The Golden State Warriors have no answer for Ja Morant

Ryan and Matt get excited talking about the Golden State Warriors and how they will contain Ja Morant during the rest of the series

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Matt Bassin: So going back to San Francisco, the Golden State Warriors have to figure out stuff defensively, but they also got to figure out stuff offensively. This team did not shoot well in Game Two, they got off to a terrible start where you let Ja Morant and the Memphis Grizzlies score the first, what? Eight, nine points of the game. And now you’re playing catch up. They have got to get back to playing Warriors basketball, which is moving the ball around and getting nice open looks, and knocking down those looks. And, I think I think some home cooking is going to definitely help that situation for the Warriors. 

Ryan Griffin: I sort of think it helped in Game Two. I thought the foul on Draymond Green when it was a one-point game after I think Ja, it was a missed free throw or a missed regular shot, but Draymond got it, it seemed like the Warriors were able to run, and then they called Draymond for basically a push foul on a rebound that I’ve seen in every NBA game that I’ve ever watched, where it’s just a bunch of guys going for the ball.

Honestly. I’m surprised Golden State didn’t challenge it because even after the replay, I was like, yeah, that’s not a foul, he didn’t even push him. Do you know what I mean? Where you can see If everybody’s in there and you can be like somebody had to put somebody. It didn’t even seem like that happened.

So I thought the Warriors got the short end of that stick, but they were up four, with maybe four minutes remaining or something, and it even felt like a game they were going to win after overcoming a slow start. And then Memphis was able to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat there at the end.

So for a Game Three, I think you’d have to expect another great game like that. And I’m glad if all these games can come down to the wire, but you’re really going to see what kind of adjustments they can make. We already talked about it, but just because we talked about it doesn’t mean it’s answered:  who are they going to put on Ja Morant?

Because now again, like Gary Peyton’s not there. What’s going to be your defensive strategy, even when they were trying to foul them at the end, he basically crossed up Andrew Wiggins, just trying to play keep away at the very end, which is something that I’ve really never seen anybody do before.

And then what’s going to happen on the Memphis side. When Klay Thompson or Steph Curry start hitting their shots because there’s really no defense for that. You can say they’re playing good defense. Now I think Klay just missed a bunch of shots that he normally makes.

Yeah. So you’re going to say they did a good defensive job on him. He was like 4-13, or 4-19 even, like something terrible. But I didn’t think he had, I didn’t think he was out there taking bad shots and necessarily, so when those shots start to fall, maybe when some of the calls start to go their way, because I do think Memphis got a favorable whistle, not just in Game Two but Game One as well, which they ended up losing how is that going to affect what happens in Game Three?