Stephen Curry became the first player in NBA history to make 4,000 3-pointers in a career as the Golden State Warriors defeated the Sacramento Kings. Dave DuFour and Law Murray discuss the Milwaukee Bucks win over the Lakers, Law’s Power Rankings, and what separates the Cleveland Cavaliers and OKC Thunder from the pack. Then, the NBA Daily’s Zena Keita joins the show to react to Steph’s achievement, Jonathan Kuminga’s return, and to discuss the Warriors’ biggest weakness.Host: Dave DuFourWith: Law Murray & Zena KeitaExecutive Producer: Andrew SchlechtAudio Producer: Grayson MoodyLaw’s Power Rankings: https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6193408/2025/03/11/nba-power-rankings-nuggets-knicks-warriors-cavaliers/Subscribe to No Offseason: https://www.youtube.com/@No-Offseason Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Chapter 1: What did Steph Curry achieve in this episode?
Good morning and welcome to the NBA Daily. Coming up, Law Murray's here. We're going to talk a little bit about the Lakers losing to the Bucs. And we're going to hit the power rankings. I might even read some of the comments from the comments section. It's pretty hilarious. And then, Xena, she was live at Warriors Kings last night.
So I'm going to talk to her about Steph Curry joining the 4,000, wait, creating the 4,000 made three-pointers. Good morning, everybody. Good morning. Appreciate you hanging out. Filling in tonight on the desk duty. How's it going, buddy?
We're bi-coastal. That's how we were doing.
Live from Atlanta. Let's talk a little bit about the game last night. Lakers and Bucks. It was setting up to be a marquee matchup, but no LeBron James. And man, it shows. No LeBron, no Rui, no Jackson Hayes. I mean, the Lakers definitely, they were walking into, you know, you call it a loss now because of the injuries, but They didn't really stand a chance. I thought the Bucks looked great.
Chapter 2: How did the Lakers perform against the Bucks?
They had a very balanced attack. Lucas scores 45 points. Let's start with the Buck side of this, because I think the Lakers, you know, just higher up in your power rankings may come up. But for the Bucks, they've sort of righted the ship a little bit. Right. I think they've won. Was that nine out of their last 13 or 14? They're doing a little bit better. I still think.
The offense is uninspiring overall. Last night obviously looked pretty good. And then the transition defense is still an issue. You saw that at times against the Lakers last night. Law, what's your opinion on the Bucs? I know you've watched a lot of that team.
Well, this was their first win in a week. They had a really rough ending to Tuesday night in Indiana. So if you want to read about the Pacers, that's my first cheap plug of the show.
But I know Eric was talking to you guys about the fact that Milwaukee's defense has been ahead of the offense this year and there's nothing a mid-offense would like to see more than Luka Doncic feeling like he has to do too much on offense. I mean, this was like a
Chapter 3: What are Law Murray's Power Rankings?
throwback clippers mavericks game to be honest with you looking at luca absolutely empty the clip and then watching all of his other works be out there For all those who want to actually pay attention to that stuff. So yeah, you guys are going to look and be like, well, it's the highest scoring Luka game or a short scoring point game or whatever as a Laker. And I hit you.
I was like, oh, this dude is dropping 50. And he would have dropped 50 if this game was either more competitive or if they didn't have to go and catch a flight to Denver today. So the bottom line is, if you're Milwaukee,
luca uh is a guy that you target and i felt like there were guys that targeted him uh with success gary trent jr had a pretty good night anytime luca was on him um and i i just felt like the bucks if they can get that kind of a knife from their sporting cats that was the biggest thing this was a game that they needed to win especially given how they lost on national tv on the road against a potential first round opponent in indiana and i think the biggest thing that you will
I don't know if excitement is the right word, but I think you're happy anytime you get a game like that from Kevin Porter Jr., a guy who comes in, speaking of Clippers, a guy who comes in in only 17 minutes. Not only does he score 22 points, but every field goal he made was a three-pointer. This is a guy who he shot horribly to begin the year. He's had some very productive games for the Bucs.
Chapter 4: What weaknesses do the Warriors have after Steph's achievement?
Ich glaube, er ist komfortabel als Torwart. Und er hat den ganzen Lakers-Bench selbst ausgespielt. Das ist eine Art Performance, die ich nicht als nachhaltig nennen würde, aber du wirst es nehmen.
Yeah, I mean, he's gotten off to a pretty good start there. For the Lakers, you know, you mentioned their bench not giving them much. They just don't, they don't have, they're like short a playmaker or two. And obviously being short Jackson Hayes is huge for their defense. That's a crazy statement, but it's the truth. I know, but he's been, he's been fantastic.
It's actually one of the things that I think gets lost in the shuffle for this team is how good Jackson Hayes has been defensively this year. He's been an above average defensive center. Whatever JJ Redick has done, whether it's schematic or whether it's just coaching him up, I don't know, but he's been good. They've missed him quite a bit. But the big hole is LeBron, right?
They get LeBron back, you know, hopefully sometime next week. What's your prospects for this team? Let's just go ahead and roll into the power rankings. You have them in your top tier of the power rankings. By the way, guys, you can read the power rankings over at The Athletic. Follow Law on the app so you always get, you know, his stuff when it pops up. And this is...
in the the most recent power rankings you actually you graded them based on the the previous quarter of the season so that's roughly you know beginning mid january up until now so um the the lakers obviously they're a completely different team in that in that time frame and you have them in the in that top tier which i'm assuming is like your championship contender tier ranked fifth.
LeBron comes back. What do you need to see from them for the remainder of the season to bump up the power rankings before we get to the playoffs? Probably bubble wrap.
If we're being real. I think the Lakers, that third quarter was, they looked like The best team in the league almost. I say almost because I am not going to disrespect the Oklahoma City Thunder or Cleveland Cavaliers. Those teams played like the Lakers did in that third quarter from the jump. And they've maintained that success.
I have not seen two teams in opposite conferences play this well in probably the entire 2020s. okay so big shout out to those teams those are the teams we should be talking about all the time beginning of shows middle shows and the shows but i understand people are excited about the los angeles lakers and it's the defense for me the way that jj i'm very impressed with jj reddick and
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Chapter 5: How are the Cavaliers and Thunder standing out this season?
his ability not just to come up with schemes with his coaching staff, but to communicate them and have his players execute them on a consistent basis. You play well for a quarter of the season, that is significant. You can't be like, oh, this is a small sample size. Look, a small sample size was what the Dallas Mavericks did
von der frühen Mitte des Märzes, kurz nach der Verhandlung im letzten Jahr. Und sie haben das Momentum durch die normale Saison gespielt. Und dann haben wir gesehen, welches Playoff-Team sie waren. Die Lakers sollten als diese Version des letzten Jahres Mavericks gesehen werden. Besonders, weil sie diesen Jungen, Luca, haben. Das heißt, sie sind nicht das tiefste Team. Sie sind es nicht.
Sie sind tief, so weit es geht, dass du dich fragen kannst, um den Basketball zu handeln, um Spiele zu machen und ihre eigenen Schüsse zu machen. Aber Nach einiger Zeit ist es so, dass wenn du in Jackson Hayes verpasst wirst, wenn du einen Mann in Rury verpasst wirst, den du anrufen solltest, um größere Bord zu haben, um in diesem Bereich ein Winger zu sein.
Ich weiß nicht, wer sonst auf meinem Kopf verpasst wurde, aber... In addition to not having LeBron, whose effort defensively has been critical, that dude is able to do things athletically and he's still just... Physically a 1% guy, you know, he's able to, when you're missing that many guys and yeah, it's going to, it's going to leave a dent. It doesn't matter what your scheme is.
You can draw up some great stuff. You're not going to be able to execute it against the kind of talent that Milwaukee has. And again, I just felt like Milwaukee was locked in, even though they were giving up bucket after bucket to Luca. They realize it's a team game, five on five.
Luka nicht zu scoren, bedeutet, dass andere Jungs nicht so viele Möglichkeiten hatten, weil Luka zweimal so viele Turnouts und Assists hatte. Wenn Luka ein großes Assists-Spiel auf dem Topf des Scores hatte, würde das wirklich deine Defense schaden. Wenn die Lakers stoppen würden, würde das wirklich dich schaden, wenn ein anderer Typ 40 plus droht. Das ist nicht passiert.
Und das größte Ding, das du schauen musst, und das ist etwas, was die Lakers lernen müssen, während sie mit Luka und LeBron spielen, Lukas scoring a lot of points is not always a great thing. Because it frees his guys out. But also, there's going to be a lull. And it doesn't have to be when Lukas is on the bench. There's going to be a lull
Und du wirst sehen, dass wenn Lukas anstrengend wird oder ein bisschen wegfällt, dann bist du bei diesen Jungs. Ich habe es in den Playoffs gesehen. Ich wette, Patrick Dumont ist wahrscheinlich gerade an dieser Stelle, um herauszufinden, wie er in den guten Räumen zurückgeht. Also, du weißt, ich werde ihm kein weiteres Material geben und ich werde es direkt ausmachen.
Okay, all right. Well, let's talk about two of my favorite teams to talk about. The Cavs and the Thunder. Okay, I'd like to say we probably talk about them as much as anybody. And mostly just because we talk as much as anybody. But the Thunder in the last quarter, they moved into the top five in offense. I think that's a huge deal for this team.
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Chapter 6: What makes the Thunder's chemistry special?
Remember when the Bucks went through this evolution and they were never experimenting and then they had that season that they ultimately won the title where they really did try a lot of things out. And with the Thunder, they've been trying things out now for seasons. Same coaching staff, as you mentioned, same players, these guys have all been together.
And now they've added these extra pieces and they're just like, oh, okay, well, the blades on our Swiss Army knife are even sharper now. Well, let's see what we can do with them. I mean, there's a world in which we see them in a playoff series start Chet alone, start Hartenstein alone and start them together. They may realistically change lineups against one team three times in one series.
And I just don't think we've never really seen a team that has that kind of flexibility.
Yeah, and let's not lose track of the main idea with that team. Shea Gilles Alexander is that guy. If you don't have that guy as a centerpiece of what you do, it makes the coach's job easier, it makes those bigs job easier, it makes your bench and all those other guys who have to start around the all-stars, it makes their job easier. And Shea, everyone talks about what he doesn't do.
You know what he doesn't do, Dave? He doesn't turn the ball over. Das ist etwas, was ich wirklich hoffen muss, bevor dieses Monat vorbei ist. Wenn es um den Possession-Battel geht, wissen wir alle, dass die Thunder, ein großer Teil der Defense, den Ball von dir entfernt, aber sie geben den Ball nicht zurück. Das ist ein großer Vorteil.
Wenn wir über die Make-or-Miss-Liege sprechen, haben sie gute Schützer. Ich würde nicht sagen, dass sie groß sind, aber sie haben eine großartige Idee, wie man Possessionen kontrollieren kann. Und sie erinnern sich, Just letting Shego's Alexander finish the possession with some kind of shot. They do a really good job of that. They don't beat themselves.
And that's already, that's something that a lot of these teams are going to make the playoffs and they're going to have issues with that. You just watch how many games that Shego plays where he doesn't have a high turnover number. I think that's honestly the best part of anything they do offensively. What's your favorite thing about the Cavs this year?
Das Wichtigste bei den Cavs ist, dass all diese Züge ein Threat sind. Ich bin ein Fan von DeAndre Hunter. Ich meine, das war die perfekte Edition. Ja, wir sind in der gleichen Hochschule gegangen. Ich war bereits für ihn gebeten. Ich habe nicht viele Leute, die das sagen. Also Shoutout zu der französischen Schule. Aber dieser Wettbewerb war einfach ein Talent-Upgrade.
Sie sind nicht so tief, aber wenn man sich darüber nachdenkt, haben sie bereits eine sehr unikale Line-Up. This is a team that has two bigs, one who is just now comfortable shooting threes, but still, Evan Mobley hurts you more inside than outside. We see that. And they have two all-star level guards. And just because they're small guards...
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Chapter 7: How is Shea Gilgeous-Alexander impacting the Thunder?
Yeah, I went to French Central School. That's my response. There you go.
Shout out to that Quaker secondary education right there. Tough grader. All right, guys, stick around after the break. Zena's gonna join me after Warriors Kings to talk a little bit about Steph Curry and Jonathan Kuminga's return. You can't really say this is historic because, I mean, it is, but 4,003s doesn't necessarily mean anything. It's just an absurd number.
Our own Zena Keita was in the building to watch Steph Curry hit his 4,003. Zena, was it electric or was it just, hey, look, Steph just does this. This is just, he's on his way to 5, maybe 6,000.
Es war absolut elektrisch und ich wünschte, dass ich einen Weg finden konnte, in die Telefone jeder Medienmitgliedin oder wirklich jeder in der Gebäude, für die Anzahl von Clips von den fast. Oh, nein, nein, das wird nicht die drei sein. Nein, okay, sie, oh, Turnover, nein, okay. Ich meine, alle hatten ihre Telefone für so viele verschiedene Momente, um zu denken, okay, wird das der eine sein?
Wird das der eine sein? Bis zu dem Punkt, dass ich mein Telefon nicht für die echten drei hatte, aber ich konnte die stehende Ovation aufnehmen und das war surreal. Das fühlte man, man konnte die Liebe fühlen. Ich meine, literally, die stehende Ovation ging von diesem Spiel durch die nächste Position für die Könige, durch die nächste Position für die Krieger und dann sah man sogar die MVP Chance.
Also es war... It was pretty cool, just the love that was shown for Steph. And I do wish that they had timed the video differently.
Wait, they did a video in the arena? Oh, I didn't see that.
They did a video montage of after he, you know, had the three-point success. And then I think it was like a few possessions and a timeout. They played this video in which... Andres Biedrins, der derjenige war, der ihn an den ersten 3-Pointer unterstützt hat, war in der Videobeschreibung, um zu sagen, du kannst mich später bedanken. Und dann waren die Rest seiner Teamleute in der Videobeschreibung.
Aber es war während eines Time-Outs und die Warriors waren nur um 10. Also war es eine so sensiblen Part des Spiels.
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