The Game 4 media day was held yesterday where players turned up to answer questions about their plans and preparations for the next game. A surprise correspondent sitting with the members of the media was Golden State Warriors rookie Brandin Podziemski. As a student of the game, the 21-year-old seized the opportunity to ask Luka Doncic an important question about his isolation play.
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Podziemski was a player correspondent for the NBA yesterday covering the NBA Finals. He started off by giving Luka his flowers. The rookie said that he looks up to the Slovenian superstar as a ball player and also tries to model his game after Luka’s blueprint.
After that, he asked, “Obviously they’re making you play a lot of isolation ball, and you do a really good job to use your off arm to get by people…you’re also good at creating an advantage and keeping an advantage…just want to ask where you got that from and what’s your thought process once you beat your initial defender?”
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Luka was visibly impressed by the quality of the question from the rookie guard. The Mavs superstar answered, “First I look at how long a guy has been in the paint.”
Luka explained that if the low man can’t stay on him for longer than two seconds, he realizes that it’s time to attack. In addition to that, the 25-year-old added that it also depends on a game to game basis. In those situations, he reads how the game is moving to determine his next step and makes a split second decision judging the movement of the players.
Podziemski is being touted as one of the upcoming stars in the league. As he already has the reputation of a great learner, it wouldn’t be a surprise if we see him implement Luka’s advice in his game pretty soon.
Besides Luka, he was also seen interacting with Derrick White and Jrue Holiday.
Brandin Podziemski made the most of his media day appearance
During his conversation with Holiday, the 21-year-old asked what separates him from the rest of the guys on the court in terms of his defensive prowess. Holiday was really appreciative of the compliment, and he acknowledged that before moving on to answer his question.
Holiday said, “Sometimes I take some risks. Sometimes I shouldn’t, but there have been sometimes I’ve taken some risks and have been rewarded for it.” The Celtics guard also said that being competitive also helps him a lot.
Podziemski found common ground with Derrick White during their conversation. He said that both of them came out of high school and weren’t respected initially. Despite that, they made it to the NBA as first round picks and now White is on the verge of winning the Finals. His question for the Celtics star was, “How defying odds helps you?”
White said, “It’s just, continue to believe in ourselves, people always doubted us, too small or whatever it might be. And just continue to work, trust, and playing the right way.” White advised Podziemski to follow the same mantra as well. The Celtics star added that if he continues to work hard and play the game the right way, he will also be successful.
