Warriors vs. Sonics @ Seattle, Feb. 1, 7:00PM FSN

We got outrebounded and we allowed too high a field goal % yet again.

I'm not too suprised. I wish we had a center.

 

Wow, we are down by 4 pts with last shot in our hand. And, if it weren't for Monty's 2nd t, we could have had last shot to tie the game. But then, the way things went wrong, most people probably guessed that the last t could come back and haunt the team. Things are not working well by any stretch of imagination...

 

<div class="quote_poster">Quoting Warriorsfan:</div><div class="quote_post">k whats our mistake in this game??</div>

Everything.

 

In the 3rd quarter, the Warriors just simply couldn't score at all. That was atrocious. They were something like 2 of 20 shooting.

 

Okay, Dunleavy is officially a flop now. 1-7 against one of the weakest defensive teams in the league is just unacceptable. 0 FTs too. Awful.

A center? What about Biedrins 16 and 8? When was the last time we got that out of our center? Even if the Sonics stink.

Well the Warriors stink too.

Once again, lay off Monty. You want emotion and he gives it and what happens? You complain because it gave a point away, 7 instead of 6. Well you know what? Coming back from 6 in 22 secs is like highly unlikely. Everything looks great looking backwards.

I bet you look back at Al Attles' record after 1.5 years and you would have run him out too. Then the Warriors trade their best center ever (someone dear to my heart; Wilt does not count, he was just great) and they win a title. Remember how good things look in hindsight.

 

Isn't there any fan here who didn't buy into the hype of last season when we started winning late at the end of the season? I realistically think this team is barely an 8th seed team. We can very well go on a huge win streak after all-star break if this team discovers how to play ball and do what it takes to play a fundamentally sound, well executed game. Some were saying 1rst place in the division... 1rst place in pacific division was a stretch especially after looking at what the Kings, Suns, Clippers were doing (Yeah, I know Kings weren't doing too hot, but they could get hot if they could stay healthy). The Warriors just didn't make many improvements by just upgrading the guard position with a veteran allstar... It's just the same team as the year before only with an upgrade over Speedy Claxton/Derek Fisher.

I just think we don't have that kind of supporting cast to support an all-star point guard (with flaws and that fiery personality). Plus, if we lose a player important like Jrich 20 point scorer or Baron, the season is just not the same with only hobbled Dunleavy, Murphy, Pietrus left... At least with a guy like Rick Barry, we had Nate Thurmond do his business on the inside, and a strong supporting cast. We've got Troy Murphy, who is decent, but not great. Dunleavy who is injured right now, but is still inconsistent and disappears, Foyle (echhh) and a bunch of rookies...

 

There is a fine line between taking T and taking T with less than a min left in close game...

 

<div class="quote_poster">Quoting custodianrules2:</div><div class="quote_post">Isn't there any fan here who didn't buy into the hype of last season when we started winning late at the end of the season? I realistically think this team is barely an 8th seed team. We can very well go on a huge win streak after all-star break if this team discovers how to play ball and do what it takes to play a fundamentally sound, well executed game. Some were saying 1rst place in the division... 1rst place in pacific division was a stretch especially after looking at what the Kings, Suns, Clippers were doing (Yeah, I know Kings weren't doing too hot, but they could get hot if they could stay healthy). The Warriors just didn't make many improvements by just upgrading the guard position with a veteran allstar... It's just the same team as the year before only with an upgrade over Speedy Claxton/Derek Fisher.

I just think we don't have that kind of supporting cast to support an all-star point guard (with flaws and that fiery personality). Plus, if we lose a player important like Jrich 20 point scorer or Baron, the season is just not the same with only hobbled Dunleavy, Murphy, Pietrus left... At least with a guy like Rick Barry, we had Nate Thurmond do his business on the inside, and a strong supporting cast. We've got Troy Murphy, who is decent, but not great. Dunleavy who is injured right now, but is still inconsistent and disappears, Foyle (echhh) and a bunch of rookies...</div>

Well, most realistic fans said this team will win between 43 to 48 wins, and even with our obvious flaws, I didn't think that wasn't unrealistic. I mean, we do have obvious flaws, but we also do have obvious strength as well. Also you have to remember that often-injured Speedy, younger-and-inexperienced Richardson, seldom-used Dunleavy, Robinson, Dampier and basically no bench won 37 games two years ago, and Mullin came out and bashed that club, saying that that club was underachiving. Compare to two years ago, our current talent level is much higher. And, while it was Davis for Speedy trade, Davis is a player, who can turn the franchise around like how Nash turned Suns around from 29 winning ball club in two years ago. I am not putting our woe to Monty, because the biggest reason for our front court woe goes to Mullin for choosing Dunleavy over Jamison and Foyle over Dampier. But, I don't believe Monty did his best job on using our strength and hiding our weakness either...

 

Whats worse? Dunleavy having a bad night or Dunleavy getting so many minutes on a bad night? I'll never understand how he gets so many minutes when he's having a poor night. It isn't rocket science, if someone is doing poorly let them think about it on the bench. I can understand why you leave superstars in a game even when they have a bad night, but not a player like Dunleavy.

Anyway, lets hope they put up a better fight against the Spurs... keyword: hope

 

<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">Anyway, lets hope they put up a better fight against the Spurs.</div>
Don't worry the warriors are going to beat the Spurs tomorrow. 141-68

Dunleavy will get his first quadruple double and Ike will grab a career high 13 rebounds

 

<div class="quote_poster">Quoting Gohn:</div><div class="quote_post">Don't worry the warriors are going to beat the Spurs tomorrow. 141-68

Dunleavy will get his first quadruple double and Ike will grab a career high 13 rebounds</div>

You mean 31 rebounds while shutting down Duncan to 2 pts...

 

<div class="quote_poster">Quoting Kwan1031:</div><div class="quote_post">There is a fine line between taking T and taking T with less than a min left in close game...</div>
Fans can't have it both ways. Monty was emotional and he stood up to a bad call. Ref gave him a T. The bad call would have jacked us either way, I believe. What in the warrior's history this season indicates we could win a close game other than launching the three ball?

Also, the Warriors have to play perfectly in order to win when they get constantly outrebounded and they rely on one guy to create all the offense for the Warriors (the other 4 just stand around clueless)... It just won't work in the Warriors favor under any coach who doesn't have enough time to teach once the season starts. Many fans believe this team was a 1rst place Pacific division team (or 4th seed playoffs) when it really wasn't. That's why I wasn't in a hurry to label this team a playoff team. At best we're 8th seed, at worst, we're slightly better than when we had Speedy Claxton at backup point with Derek Fisher as starter. We only improved at one position if we think about it. Coaching ain't going to solve that sht because that takes time at the player's pace. In fact most teams don't start meshing until after the midseason mark. That's too late for most teams so hopefully they had the talent to bail them out, but the warriors just don't have that toughness, fundamentals, basics... It's like we have a row boat with too many coxen, not enough rowers. We can "stroke stroke stroke" all day, but we need 8 guys who can row the damn boat. We need to have the right combo to win that boat race and we need balance on all sides of the boat so we're not paddling in circles.

The one thing I'm worried about is Baron Davis' ego... If he's undermining the leadership of the Warriors coaching staff that is a problem. If you look at the Pistons they play as a team and they don't have much ego, same thing with Spurs. I'm kind of worried about the player/coaching situation... If it looks like Monta Ellis would be the more humble version of Baron Davis, I'd rather start over again to tell you the truth than deal with a future problem like New Orleans did. I'm just starting to doubt BD a little bit in terms of him becoming just like Stevie Francis. All this great one-on-one game and fire, but a possible team cancer.

 

<div class="quote_poster">Quoting Gohn:</div><div class="quote_post">Don't worry the warriors are going to beat the Spurs tomorrow. 141-68

Dunleavy will get his first quadruple double and Ike will grab a career high 13 rebounds</div>

Damn... aren't you uh... underestimating them a little?

I predict a 156-71 win over the Spurs.

Dunleavy will get 26 pt, 13 reb, 11 assists, 10 steals, 11 blocks, -3 TO's, shooting 113% from the field.

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I guess we just hoped Monty would have a George Karl effect of last season. Or they play the uptempo style they did last season when they kicked everyone's arses.

 

<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">Damn... aren't you uh... underestimating them a little? </div>
Yeah, I guess I put a little too much weight on the Spurs Defense. 156 sounds about right.

I figure pessimism wasn't working, so might as well try to be overly optimistic.

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I don't think Dunleavy should have played on the bad ankle. Didn't get to see that game so I'm not sure if it was affecting him or not. And I'm also not sure how long ankle sprains last. Hasn't he been out for about 6 days since he last played?

But I remember Murphy was playing terrible after he rolled his ankle.

 

<div class="quote_poster">Quoting custodianrules2:</div><div class="quote_post">Fans can't have it both ways. Monty was emotional and he stood up to a bad call. Ref gave him a T. The bad call would have jacked us either way, I believe. What in the warrior's history this season indicates we could win a close game other than launching the three ball?</div>

He had all of the 3rd quarter to get himself ejected when the bleeding wouldn't stop but instead sat there. Last game we played in Seattle their coach got tossed leading them to go on a 7 or 8 point run much sooner then we did this game. Not only that but he just walked off the court like a frightened little boy. Uh no monty, 1st rule of thumb is to make your case after you get tossed, get furious and let your team see it. No adjustments during the 3rd, no movement, Davis shot 10 3pters? wtf is that? I love Diddy but I would threaten to bench his ass unless it was WIDE WIDE OPEN. That 3rd quarter performance was god awful. Everybody stood completely flat footed waiting for something to happen.

Biedrins had a great 1st half and didn't sniff another shot attempt. Zero transition defense. Like I've been saying, when the entire team plays bad basketball it goes on the coach, Mike Montgomery. I have no regret it he gets fired. The games are there on the table for him to win and he can't play in the man's game. Too bad. Without a doubt this team should be a .500 team, minimum. He's done.

 

<div class="quote_poster">Quoting upsidedownside7:</div><div class="quote_post">He had all of the 3rd quarter to get himself ejected when the bleeding wouldn't stop but instead sat there. Last game we played in Seattle their coach got tossed leading them to go on a 7 or 8 point run much sooner then we did this game. Not only that but he just walked off the court like a frightened little boy. Uh no monty, 1st rule of thumb is to make your case after you get tossed, get furious and let your team see it. No adjustments during the 3rd, no movement, Davis shot 10 3pters? wtf is that? I love Diddy but I would threaten to bench his ass unless it was WIDE WIDE OPEN. That 3rd quarter performance was god awful. Everybody stood completely flat footed waiting for something to happen.

Biedrins had a great 1st half and didn't sniff another shot attempt. Zero transition defense. Like I've been saying, when the entire team plays bad basketball it goes on the coach, Mike Montgomery. I have no regret it he gets fired. The games are there on the table for him to win and he can't play in the man's game. Too bad. Without a doubt this team should be a .500 team, minimum. He's done.</div>

Yeah man, I'm just as frustrated as you. Believe me. The players or the coaches, it's hard to side with because you know you need both talent and the system. It's like with what's going on with the Knicks only Larry Brown is an established coach, he still gets sharp criticism from the fans for his subbing patterns and not playing the rookies.

 

This game was kind of basic, really. In the first half the Warriors and Sonics were making shots and the Warriors were hustling, getting a lot of offensive rebounds and finding easy buckets in the paint. The same thing happened in the second quarter besides that Ray Allen started to get a couple of shots, and as a good shooter he was knocking them down. One of the smart moves I think was taking Baron Davis out, after a few ill-advised shots in the first half. That was a good Montgomery move, but maybe the only good move he made the whole game.

The third quarter started, with the Sonics playing much stronger and smarter together as a unit in the paint on defense, the Warriors couldn't find any easy buckets in the paint, like they did in the first half, and they seemed to back down and weakened out, because of this. The rebounds which seemed to be a plus for the Warriors in the first half, were a big negative in the second half. No shots were falling, and there were a lot of bad shots taken. On the defensive end of the court, the Warriors totally broke down. Ray Allen became a much bigger part of the Sonics' offense and he got a ton of off the ball screens, and Ray Allen is such a good and quick shooter, that even though Pietrus played pretty good, solid defense on him, it just wasn't enough. Then of course there were other players like Fisher who also struggled against Ray Allen as well. Rashard fed off Ray Allen, and all was good for the Sonics and the Warriors just didn't know what they were doing and what they needed to do to answer. They couldn't stop the bleeding, to use a Jim Barnett phrase.

The fourth quarter was about even and a normal quarter, I'd say, but it was just a big deficit to come back from.

The way the Warriors play, it would see as if the season has just started. There are no defensive or offensive systems. There is nothing that the team falls back on, when things get uncertain and when there is a lot of uncertainty and bad decisions made on the court. It's like, if Baron Davis isn't doing his thing, and carrying the team, with smart decisions for a stretch in the game(because he can get carried away with shooting three's, it's one of his flaws, but with a good coach I think it could definitly be checked for the better), I'd think that maybe there is a backup guard or something that could change this bad style of play and start reversing the bad play. But last night I didn't see any of this. As Barnett was saying, they just couldn't stop the bleeding. This season is too far along to not have these types of systems around to help out defensively, offensively, and even on the boards.

It would have been better if Jason Richardson were healthy, as he plays very good against the Sonics, usually. But it still doesn't excuse for the break downs that this team made. It must be cleaned out. I am sick of this is it either player or the coaches fault. Either way, the two sides must come together and make something better in the end. Maybe that is similar to how the federal government is now. Things need a fixing.

And Dunleavy's game was far below par and what should be expected from this guy. As someone said, he did seem like a momentum breaker. He made quite a few, not so good decisions. I think Dunleavy needs to get back 100% before he plays again. Because if he's not 100%, I think he'll just try to pamper is ankle too much and not hustle enough, and we already know that this is one of Dunleavy's pre-existing problems. And speaking about systems, the Warriors really need to work on how to bring the ball up, especially for fast break situations. It's either Dunleavy taking his time, coming up slow when it could be a fast break situation, or maybe it's Baron Davis trying to get the ball from Dunleavy off the rebound to push the ball up himself, which takes out one of the things Dunleavy could give this team, which is quick fast breaks with his ballhandling off the glass. Dunleavy made a few nice dishes, but the Warriors need to ask him to do more, maybe run things to get the team to focus on better shots, and he needs to show up and perform himself and make better decisions himself, while on the court.

 

Yeah,Biedrins played a good game!

 

<div class="quote_poster">Quoting Kwan1031:</div><div class="quote_post">Well, most realistic fans said this team will win between 43 to 48 wins, and even with our obvious flaws, I didn't think that wasn't unrealistic. I mean, we do have obvious flaws, but we also do have obvious strength as well. Also you have to remember that often-injured Speedy, younger-and-inexperienced Richardson, seldom-used Dunleavy, Robinson, Dampier and basically no bench won 37 games two years ago, and Mullin came out and bashed that club, saying that that club was underachiving. Compare to two years ago, our current talent level is much higher. And, while it was Davis for Speedy trade, Davis is a player, who can turn the franchise around like how Nash turned Suns around from 29 winning ball club in two years ago. I am not putting our woe to Monty, because the biggest reason for our front court woe goes to Mullin for choosing Dunleavy over Jamison and Foyle over Dampier. But, I don't believe Monty did his best job on using our strength and hiding our weakness either...</div>
Gotcha. I guess my attention was fixated on "4th seed, first in the Pacific or some other high hopes" that were a bit of a stretch to me considering we added only one player with some big flaws (injury proness, shot selection, free throws, street ball one on one mentality) and several other outside shooting players who are soft defensively and never played organized ball in the nba.

It's interesting you mentioned that 2003 team because I thought it was one of the more polished, unselfish teams because we had some solid veterans that were once all-stars, they could score, pass, and they were good mentors to the guys we had. The problem with it is that team still had no identity, they jacked threes once the other team caught on to their open offense and zoned up on them. Dunleavy was still Dunleavy, Jrich was trying to find ways to also be consistent, and we had nothing but injuries that entire year. One time Claxton, NVE, and Avery Johnson all went down. Good grief. The only old guy that made it through the year with heavy minutes and avoided injury was Clif Robinson. I liked Clif. Robinson, who was fundamentally sound defensively and could pass the ball very well from the high post, was probably one of the guys that made the team chemistry a lot better than when it had nothing but scorers looking to score. Erick Dampier provided inside presence and was one of the better offensive rebounders in the league because NVE got him the ball. Nick Van Exel, Calbert Cheaney, Clif Robinson and Speedy Claxton could take over in crunch time if Dunleavy and Richardson were tentative in shooting the ball. Now, Dun and Richardson have all this pressure they share along with Baron Davis. We're talking young guys who are still working on their game. I sure wish we had younger Clif Robinson or some chemistry player other than Dunleavy that could actually get results night in and night out. I blame part of the warriors slow improvement from not having Dunleavy set the tone like a starter should do, not playing fundamentally sound ball as a team, and not having a quality center like Erick Dampier to protect the middle. Now some may laugh at the fact I called Erick Dampier "quality", but he is pretty good skill wise if you feed him the ball to keep him interested in protecting the paint and getting on the glass. Not many centers in this league that are both strong and mobile and have decent floor vision. When Erick Dampier is motivated and is touching the ball, he plays very well. Almost dominant in some ways.

So, I guess the reason I thought the 2003 team was interesting was because maybe what we have is a continuation of those growing pains in our core players, maybe pieces that don't fit together well, or a catch 22 that involves different interests like trying to win now and trying to win for the future by developing rookies. (Larry Brown rule: fundamentally sound or consistent guys get more playing time, whereas rookies have to earn their minutes the hard way through practice and observing). A lot of these guys have to learn more about the game throughout the season (Jrich/Dun/Murphy) versus having really established guys be there to help them observe, contribute some on the floor and help the young guys pick up things quicker. If the whole goal was to develop guys like Ike, Biedrins, Taft and such Murphy, Jrich, Foyle, Zarko wouldn't be my ideal veterans. And I think that's one of the downsides of having a fairly young team and all of them still figuring out what they can accomplish as an individual player. It's a little bit different than having a guy that knows his limitations , has a decade or more of nba experience, and is in the mentor role to make others better. I sure wish we had somebody besides Foyle mentoring Ike/Biedrins/Taft. Damn that's like having a guy who flunked math teach you calc. Also maybe this is not a good idea considering older players like Cheaney had stopped being productive, consistent and keeping up with the nba pace. He was pretty good in 2003. He played 48 minutes straight once and got us a darn efficient field goal % because he shot nothing but bread and butter twos. It was good to be deep in the guard/forward position with some nice proven vets, but also good to have the center position deep when we had Dampier/Foyle healthy.

But, since we're not deep in the center position and we have Biedrins to develop we can't complain because Foyle is hard to replace considering what is out there in the free agent market. Also, if we got another vet center on top of Foyle, Biedrins would get no playing time to develop. So in a way it's like we can't have our cake and eat it too if our goal is to make the playoffs as quickly as possible instead of throwing the rookies out there and hope they don't fail us when it counts. I'm wagering that any raw big man we have is going to take a while to develop since even polished big men like Andrew Bogut might take a while. It's probably the position that takes the most time to figure out exactly what you have and also to build the confidence in these rookie players to become better. Makes me wonder if Duncan would be the same if David Robinson wasn't there in his rookie year. Also, maybe Amare Stoudamire could have been better in some aspects of his game with some vet mentoring, but he's so unique he automatically stands out and plus he had the league MVP on his team to set him up.

Well, I'm done rambling. There's a lot of what ifs and conjecture going on about what was the best way to improve this team as quickly as possible both from a talent and coaching/team chemistry standpoint. Maybe Biedrins should get more playing time, but also not to the point where he could wind up like Dunleavy. And the reason I say this is because I think Dunleavy could have been better if he wasn't thrown into the mix right away. If he's not confident, he's not aggressive, then he gets tentative and disappears... Moving him to the bench might break his confidence even more, but it would be a good fit considering you want him to handle the ball over Derek Fisher or Zarko Cabarkapa or Pietrus. Then if Pietrus plays an undersized small forward, you got a guy who is the quickest guy on the floor moving off the ball and can cover the other team's best perimeter player. I don't think Dunleavy can do that.