Explain: The new way Jonathan Kuminga is defended and 7 ways the Warriors are fighting back

Explain: The new way Jonathan Kuminga is defended and 7 ways the Warriors are fighting back

by @EricApricot

The number one question I get nowadays is, “What is going on with Jonathan Kuminga? Why isn’t he as dominant as he was in January?”

The reason is teams are starting to treat him as a number one option, and they have special defenses prepared. Sometimes there’s double teams, but the main scheme is to put a goaltender behind the initial defender and to also put a defender be a wall to stop Kuminga from driving into the middle of the paint.

The Warriors are trying different concepts to try to punish this goalie-wall defense, and we look at 7 ideas to counter the new defense. And I think some of these ideas are going to work, but it just takes time for the team to get organized around it and confident around it.

Co-starring Steph Curry, Draymond Green, Moses Moody, Lester Quinones, Andrew Wiggins, Klay Thompson. With Anthony Davis, Jordan Poole, D’Angelo Russell, Nikola Jokic, Aaron Gordon and Jamal Murray.

Includes video analysis of plays from 2024-01-24-ATL, 2024-01-25-SAC, 2024-02-22-LAL, 2024-02-23-CHA, 2024-02-26-DEN, 2024-02-27-WAS, games between the Golden State Warriors and Atlanta Hawks, Sacramento Kings, Los Angeles Lakers, Charlotte Hornets, Denver Nuggets and Washington Wizards.

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Hello everybody the number one question I get nowadays is what is going on with Jonathan kaminga why isn’t he as dominant as he was in January and the reason is teams are starting to treat him as a number one option and they have special defenses prepared so let’s talk

About what they are and how kaminga and the Warriors are trying to counter this new defense back in the good old days teams would guard him honestly one-on-one here JK is backing down defender in the post none of these guys are leaving their man even Clint capella here he’d be justified and leaving

Draymond Green alone and helping but he says Nah this is just kaminga we don’t have to worry about him there’s all the space in the paint for kaminga to operate so back then team said go ahead prove you can score on us in isolation and all these guys are just going to let

This Defender take kaminga on oneon-one and up until until January 2024 kaminga could not make them pay but now he started to put it all together and has become a real Menace on ball in the post so the most obvious thing to try is send

A second man to defend so here we have a double team coming from the top teams have been having some success with the second man just trying to attack kinga’s dribble but here JK holds on to it realizing that he’s drawn two Defenders knows someone is open and he turns

Around and dishes it to Draymond who for some really weird reason is automatic for his first three of the game it turns out kaminga is not bad at all at passing out of the double teams here’s another example kaminga is backing down Roy haimura double team from the top and

Look it should be an easy pass to Draymond who haimura is leaving alone right well Anthony Davis knows that’s where this pass is going so he tries to bait kaminga into throwing this pass and the second he sees kaminga get up in the air he starts running to intercept this

Pass to Draymond JK reacts really well he sees that Anthony Davis is cutting over to intercept and in midair he switches from passing to Draymond to passing to psky who’s the man that Anthony Davis is supposed to be guarding really nice adjustment and psky is capable of hitting these threes I’m

Actually not worried about JK being double teamed he’s making pretty good reads in general a more serious issue is that other defense that teams are trying kaminga is in the post he’s got a primary Defender if kaminga gets past this Defender Anthony Davis is just sitting here in the lane waiting to play

Goalie so you might think maybe JK can spin into the lane instead well haimura is coming in so it’s actually a three-man defense there’s a primary Defender there’s a goalie and then there’s someone to wall off the middle here jk just tries to bully through the scene anyway and Anthony Davis says

Welcome to my world cabang other teams are going to play this defense until kaminga and the Warriors prove they can punish it kaminga posting up number zero guarding him the center Nick Richards playing goalie behind meic to try to discourage kaminga going middle Dron wanders away from Richards

And pmk’s opinion is that kaminga should pass to the open Draymond but kaminga says ah whatever I can just shoot over the top of this so I don’t know if I love that option it’s kind kind of an inefficient shot to take a fade away jumper over a contest and JK can have

That shot at any time of the game so here’s the nuggets with their goalie wall defense defender on ball yage is the goalie in the paint Aaron Gordon is the wall to keep kaminga out of the middle you should be able to punish the fact this wall man is playing out of

Position the wall Gordon should be guarding Andrew Wiggins so kaminga says all right we’ll just let Wiggins take an open three and Wigan says thank you very much here’s one idea I really like we have JK posting up we’ve got a goldendoll of the middle wall the

Warriors go straight into a split cut which means that Mr wall over here has to be involved this is a very solid screen from Chris Paul clay giving a helpful nudge to his Defender Jordan pool clay Springs free Andre shamut should switch out to cover clay I don’t

Know whether he’s thinking that P might fight around the screen someday or whether he’s concerned about being the wall in the goalie wall defense but for whatever reason somehow shamet is just here paralyzed with indecision and Jordan pool is still super glued to Chris Paul’s hip so finally Chris Paul

Yells like hey man pass it and JK sees clay and says oh my bad here you go I think this can be reproduced anytime you see a goalie wall defense like this why not put this wall Defender into a split cut and either they have to defend it

Properly and that’ll let JK go middle or they’ll defend the split cut poorly and there’ll be someone open for a three more goalie wall defense in theory you could also punish the goalie this is Brandon Miller and he’s supposed to be guarding clay and now Clay is completely

Free in this corner so how can the Warriors punish this it’s not as easy as it looks in fact you have two different theories on the team one is gp2 says that he draymond’s open you should pass out of the double team that way but Steph Steph is pointing at the open clay

And JK knows that it’s usually the right idea to obey Steph so he’s going to throw this skip pass all the way over to the top unfortunately for him Brandon Miller is really alert and he makes this very nice play to intercept that skip pass and you can see JK’s disappointment

But it’s not a bad idea it just was a hard pass I think there should be a way to punish this guy with the skip pass but maybe JK has to spin and try to attack and force this Defender to come to him and then throw the skip pass

Here’s an example of Denver playing Andrew Wiggins with the same goalie wall defense Aaron Gordon is directing traffic saying Jamal Murray you have to come over here and be the goalie and then we’ll have a Defender sink down and be the wall the Wall’s a little too slow

And so Wiggins goes right through the middle do goalie left Brandon pamy once he sees the numbers on his defender back he immediately Cuts Baseline Jamal morray lost him completely where’s my guy psky with nice Cut nice pass nice finish you can see the Warriors trying a

Similar punish with JK in the post so now Murray’s the wall yic the goalie and so Draymond sees the numbers on jokic’s back and just cut Baseline unfortunately this pass is a little bit off and I’m not even sure that a good pass would have gotten through maybe yic would have

Intercepted anything closer JK might have to do what Wiggins did the previous play and drive to force yic to come help and that’ll give him a better angle for a little bounce pass to Draymond I don’t think it works to just pass it directly to Draymond through yic the last way

That I’ve seen the Warriors try to attack the goalie wall defense is just by having JK take the ball full court and just go really fast then they can’t even set up the goal wall defense in time here yic actually runs into Michael Porter Jr so they’re still getting

Organized yic is getting into the paint but Michael Porter Jr is not serving as any kind of wall and Aaron Gordon is giving way too much space to JK JK just hits the seam three guys paying attention to him Clay is just sitting here mining his own business that’s a

Pretty good pass from kaminga this is a pretty open shot for clay JK goes full court fast and Caldwell Pope has to pick him up kaminga gets the ball right back in order to post her properly and now Gordon is a goalie yic is not really in

Position to be the wall it’s too late kaminga gets into the paint and he’s starting to get pretty good at these little short jumpers in the paint this isn’t full court but kaminga gets the ball after a nice offensive rebound by Moody who is this guy and where has he

Been Lakers try to go into the goalie wall defense one Defender guarding JK Anthony Davis is going going to sit in the paint and wait for JK D’Angelo Russell probably needs to come up here and be the wall to keep kaminga from going middle but Russell is too far off

Kaminga goes right around his Defender Anthony Davis is here but I think he makes a business decision here so in conclusion the league has introduced a new defense on Jonathan kaminga sometimes there’s double teams but the main scheme is to put a goal tender behind the initial Defender and to also

Put a Defender to be a wall to stop kaminga from driving into the middle of the paint the Warriors are trying different concepts to try to punish this goalie wall defense and I think some of these ideas are going to work but it just takes time for the team to get

Organized and confident around it I can’t help talking about one more play this play is shaping up to be kma throwing a big dunk over pmy but Moses Moody with the super hustle coming from behind and nice tap away and then just as the ball’s going out of bounds Moody

Goes flying after it and then with the onehanded behind the back blind fling of the ball back towards the enemy side it goes very nicely to Draymond calculated Draymond sees Steph is running right with him he leads him with the pass Kinga is smells blood in the water Steph

With the elegant one motion alyu pass let’s go straight into a celebration audit Jerome Robinson doing the I’m petrified with fear that was such a ferocious development Trace Jackson Davis doing his patented raise the roof celebration but we have to go back and check leester kinona his jump so Lester

Coils up to jump and as the ball goes through he is still well in the air so there’s two schools of thought when it comes to sympathetic air dunking the first School says that you should time your jump so that you land right at the moment that the dunk happens so that

Adds extra violence and noise and it feels really good but that is clearly not what kinas is doing so he’s in the second school which says you should jump so that you land at the same time as the dunker and so let’s see if Lester succeeded in doing this and Lester has

Now landed and JK has just landed as well really nice were timing that up I’m betting JK felt that extra resonance with your air dunking good work Lester