for sure.
00:36But provided that you are able to hang on to that six seed, well, what are you going
00:42to get in round one?
00:43I want to know how far your confidence goes right now, because here's what I hear everybody
00:49say.
00:50Hey, yes, I think the warriors can make a run.
00:55OK, let's put a name on it.
00:59Against whom are you confident?
01:02In other words, Golden State Warriors fans, are you so confident you'll take them in a
01:10series against the Lakers?
01:12Will you take them in a series against the Nuggets?
01:16And will you take them in a series against the Oklahoma City Thunder?
01:21Are we that level of confident?
01:23Not yet.
01:24OK.
01:25But we're getting there.
01:26And right now, and you go to NBA.com and you click on standings, right now what pops up
01:30is not the standings, but what pops up is the current bracket.
01:35If the playoffs started today, and I think they're playing off the March Madness vibe
01:39of brackets and all the conference tournaments are almost all underway and some are done
01:44already.
01:45We're getting into bracket mode.
01:47And so you go to NBA.com and the bracket right now is the number three seed Lakers against
01:52the number six seed Warriors.
01:54So that, I think, becomes the real question.
01:58Right now, and you can text your OddsMaker friend, John Avello, who is so awesome.
02:03If they had a series, Lakers v. Warriors, first round, three versus six.
02:08I'll fire him a text.
02:09Who would be favored?
02:10I bet you it would be Lakers by a tiny, tiny bit.
02:14But to your point about confidence, if it was Rockets against Warriors in a 4-5 or a
02:213-6, the Warriors would be favored.
02:23If it was Grizzlies 4-5 or 3-6 against the Warriors, I do think the Warriors would be
02:28favored.
02:29I agree.
02:30We can ask the expert.
02:31I think they'd be a dog against the three teams I brought up.
02:34I agree.
02:35No doubt.
02:36And who cares if you're a dog?
02:38That's Vegas.
02:39I get it.
02:40I would rather sort of hear from a lot of you out there.
02:44We want to dip our toe into the water of like, how far is your confidence going?
02:48I threw this out to all of us this morning, and Lucas responded right away, they can beat
02:53anybody.
02:54They can beat anybody.
02:55Yep.
02:56Okay.
02:57Well, they can.
02:58They can.
02:59Yep.
03:00Let me say it.
03:01Do it.
03:02They're allowed to.
03:03It's my favorite.
03:04Okay.
03:05And I'm not here to tell you that I don't think they would.
03:06At this moment, this whole like, Warriors make a run, as we sit here in this moment,
03:14they firmly remain an underdog to even get out of the first round.
03:18They firmly remain an underdog to get out of the first round.
03:22Not firmly.
03:23I mean.
03:25I would say Sacramento, Dallas, and the rest of the Plains, they're firmly.
03:30It's less than a 50-50 proposition is what I'm saying.
03:33Yeah.
03:34They're a dog.
03:35Whether it's a slight dog.
03:36They're a dog.
03:37Sure.
03:38Some dogs are small.
03:39You got a Chihuahua.
03:40You got a Great Dane.
03:41Yeah.
03:42Somewhere in there.
03:43But they're a dog.
03:44They'd be a St. Bernard against Memphis or Houston, which they'd be one of the big old
03:47dogs.
03:48For sure.
03:49Yeah.
03:50For sure.
03:51I mean.
03:52Them dogs.
03:53They'd be one of the big old dogs.
03:54Absolutely.
03:55And I'm with you, but as far as like the Warrior fan mentality, right now, after Jimmy and
03:57after the run, and GP2 is going for 20-plus, a career high, and Buddy's going for 20, and
04:03now you have a little bit of a rest and all the other things that we're thinking about,
04:08I do think that the Warrior mentality is kind of what I said to you last week of like anything
04:13short of, you know, eight playoff wins would kind of be a bummer.
04:17Yeah.
04:18Well, we say that now without knowing the scenario.
04:20Of course.
04:21Who they're going to face.
04:22Exactly.
04:23Like, I want to know who they're going to play.
04:24I'm totally with you.
04:25If they do end up playing Memphis or Houston, yeah, I'd be disappointed if they didn't come
04:28out of that series.
04:29Completely.
04:30And we're getting ahead of ourselves.
04:32They don't even have a playoff.
04:34They're very far from locking up anything at this point.
04:37Definitely far from okay.
04:38Yeah.
04:39Right?
04:40I mean, I have a very, very difficult time believing that they're not going to at least
04:44be the seven.
04:45Clippers lost to New Orleans again last night.
04:47They're playing without Kawhi tonight.
04:49And they're dogs.
04:50Like, yeah, the Warriors, I think, are going to be the six or the seven, but what does
04:55that get you?
04:56You know?
04:57What does that get you?
04:58And so, if you think that the Warriors are going to, quote, go on a run, let's look at
05:04it through a different lens.
05:05Are you saying that you believe that the Warriors will beat the Lakers and the Nuggets in round
05:12one?
05:13That's where we sit today.
05:14And the Rockets play again tonight, and they're favored.
05:18They're favored.
05:19They are still a solid three games ahead.
05:21Might be three and a half by the time we go to bed tonight.
05:24The guys asked Steph about this.
05:27The other good teams around the league and how the Warriors currently measure up.
05:32There are some really good teams out there.
05:34You can look at Boston, Cleveland, OKC, Denver, their records teams that have, three of those
05:39teams who have won it before.
05:40So you think about the experience.
05:43But for us, we have that experience on our side.
05:45We have a good balance of veteran presence, youthful energy.
05:50I think the fact that since the trade, our roles have been clearly defined, our rotation
05:56is pretty consistent from a night-to-night perspective.
06:00It might get a little tight as you get closer to playoffs, but having your nine, ten guys
06:04that you know are going to play, the bulk of the minutes, who's going to be out there
06:07on the floor, that clarity has given us a lot of confidence.
06:10But at the end of the day, me, Draymond, Jimmy, we've all been around.
06:14We know what it's like to be in a playoff series, to have to figure out that specific
06:18opponent and how to beat them four times.
06:20And like I said, if you get us in that scenario, we like our chances.
06:23Yeah, I do too.
06:25And if you want to put that definition on the other Western Conference teams, it really
06:30like, Houston's the only team that's going to get in there and you're like, like wide-eyed
06:35pups.
06:36Like, Shen Goon's got no idea what, Jalen Green's got no idea what the hell's going
06:40on in these playoff series.
06:43But that doesn't apply to anyone else.
06:45I know that the Warriors quote, know how to be champions.
06:48So do the Nuggets, so do the Lakers.
06:50The Thunder don't, but they're so good.
06:53And they've been in the playoffs for sure.
06:55They've been in battles.
06:56So maybe there's a little experience lacking there, but Memphis playoff series, playoff
07:01battle tested, Minnesota playoff battle tested Clippers.
07:05Those players have all been through the wars.
07:07So I wonder, you know, this advantage that Steph Clay or Steph Clay, Steph, Dre and, and
07:13Jimmy have, I don't, I don't know how pronounced it is over some of these other teams who've
07:18done it also.
07:20They have, but I mean, you've got two guys who are four time champs and you've got Jimmy
07:24Butler who, and I, we always say single-handedly, well, you play five and five.
07:29So it's not like that, but Jimmy Butler's played 119 games in the playoffs, which is
07:35not a small amount.
07:36And he did a lot in Chicago, Minnesota, Philadelphia, they went deep and then Miami was to the finals
07:42twice.
07:43So I was just doing the math between the big three and they've played more than 430 playoff
07:48games and not together, but in totality.
07:51And I wonder how that stacks up against, like, for example, LA, and I do think that
07:56LeBron is the all-time leader in playoff games.
07:58How could he not be?
07:59I mean, he went to the finals like 35 straight times.
08:02And so he, he has that.
08:04And you know, you look at the Clippers, you mentioned, they've got a lot of deep playoff
08:08experience with James Harden and Kawhi and whatnot.
08:11And so they don't have that advantage, a big advantage over everyone.
08:15But you mentioned Houston and the pups and I love Shen Goon and Jalen Green.
08:19And even OKC, they've done it.
08:25They've been there, but they haven't really done it.
08:28Capital I, capital T, they haven't been to the finals.
08:31And so that is a little bit of a different animal.
08:34So I look at Memphis and, you know, John Morant, fine.
08:38He's been in the playoffs a few times, but I don't think that he's that much of a reliable
08:42like, Hey guys, gather round.
08:45I mean, John, John, Jaron and Desmond Bain, like they've, they've given the Warriors actual
08:52problems themselves in playoff series.
08:54So I wouldn't favor them.
08:56That's not what I'm saying, but there's going to be a lot of battle tested in this whole
09:00thing.
09:01So let's put it this way.
09:04I am dripping with optimism.
09:09I still am very curious to see different levels of the schedule and I'm not going to do the
09:15schedule thing.
09:16You'll never, ever hear me.
09:18When someone goes 12 and one, you'll never hear me go.
09:21Yeah.
09:22But who have they played?
09:23They played 13 NBA teams.
09:25Do they all have professionally paid basketball players on the mark?
09:28They all have salaries, direct deposit.
09:30My understanding.
09:31All right.
09:32And some of them, by the way, some of them in a stretch that I'll grant you has some
09:39nights where you definitely should have won.
09:41But let's not forget.
09:43I don't care that cat was out or whatever.
09:45You went into New York and you won.
09:48You took on the Detroit Pistons after a long road trip.
09:51You won.
09:52You went into Houston and you won.
09:55You went into Milwaukee and you won.
09:59So there have been plenty of battles on this list since Jimmy Butler has arrived.
10:05That said, boy, I tell you what, this time next week, literally this day next week, I
10:14am fascinated to get to that day where when we get to this show next week on this day,
10:21we will be processing three games in the last four nights with the Knicks, the Nuggets and
10:28the Bucs in Sacramento tomorrow.
10:31Right.
10:32But I'm like, yeah, sure.
10:33But Sacramento at home on two nights rest, I would expect the Warriors to win that basketball
10:39game tomorrow night.
10:40Right.
10:41I mean, my question for you is if we come back in a week and they go two and two over
10:45that stretch or if they go three and one or if they go for no one and three or four.
10:52Like I do believe that all of those different markers would have us feeling different ways
10:56about the next four.
10:57Maybe.
10:58Sure.
10:59But I like as I always say, when you when we put out those kinds of hypotheticals, I
11:02want to know the story of how they got there and how they did it.
11:04I don't think when you say like, what if they go two and two, that doesn't automatically
11:08like bring up some sort of concern in me.
11:11To me, that's the par two and two for me, two and two.
11:15If you go two and two, that would be you making par a bad par.
11:20It's like I had an eight foot birdie putt.
11:22Missed it.
11:23Yeah.
11:24By two feet.
11:25Oh, yeah.
11:26I mean, like I made a second shot from the fairway in the bunker and you had to like
11:30chunk it out to 12 feet.
11:31Like I don't think going again, let's be real.
11:35You are.
11:36I think you're at minimum going to be favored in three of the games.
11:39No doubt.
11:40All right.
11:41Yeah.
11:42I mean, two and one.
11:43Okay.
11:44I mean, that that to me is tough because up and down out of the bunker, but it's a birdie.
11:47It's not a birdie Milwaukee on the second half of a back to back.
11:51You might be favored by two, two and a half.
11:54I'm going to say higher.
11:55Okay.
11:56Milwaukee is not.
11:57Oh, I don't know.
11:58There's some missing something.
11:59I don't know.
12:00What is that team?
12:01Yeah.
12:02They're missing something.
12:03It's fair.
12:04And New York won't have Brunson.
12:05So you should be favored heavily there.
12:06But I mean, the Denver game is tough and then you do have Milwaukee on the second half.
12:11So I think the two and two, if you went two and two, you're right.
12:14It would be a little bit of a disappointing par.
12:17Like you drove it three 30 and you had a buck 30 in from the middle of the fairway, middle
12:21of the fairway.
12:22And I missed the green and I got up and down.
12:24I mean, like that, right?
12:26Night power.
12:27Give me a four.