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Get Ryan Kelly back and healthy.
It is not winning this game. (Although Christ I would love to.)
Although we'll have home court advantage and absolute fury on our side, and I expect Curry to continue shooting the lights out of every gym he's stepped into lately...
... we have no one to guard Kadji without the Kraken. Jefferson isn't strong enough, Hairston isn't quick enough, neither is tall enough inside or effective enough on D around the perimeter. If Kadji's the only big playing, Plumlee can guard him... but if Reggie Johnson is in with Kadji, we are fucked, as Plumlee isn't wide enough to stop someone of Johnson's mass, and then we have the Kadji mismatch on top of it.
We can hope they get in foul trouble or Kadji simply misses his baskets. But otherwise there's not much we can do with our personnel to shut them down.
I'd rather have Kelly has a 2 seed than no Kelly as a 1 seed. Without an effective Kelly, none of this really matters, as we will likely be upset around the Sweet 16 (matchup depending, obviously).
(Of course, it'd be way better to have Kelly and be a 1 seed. I'm just trying to make myself feel better about the potential mismatches today.)
Duke can still take this, and I expect them to, really. If our guards are on, and we can slow Larkin/Scott, we have a great chance. In Miami, Curry was 0-10 and Cook was 1-12. There's literally no chance that happens again.
But Kadji and Johnson are a scary bad matchup. I fully expect Kadji to get 20+ with ease. Hopefully he gets 25 but we hold them to 65-70, we absolutely win in that scenario.
Come on back, Kraken. My movies: http://russellhainline.com
My movie reviews: https://letterboxd.com/RussellHFilm/
My beer TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thebeertravelguide
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