Game Thread 2022-23 Game #35 - BLAZERS @ WARRIORS - DECEMBER 30, 2022 - FRIDAY - 7:00 PM (PDT) ROOT

He's questionable. Sounds like it's his calf and also he is sick.

 

Dame needs to go for 80 tonight.

 

Going to take a miracle.

 

Pregame quotes:


WARRIORS HEAD COACH STEVE KERR


ON GARY PAYTON II RECEIVING HIS CHAMPIONSHIP RING TONIGHT:

“Yeah, It'll be a great moment. I think Gary was one of the big stories from last year's team. To go from a guy who bounced around the league to we release him at the end of training camp, fingers crossed, hoping he clears waivers and then becomes such a key guy for us. We don't win the championship without him, I know that. Thrilled to see Gary tonight we've kept in touch a little bit and I've always got a soft spot for him for what he's overcome to achieve in his career. So it will be great to see him tonight and I know our crowd will give him a huge ovation. He was such a fan favorite for us.”


ON WHY GARY PAYTON II WAS SUCH A FAN FAVORITE IN JUST ONE SEASON:

“Well, he's a really exciting player. He's so good defensively on the ball and I think that the crowd really appreciated his defense, but he's a unique player too. Kind of plays as a finisher around the rim in a guard's body and that's really rare. I think it just was a great fit for us last year. Given that we had perimeter shooting bigs with Otto (Porter Jr.) and Belli (Nemanja Bjelica) and we could play Gary with a lot of lineups and kind of invert our offense and I think the fans really enjoyed just watching him score inside and become such a disruptive defender and just change games so dramatically upon entrance.”


ON THE STATUS OF JAMES WISEMAN:

“He was playing three-on-three this morning with a few of our guys and just rolled his (left) ankle. It’s just unfortunate, but this is fairly common for the guys who get limited minutes to get extra work in the morning after shootaround. He just rolled it. It doesn't seem too serious, but he’ll miss tonight’s game.”


ON THE STATUS OF ANDREW WIGGINS:

“So he was part of that three-on-three and he's getting some court work. He's feeling better (non-Covid illness). So we're hopeful that he will be able to play against Atlanta, but we’ll see. Got a good workout today, and then he'll get another one tomorrow, and hopefully, he progresses to be able to play on Monday.”

 

TRAIL BLAZERS HEAD COACH CHAUNCEY BILLUPS


ON GARY PAYTON II RECEIVING HIS CHAMPIONSHIP RING:

“Yeah I mean I'm pretty sure it's a validating moment to be able to first and foremost earn a championship ring. He just wasn’t on the team and kind of watching from the sideline, he helped earn that ring, and he played his part. So it's actually awesome for him, all the attention will be on him tonight, as opposed to doing it opening night and everybody is, everybody gets the attention, tonight it’ll just be him. I'm just happy for him. His journey has been incredible. So for him being able to earn that ring and be able to create the—he became a fan favorite here in a very short amount of time just by the way he plays, and his heart, his desire, his passion. It’ll be good for him to be honored and they’ll show him some love tonight.”


ON GARY PAYTON II’S STATUS:

“Yeah I mean my conversations with Gary are obviously between him and I. He's working his behind off to get back, he's close, very close. Medically, we’ve and he’s done everything that he can do. I always tell people a lot of times like nobody really understands like when you have an injury, you have surgery, there’s not just a physical component that you have to get over, there’s a mental component as well. You don’t want to get hurt again, you don’t want to reinjure yourself, and I think that that’s kind of where it is with G is like, he's just trying to get over that. He's played hurt for so long in his career that he wants to be healthy so he can be himself out there. That’s kind of where it's at.”


ON NOT HAVING JUSUF NURKIC TONIGHT:

“Yeah it does change things, Nurk is very valuable to us. He kind of mans the paint for us, offensively and defensively, so I'll have to change some of our coverages because of his absence. But we’ve also grown to be very confident in Drew Eubanks, he's played a very important role for us this season. He's done a really good job, and filling in for Nurk, when Nurk is either hurt, or not playing well, or it's just his minutes. So we’ll have to tinker with the rotation obviously. But Nurk he leaves a big void every time he's not playing.”

 

I guess Gary is a Warrior tonight.