I think this preview from the warriors homepage covers it all. The Warriors lost half a game tonight due to the Hornets winning, and are now 9th in the West. This an important game for the Warriors like the preview says which may have big playoff implications. http://www.nba.com/warriors/news/preview_022407.html GAME MATCH-UP Warriors (26-29) AT Clippers (25-29) STAPLES Center Saturday, February 24, 2007 12:30 p.m. Seeking their first three-game winning streak since November, the Warriors will hit the road for a one-game trip against the Los Angeles Clippers on Saturday. The teams? third match-up of the season could have playoff implications, as jut a half-game separates the two clubs in the Western Conference standings. Golden State will come into Saturday on the heels of Wednesday?s 118-115 overtime win over Memphis. Jason Richardson returned from his 22-game injury induced hiatus in that contest and had 19 points and 10 rebounds in 37 minutes off the bench for his first double-double of the season. Richardson appeared to be close to his old self on Wednesday, and team trainer Tom Abdenour can take some of the credit for that. Currently in his 20th season as an athletic trainer for the Warriors, Abdenour has been selected to the National Athletic Trainers? Association (NATA) Hall of Fame. Abdenour?s role in keeping the team healthy will be of the utmost importance as the Warriors make their push for the playoffs. That drive for the postseason continues on Saturday in Los Angeles, where Golden State has lost five-straight to the Clippers. However, the Warriors were shorthanded in their last contest with the Clippers, as the 115-109 defeat came just hours after Golden State and Indiana completed the eight-player blockbuster trade. Since that deal, some of the newest Warriors have taken on important roles. In the 16 games since last month's trade, Stephen Jackson, Al Harrington or Sarunas Jasikevicius has led the team in scoring in 11 of them. Jackson has been especially hot, as he led the Warriors with both 26 points and a career-best 12 assists during Wednesday's victory. That effort followed, albeit a week later, Golden State's 120-101 win over New York in which Jackson had 36 points and eight assists. While the Warriors will enter Saturday?s contest riding a pair of victories, the Clippers will be singing a different tune. Los Angeles has lost four-straight games and seven of its last eight. Hungry for a victory, the Clippers will look to Elton Brand and his team-leading 20.6 points and 9.1 rebounds per game to break them from their current funk. After Saturday?s matinee, Golden State will then return home on Sunday to host All-Star Game MVP Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers in a Hardwood Classics contest that will tip off at a special start time of 3:00 p.m. From there, Golden State will then return to the road for a five-game trip that opens on Tuesday in Milwaukee. Extras: Warriors Radio Roundtable | Fitz Files | Tim Roye's Journal GAME INFORMATION TV: FSN (HD) RADIO: KNBR 680 AM FULL GAME NOTES: Warriors | Clippers
I know its still early, but every game the Warriors play from here on out is HUGE...especially this one agaisnt the Clippers who they will be fighting for that last playoff spot. I was at that last game against Memphis and although I was sitting in a luxury suite, I felt the energy and the life back in the Arena with Richardson back in the line-up. With Davis being out, his return could not have come at a better time.
Tough game today.... Dubs always seem to play poorly on early day games... Hopefully they dont come out flat and lifeless
<div class="quote_poster">Rudeezy Wrote</div><div class="quote_post">I know its still early, but every game the Warriors play from here on out is HUGE...especially this one agaisnt the Clippers who they will be fighting for that last playoff spot. I was at that last game against Memphis and although I was sitting in a luxury suite, I felt the energy and the life back in the Arena with Richardson back in the line-up. With Davis being out, his return could not have come at a better time.</div> Yes indeed the Warriors are in a situation where every game is just about a must win. The Warriors are in the middle of 5 teams fighting for the last two playoff spots. The Warriors can't manage to go on any type of a losing streak or even a losing skid, and if they can extend this winning streak longer, only good things will come.
Man Barnes is looking more and more like garbage, I wish they'd traded him while he was hot. Pietrus is a question mark again too. One thing I really do like is that the Warriors just have atheletes all over the floor now. It's just soooo obvious without the Dunmurphy sisters clogging everything up. You look at JRich, Monta, SJax, Al, Andris, MP, Baron...all atheletes. Powell is not bad either. Andris and his fouls continues to hurt the Warriors big time. Not sure how you fix that without more frontline help. I'd still like to see this team with Andris and Powell up from instead of Al for a stretch.
Brand just killed us in the 4th with all of those blocks on Ellis. The refs sucked too. How does one team shoot 35 FT attempts, while we shoot 15? We drove so many times to the hoop and got hammered with no call. Then we get touch fouls called on us on the next posession.
Wow. Did anybody else see the referees win game number 2 for the Clippers over the Warriors today? Biedrins gets screwed so much. I'll give props to Brand for having a monster game and being the man defending his goal. The Clipps also did play some solid defense in the 4th. But man the refs were against the Warriors all game. The travelling calls in the first half were kind of bogus, especially where Azubuike simply keeps his pivot foot down while moving the other one twice, but somehow gets a travelling violation called on him. I hate how the refs anticipate a play developing, close their eyes and blow the whistle before seeing what actually is happening on the court. The refs are too worried about making those lame over emphasized motions/turning their back on the play than seeing what is really happening in the play and calling the plays that happen not the plays they expect to happen. Harrington seemed to have a good block where Maggette was attacking on fast break and Harrington was recovering and the ref clearly blew the whistle anticipating body contact even though it seemed as if Harrington completely evaded body contact and then to me it appeared got the ball pretty cleanly to knock it out of bounds. I think that happened about 3 or 4 times this game. Biedrins is the biggest victim of it too. Those are the same calls that they were calling last time @ the Clippers and I still can't stand them. All season long the refs have been doing this on the Warriors, today to a pretty high degree, imo. Of course the Warriors meltdown in the 4th period was more than just the refs making these calls, but it would have been a different game, I think if the refs did a better job. The only reason why the Clippers were in the game after the first half was because of FT's and maybe some offensive boards but the Warriors had more second chance points than the Clippers, so I don't know if that really mattered. ----- More on the Warriors: Jason Richardson looks great. He is the quickest and the fastest I have ever seen him. His shot is looking good as well. I agree Matt Barnes looked horrible. Harrington played well but had some strange, ugly turnovers. Also Stephen Jackson was a nonfactor and probably hurt the team a little bit with poor shooting. Other than that I thought the Warriors played well. Brand was a beast, but if everything else was equal, I think the Warriors played well enough to win despite the officiating, until the 4th quarter when the team had a meltdown with turnovers, bricks, and Brand protecting his goal.
BTW I enjoyed watching the game with the Clipps broadcasters. I have never listened to them during a game until Jim Barnett switched places with one of the Clippers' broadcasters to broadcast like a quarter earlier in the season. They are pleasant to watch a game with. They had HUGE expectations of Monta Ellis. Obviously Monta trying to do what he did in the rookie/sophmore game in this game vs the Clippers is quite a bit different because in that rookie/sophmore game there was no Brand nor much of any defense. I like what Monta was trying to do, I suppose he just has to be a little more creative or the team needs to pull the big man away from the bucket more to give him the space to do that stuff. Actually I was waiting for Biedrins to start setting more screens and pick and rolls just to get Brand out of the middle because he was going bananas, but that didn't seem to happen.
Brand is a beast. Oh my god, he was blocking the crap out of today. The refs were dumb and one sideded and gave the Clips all the calls.
Jackson sucked in the 2nd half. He turned the ball over so many times in the lane. I dont know if he was fouled or not, but he kept complaining when he spun and lost the ball against someone's body. Jrich stunk it up in the 2nd half too. I wish I could have seen the first half when he had 16pts. Monta had a career high 13 assists tonight. Where was Jacko? We had AZ playing pg at times when Monta was out. Why was he not playing? Is he hurt. We could have used him to team up with AB on that pick and roll...
<div class="quote_poster">Clif25 Wrote</div><div class="quote_post">BTW I enjoyed watching the game with the Clipps broadcasters. I have never listened to them during a game until Jim Barnett switched places with one of the Clippers' broadcasters to broadcast like a quarter earlier in the season. They are pleasant to watch a game with. They had HUGE expectations of Monta Ellis. Obviously Monta trying to do what he did in the rookie/sophmore game in this game vs the Clippers is quite a bit different because in that rookie/sophmore game there was no Brand nor much of any defense. I like what Monta was trying to do, I suppose he just has to be a little more creative or the team needs to pull the big man away from the bucket more to give him the space to do that stuff. Actually I was waiting for Biedrins to start setting more screens and pick and rolls just to get Brand out of the middle because he was going bananas, but that didn't seem to happen.</div> Clif .... you enjoyed Ralph Lawler.... ugh .... How many times did he give you LAwler's LAw? ..... i know he must have said it twenty times when the clips made it too 100.
<div class="quote_poster">boogielew Wrote</div><div class="quote_post">Clif .... you enjoyed Ralph Lawler.... ugh .... How many times did he give you LAwler's LAw? ..... i know he must have said it twenty times when the clips made it too 100.</div> Well, I have tried to listen to the Kings' broadcast before, and I thought they were a little too onesided and kind of annoying. I have heard about the Lakers' broadcasters being quite bit homers as well. I thought for the Clippers broadcast that they were pretty balanced, though they didn't care to question many referee calls which would be normal if they aren't hurting their team. Also, by the time the Clippers scored 100 I was already frustrated enough that his rant about getting to 100 first didn't bother me so much. I thought it was funny how the other broadcaster was saying how Don Nelson was thinking to himself during the game (first quarter or half), how can we get Livingston on our team? They loved Livingston, though kind of harsh on Monta Ellis for getting packed constantly and missing baskets near the goal. But then again their expectations of Monta were so high that they were very highly complimenting him on his game and kept repeating that he's only 21 (like Livingston I suppose). Of course Lawler caught the other guy Michael (what's his last name, is it Smith?) for having a reputation for creating rumors, so I don't think Nelson is interested in Livingston at all. Their broadcasting team didn't have a Jim Barnett crtiquing how the actual basketball was being played or called, which I kind of missed. But I thought at least that they were adequately knowledgeable basketball broadcasters and were fair, which I think is all you can hope for when you are listening to another team's broadcasters broadcast a game that envolves your favorite team.
I was at this game courtside with my brother, about 7 rows back from the Warrior bench. - Barnes + Pietrus = knuckleheads - Harrington = 6'9" man with 7" verticle leap - Monta = Flash Gordon - Foyle = clown. In warmups he was shooting fade-away threes for airballs and bricking layups. Then, during timeouts he'd stand 5 feet outside the huddle and watch the Clipper girls instead of listening to the coach. You'd figure you're getting $45 mils you'd at least PRETEND like you're at work, earning it. The sad thing was Nellie actually used him in the second half, and he was so NOT prepared to contribute. He just hadn't done anything to get himself ready. Weird, because he's supposed to be such a good guy (and he was entertaining some kids courtside) but basically Foyle was a joke yesterday. a $45 mils joke who was unprepared to play. Sad. Other than that, Monta and Beans are awesome, but the Warriors suck a$$ overall. Blah
The warriors management is like EA NBA Live 07. All they do is re-package the same crap to us and claim new features all the while ignoring the problems customers complain about. Whatever this roster is, it's not a team because it's not even team basketball. Show me a team that can move the ball, that can rebound, play defense, shoot, and body up inside. These guys are pushovers. One thing Nelson probably acknowledges but doesn't concern him is that 1 guy shoots the ball at a time, but all players have to play as a team on defense and to rebound the ball. It works better if all five players were good at that, but yeah it sucks how we don't have at least one inside the paint. We can say Biedrins, but I don't think he's strong enough to allow Harrington to platoon that position and still maintain double digit rebounds every night. Harrington and the other guys that don't box out, or help him rebound, or play defense is what causes the guy in the middle to get pounded. I've seen it happen with Clif Robinson, Adonal Foyle, Erick Dampier and it's because guys like Murphy, Jamison, Dunleavy, and AH were too soft. All the other team would do is iso the weakest defender and just go to the rack or kick out.
