<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">OAKLAND - The Warriors' day started with some good news. Kobe Bryant missed a last-second 3 and the Los Angeles Lakers lost 96-95 to the Cleveland Cavaliers, blowing an 18-point lead. There was more good news to come. The Sacramento Kings fell to the Minnesota Timberwolves. The Utah Jazz lost to the Memphis Grizzlies in overtime. The Warriors made it a good news four-for-four, beating the Philadelphia 76ers 98-89. They gained ground on three teams in the Western Conference playoff race. They pulled to within 41/2 games of the Lakers and Kings, who are tied for the final two playoff spots. The cynic in me wants to bash the Warriors for doing too little too late. He wants to rip Mike Dunleavy for finally finding his shot -- he scored a season-high 28 points Sunday, giving him 52 in two games -- after helping his team dig such a deep hole. He wants to discount the Warriors' back-to-back wins over Minnesota and the Allen Iverson-less 76ers because they came at home against slumping or short-handed teams. He wants to point to their upcoming road trip from hell to San Antonio, Dallas and Sacramento. Hey, there will be plenty of time for more Warriors bashing later. Frankly, that's become easy and boring sport. For just one day, I'd like to grab the DVD player, pop in "Miracle" and think of the impossible, a successful Warriors playoff run and an end to their 11-year postseason drought. Play along. What do you have to lose? It might be fun. How could it happen? For starters, consider the Warriors' attitude. Nine days ago after a disheartening loss to the Orlando Magic, guard Jason Richardson mentioned the "S" word. That's "S" as in spoilers. Richardson, in effect, conceded the Warriors' playoff hopes were somewhere between slim and none, with slim ready to walk out the door. Since that day, the Warriors have gone 2-0. Call this the lowered expectations effect. "We are playing relaxed," Richardson said. "There's really not a lot of pressure on us." Forward Troy Murphy acted as if a questioner were speaking Greek when he was asked about the playoff race. "I have no idea what you're talking about," Murphy said, smiling. "Just play. We've had two good games at home. "Let's get out on the road. Whatever we're doing, keep doing." The Warriors, of course, are going to need plenty of help from the teams ahead of them, especially either the Kings or Lakers. It's not too hard imagining the Lakers taking a huge, head-first fall. The pressure on them has to be building. They've lost two straight games and six of their past 11, dropping to 34-34. Jack Nicholson can't be happy. This is a one-man team that's fully capable of going into a serious funk, even with Phil Jackson, the old Zen master, back on the bench. "You never know what will happen," Richardson said. "The Lakers keep on losing, you never know." Who knows? Maybe Bryant will get carpel-tunnel syndrome from taking too many shots. At 28-37, the Warriors have 17 games left and trail the Lakers by only three games in the all-important loss column. The Kings have won eight of their past 11 games and are playing better than the Lakers. But remember, the Warriors have to catch just one of those two teams. OK, they also trail the New Orleans Hornets by 31/2 games, Jazz by 21/2 games and Houston Rockets by one-half game. But those teams are falling fast. New Orleans has lost eight straight, Houston (minus injured Tracy McGrady) four straight and Utah six of their past 11. Of course it doesn't matter what those teams do if the Warriors don't shock us all and keep winning consistently. Their longest winning streak is five games and came Nov. 25-Dec. 2. They haven't won three straight since Dec. 28-31 when they beat the Boston Celtics at home then downed Dallas and Houston on the road. What's more, point guard Baron Davis is out indefinitely with a sprained right ankle.</div> Source
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting Kensaku:</div><div class="quote_post">I will believe it when I see it.</div>
And this is why we keep getting the #8 to #11 pick every season instead of the #1-#5... Of course if we had the worst record in the NBA, the lottery balls would find someway to derail the Warriors hopes of landing a true franchise guy that can lead, score, defend, pass, rebound, hustle.
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting AnimeFANatic:</div><div class="quote_post">I don't mind 8-10... look at what happened when Warriors had the worst record. We got Dungleavy.</div> That's the bad luck happening. We either get in a really shallow draft or miss a guy like Yao Ming by two spots. If we had Yao that'd be awesome. Sure the rockets aren't doing so hot, but it's not like the Rox are really healthy or deep this season. There's a lot of impatience regarding players like Yao, but I think as a big man he's bound to keep getting better and better until he starts hitting his 30's. Big men usually don't peak until they're 27 or 28. Right now Yao is showing signs of being dominant. He's been 30/10 with 90% free throw %, 58 fg%, with 2 blocks a game in his last 5 games. Who wouldn't like that on their team especially at the hardest-to-fill position of center? This just might indicate that all he needed was an offseason to himself instead of playing for China in the summer.
I have Yao on my fantasy team, and I absolutely love the numbers he's been putting up. For a center in this league he has extraordinary skill and talent and shoots FT's at ~80-90%! Imagine the Warriors with Yao (who they deserved) instead of Dungleavy... Warriors got robbed. Just a bad luck team.
Damned if we do, damned if we don't though... besides inside scoring, we still need a tougher perimeter defense and at least one other guy besides Yao who can defend inside. I just hate our defense right now. Worst in the league just about when we've got Murphy in there or we're playing small and we're still lacking lateral quickness to stop dribble penetration or length to contest shots. Our individual D is so bad that the zone is better than the alternative of playing man-to-man D. This is unless we want to see Jrich, Fisher, Murphy and Dunleavy get absolutely destroyed one-on-one. So we're forced to play a variant of of the zone which we use to trap a ballhandler or double him. The problem with this setup is it leaves gaps in other areas of team defense, especially the top of the key in which a ballhandler can force a double on one side, pass to somebody who can go right down the middle at Murphy, shoot the J, or drive the zone himself. This definitely happens when a decently skilled forward comes out to the high post takes a shot, and the smaller guy has to stay back while the big guy has to run out on his assignment. When the guy at the top of the key has the ball he's got a live dribble to do whatever he wants, shoot, pass, drive, whatever. The times we've been caught in "no man's land" or crushed at the hoop is annoying. What good is a zone if we can't defend guys who can shoot their way through or attack it by dribbling against slower defenders? Also, when we play zone we don't box out, because this style makes that hard to do and therefore we can't get the defensive rebounds as easily. This team has to do better in the defensive department and I think that starts with addressing who is the least productive in terms of the balance between offense and defense. Where can we get scoring from and who can play man-to-man defense on most nba matchups in the NBA? We can't play zone and expect to "hide" poor defenders in this style... Also I'm not blaming the above, on why we don't box out, because we can't even box out on missed free throws by the other team. That is freakin' sad.
I dont need my hopes to be disappointed again. They are out of the playoffs already. If they make it, I would be ecstatic of course though...
Good fortune doesn't strike the Warriors. When we had the number 1 pick, we took Joe Smith instead of KG or Sheed . How about that year we were the odds on favorite to get Patrick Ewing, but instead ended up with the #7 pick who's our VP of Basketball Operations now. Then we were lucky to get Gilbert Arenas in the second round, but...
Not drafting well... that can be a killer in addition to overpaying for role players... At least we're drafting well. If we're drafting players, we at least know they've got some upside to them as well as the attitude and skillset. Now if we can get the whole package we'd be in business in terms of getting a true franchise player. Then the GM would have to build around that franchise guy and make sure he doesn't pay over the market price and destroy any flexibility in moving these contracts later on (if needed).
