<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">In his first two seasons as a Golden State Warrior, the phrase "reaching .500" held about as much meaning for Mickael Pietrus as "chicken fried steak" or "the Teapot Dome Scandal." It was just another totally foreign concept for the native of Guadeloupe, who won a pair of championships in France's top pro league with Pau Orthez before coming to America. "The thing I've learned this year is '.500,'" Pietrus said last week. "My first two years, I don't know what '.500' means. Now I know that when you're above .500, you make the playoffs." If the season had ended Sunday, of course, the Warriors would have been neither. At 20-23, Golden State was one game out of the playoffs, in 11th position among Western Conference teams. "We're right in the middle of a lot of teams that are bunched up and it's our job and our focus to get above them, get out of that bunch," said Warriors executive Chris Mullin, the man who built this team with an eye towards quenching the franchise's 12-year playoff drought. "There's plenty of games to straighten it out." To help speed the process, here are eight action items for the Warriors to add to their to-do list, if they're not already on there: 1. Don't lose focus waiting for the horn. The Warriors have picked up a foul habit of relaxing in the closing moments of quarters. For example, Dallas halved a 12-point deficit in the final 5.7 seconds of the second quarter before capping a 102-93 comeback win Wednesday. "That's what the best teamsfrom Sports1 in the league do," Mike Dunleavy said. "They always outscore you in the last two minutes of quarters." 2. Devise an offense that provides shots in must-have situations. Part of the reason behind the Warriors' collapse in three straight fourth quarters last week was an inability to can a crucial, run-stopping bucket. Too often, the ball wound up back in the hands of point guard Baron Davis ? in some cases, it never left ? with the shot clock winding down. Davis can be a spectacular player and is undoubtedly the most critical Warrior ? as befitting his $13.8 million salary this season ? but continually asking him to create a scoring opportunity from thin air in five seconds is not conducive to closing out games effectively. 3. Fix the free-throw problems. And yes, we mean problems, plural. Not only do the Warriors, who constantly talk about how they're a team of shooters, rank 26th in the league in free-throw accuracy, but they also give up way more offensive rebounds off misses by the opposition than any of coach Mike Montgomery's old Stanford teams did. "My goodness, we've been over that so many times," Montgomery said, pointing to an instance with five minutes left against the Lakers on Friday. "We were up nine, we don't come up with the missed free throw and they immediately hit a 3. At that point, they've got momentum. It's like, 'Hey, we can do this.'" </div> Read 4 thru 8 here
