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Why Kuminga didn't play in crucial Warriors vs. Clippers season finale originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area

SAN FRANCISCO — One hour had passed since the Warriors fell to the Los Angeles Clippers on Sunday, but the sound of shoe squeaks and basketballs echoing off the hardwood still could be heard.

Jonathan Kuminga, fresh off recording a DNP-Coach’s Decision, got up shots on the Chase Center floor while most of his teammates were long gone from the arena. It was Kuminga’s first DNP-CD since the 2023 Western Conference semifinals.

Will JK play a second Tuesday night? pic.twitter.com/agBDZxOEG9

— Bonta Hill (@BontaHill) April 13, 2025

A few hours prior, Warriors coach Steve Kerr approached Kuminga and informed him he wouldn’t be a part of the usual rotation in the first quarter, and that he would see how things went from there. Kerr didn’t tell Kuminga he wasn’t going to play because he wasn’t sure if that’d be the case.

Gary Payton II checked into the game when Kuminga normally would roughly halfway through the first quarter. He played 24 minutes and finished with two points, four rebounds, three assists and one steal.

Buddy Hield and Kevon Looney each played 16 minutes off the bench. Quinten Post played 10. The rest of the minutes were distributed to the starters, who averaged 39.4 minutes in the overtime loss. Jimmy Butler played 48 minutes.

“We’ve just found a group since Jimmy got here that we’re pretty comfortable with,” Kerr explained. “Gui [Santos] didn’t play either. Gui’s been our highest plus-minus guy over the last two months. Both he and JK have been really impactful players for us.

“And it doesn’t mean they’re out of the loop going forward, it’s just this is how this game played out.”

This comes just three days after Kerr went on record to disclose some concerns about Kuminga’s fit with the team since Jimmy Butler’s early February arrival.

“Every game is different and I think Jimmy’s arrival took away a lot of Jonathan’s minutes at the four,” Kerr said Thursday on 95.7 The Game. “There’s no doubt that as soon as Jimmy arrived and we started winning, we leaned into the lineup combinations that enhanced Jimmy because we were winning and Jonathan was out for that whole stretch.

“We went like 17 and 3 or something, so we’re going to keep doing what’s been winning. But the lineup with Jimmy, Jonathan and Draymond doesn’t fit real well, frankly. It just doesn’t. We need more spacing. We’ve found other lineups that have clicked, and this is just part of the deal, being in the NBA, and you’ve got to adapt to whatever’s happening with the team.

“Jonathan’s done a great job of that. He’s working hard. He’s playing well when he’s out there. But I’m just going with the line of combinations that I think are going to give us the best chance to win, and there’s going to be nights where he’s absolutely part of that like the Lakers game, and then there ‘s’s going to be nights where I go to Buddy [Hield] or Moses [Moody} or Gary Payton. It just changes every game based on what’s happening, and I have to read that as a coach.”

The new-look Warriors went 16-6 in the 22 games that Kuminga missed while nursing an ankle injury. When he returned, however, they went 11-4 prior to Sunday’s loss.

Seemingly, they’ve found ways to win both with and without Kuminga. The 22-year-old recorded a career-high 34 points off the bench in Golden State’s previous matchup with Los Angeles on Dec. 27. He also added 10 rebounds in that game, a department the Warriors could’ve used some help in Sunday.

Golden State was outrebounded by Los Angeles 42-25. And the challenge of crashing the glass will only get more difficult.

The Clippers are the 17th-best rebounding team in the league. The Memphis Grizzlies, who the Warriors host in the NBA play-in game Tuesday, are ranked second best.

Who’s first? The Houston Rockets, the team waiting to face the winner of the Warriors vs. Grizzlies game in a seven-game first-round playoff series.

Steph Curry anticipates that potentially being a factor in Kuminga potentially re-emerging into the rotation against Memphis.

“Yeah, I think whatever the game calls for,” Curry said. “Coach makes decisions, and you understand when a certain combination is out there, especially if it’s JK, he can make his presence felt in the paint. He’s had some games where he’s attacked the glass and made that a point of emphasis.

“And if he’s out there, that’s a great way for him to make his presence felt. But no matter what the combinations are, we got to be ready for whatever that one game kind of environment, everybody has to be ready, including him.”

Well, he’s definitely staying ready as he showed after the game Sunday.

Now it’s just a mental game the rest of the way.

“Just to be ready. It’s the test of a young player in this league, and especially with our team, you never know when you’re moment will be there, at the brightest and highest of moments,” Curry added. “So it wasn’t his time tonight, and you know, against Memphis, it could be a game where he makes his presence felt.

“So don’t let noise outside the locker room, the attention that might come from it, distract you from your ability to make an impact when your number is called. … You got to be able to be ready.”

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The Lakers sat in their locker room long after their loss to Portland on Sunday afternoon, their eyes glued to the television mounted on the wall.

They’d done what they could, put themselves in a position through 81 games to have given themselves the No. 3 seed in the West playoffs.

And on the 82^nd game, they rested.

The Lakers wrapped their regular season Sunday in Portland with not much more to do than sit and wait, and boy, did the Lakers sit and did they wait.

And as the Clippers pulled away in the final moments of their win against the Warriors in Golden State, they finally knew where their road to their championship goal would begin.

Read more:Plaschke: JJ Redick for Dan Hurley was the Lakers' trade of the year

In Minnesota.

“Better pack a coat,” Jordan Goodwin said.

On Sunday, LeBron James and Luka Doncic didn’t travel with the team to Portland. Austin Reaves, Rui Hachimura, Jaxson Hayes, Dorian Finney-Smith, Gabe Vincent and Jared Vanderbilt didn’t play. The rest of the roster fell to Portland 109-81, while the team waited for games around the NBA to determine who they’d play in the first round of the playoffs.

Postgame, they found it was the Timberwolves.

“It's a very difficult opponent," coach JJ Redick said. "They've played as well as anyone lately and believe they're one of four teams in the top 10 in offense and defense [rating]. So they present a lot of problems.”

The teams last met in the postseason during the 2004 Western Conference Finals.

For the Lakers, it’s uncharted territory in James’ tenure with the team, the Lakers entering the playoffs with Game 1 at Crypto.com Arena for the first time since the 2012 playoffs. It gave the team the luxury to prioritize rest and recovery for most of its lineup, with Goodwin being the only regular rotation player to play against the Trail Blazers.

Read more:LeBron James' health briefly a concern as Lakers beat Rockets to clinch No. 3 seed

Dalton Knecht led the Lakers with 27 points in the final regular-season game of his rookie season.

In addition to the rest, the time locked into their postseason slot gave the Lakers a chance to map out their playoff plans.

“We spent more time on it yesterday, finalizing it. And that's a conversation with players. That's a conversation with our coaching staff. That's a conversation with our performance staff. … We factored in all of those things,” Redick said pregame. “And it is about getting guys recovery, it is about getting guys rest, but it also is about conditioning and staying sharp and having enough exposure to live action. So there's physical days, there's mental days. When do you introduce your opponent? All of that stuff. So we've talked through that for the last four days now.”

The plan is for the Lakers to return to the practice court late Tuesday afternoon, with workouts scheduled for Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.

“It's not necessarily gonna be everything at once this week,” Redick said. “We'll have to slow drip, and I think that's the approach that I think is gonna work best for our group.”

The Lakers will enter the postseason without converting either Trey Jemison III or Christian Koloko to standard contracts, making the centers ineligible for the playoffs.

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

With Sunday's 113-105 win over the Brooklyn Nets, the Knicks' 2024-25 regular season is officially in the books. For the 15th time in franchise history, the Knicks finished with at least 50 wins, as Tom Thibodeau's unit finished the year at 51-31 -- one game better than last year's end result.

And while that regular season success has set the Knicks up well for the postseason, with the club owning the No. 3 seed in the Eastern Conference, they know their regular season record can be thrown away as they begin their pursuit of a championship with a First Round matchup against the Detroit Pistons.

"I just said that to our team. You win 51 games, you’re the third seed, so you’ve earned the right to be in the playoffs," Thibodeau said. "You’re not in the play-in, so you have a week to prepare and get ready for the next challenge, so it’s really a new season. The regular season puts you in position and gives you the opportunity. You want to finish with the highest seed possible, and then you start all over. Everyone’s record is 0-0, so you’ve got to earn everything again."

While the official schedule has not yet been released for the Knicks-Pistons series, Game 1 will tip off on either Saturday or Sunday at Madison Square Garden. The Knicks have time to prepare, but they know they're facing a strong opponent.

"We’re ready to go…. Got time to get right and get ready, but we’re for sure ready," said Mikal Bridges, who played just six seconds of game time on Sunday to extend his consecutive games played streak to 556 regular season games.

"We’ve definitely grown so much from the beginning. We learned a lot about each other and are learning more about each other. I think we’re in the right spot, we’ve just got to go out there and play hard and play our way."

The Pistons have proven to pose a challenge to the Knicks. In four matchups this season, the Knicks won just once, though it was a 30-point blowout win back in November. The Pistons have emerged victorious in each of the three most recent meetings, including a 115-106 win just three days ago.

"They’ve had a fantastic season," Thibodeau said. "We just played them recently so I think we have a feel for what their strengths are. But we have to dig a lot deeper into them to know them really well. We have a respect for them, but we understand that it’s going to take 48 minutes of good basketball to win."

Detroit star Cade Cunningham scored 36 points in that April 10 game, and averaged 30.8 points against the Knicks in those four matchups.

The Knicks know full-well that they'll have their hands full with one of the NBA's emerging stars.

"He’s had a terrific season," Thibodeau added on Cunningham. "It’s not just us, he’s done it against everybody, so we understand that. Every game that you have, a team is going to have certain strengths, and you have to have the proper amount of respect. I think with great players, you don’t guard them individually, you guard them collectively. So we have to understand what goes into that."

"Great player, obviously size, shooting ability," said Miles McBride. "He’s a three-level scorer so we’ve just got to do our best to stop him as a team… whatever we can do as a team to slow him down. We’ve got to bring our best."

Warriors' postseason will be short unless they fix two key issues originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area

Programming Note: Tune into “Warriors Pregame Live” at 6 p.m. PT on Tuesday on NBC Sports Bay Area before the Warriors and Grizzlies tip-off. Immediately after the final buzzer, tune back in for “Warriors Postgame Live.”

SAN FRANCISCO – There are a dozen ways to dissect the 53 glorious minutes of basketball submitted by the Warriors and Los Angeles Clippers on Sunday, and interested observers can engage in debate until Tuesday when Golden State tips off against the Memphis Grizzlies.

In the aftermath of a 124-119 overtime loss to Los Angeles, there was Draymond Green saying he “smoked” a layup that would have tied the game with 26.5 seconds left in OT. That’s not why the Warriors walked out of Chase Center without a guaranteed NBA playoff berth and into the play-in tournament.

Nor should much of the blame go to Buddy Hield for missing a potential game-tying 3-point shot with 5.3 seconds remaining in OT. And, no, it’s too simple to blame coach Steve Kerr for drawing up a play for Hield; there was no way Clippers coach Ty Lue was going allow Stephen Curry an inch of space to even see the rim.

These issues didn’t help the Warriors, but they are not what tilted the game toward the Clippers.

This loss came organically. It was about the Warriors, collectively, being dominated on the glass, finishing minus-17 in rebounding, and too often getting outhustled or outmuscled in the pursuit of loose balls.

“That was the part of the game – the only part of the game – that really that bothered me a little bit,” coach Steve Kerr said.

“It’s tough to win,” Green said, referring to the rebounding deficit. “We also didn’t get a lot of loose balls. Rebounding is one thing, but then some of these loose balls that are just bouncing we’re not getting, the long rebounds, they’re loose and we’re not getting them. We’ve got to be better at getting those balls.”

The Warriors have two days to digest and review their work. And they surely must know a similar effort on Tuesday might result in another loss and rob them of a second chance at a few days of rest before the actual playoffs.

What’s the fix?

“Maybe contest some shots a little bit better,” Jimmy Butler III said.  “Oh, [and] get to loose balls. There you go. The loose balls. And rebound. I think my sorry ass had one rebound. So, if I rebound a lot more, the game might be different.”

Butler’s self-assessment, one rebound (in 48 minutes) was accurate. Among his fellow starters, Curry had three, Green had two and Moses Moody none. The fifth starter, Brandin Podziemski, pulled a team-high seven. Gary Payton II, playing 25 minutes off the bench, was next with four.

Los Angeles big man Ivica Zubac finished with 17 rebounds. James Harden had seven, Kawhi Leonard six. Yes, those three Clippers outrebounded the entire Warriors roster. And LA is the NBA’s 17th-ranked rebounding team.

The Grizzlies are No. 2 in rebounding, behind only the Houston Rockets, who would be Golden State’s next opponent should they beat Memphis. The Warriors finished the season ranked seventh in rebounds per game – but were only 14th after the NBA All-Star break.

Even as the Warriors were the league’s top-rated defense during that span, rebounding has been their weakest element. This likely is a side effect of such heavy reliance on small lineups featuring Green (6-foot-6), Butler (6-foot-7) and Moody (6-foot-5) in the front court.

If you’re going to lose the rebounding battle, it’s a must to offset it by forcing turnovers and grabbing loose balls. By playing with extreme urgency.

“A couple times ball was on the floor, we tried to bounce it instead of [grabbing it],” Kerr said. “And then it’s a great lesson. We’ll show those clips and remind the guys that the ball is gold. The ball is everything. And so, we’ve got to do everything possible to secure the loose balls.

Between Sunday night and Tuesday evening, Curry said, there will “a lot” of focus on the hustle plays and rebounding.

“But it’s not just technique,” Curry said. “It’s just mentality. Like it’s just go get it, and everybody has that chip on their shoulder. Because when we do get rebounds, you see us flying in transition. Anybody who grabs a rebound and [throws an] outlet pass, we have confidence that everybody can run, and we got spacing. That’s usually our best offense.

“So even with Memphis, they’re a bigger team, but you can kind of get them in transition if you can secure rebounds and those 50-50 balls. That’ll probably be a good test or a marker if we can win that game.”

The Warriors shot well on Sunday, 54.4 percent from the field, including 45.5 percent beyond the arc. They shot five more free throws and made four more. They recorded 31 assists. They were plus-3 in points off turnovers.

They were minus-8 in second-chance points, as LA grabbed nine offensive rebounds.

The Warriors are 14-18 when outrebounded this season. They were outrebounded in four of their final six regular-season games. If this is a trend, and it continues, their postseason will be shorter than they could imagine.

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