GT: Golden State Warriors @ Washington Wizards

GArenas · Nov 22, 2007

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November 23, 2007 @ 7:00pm ET
Verizon Center (Washington DC)
CSN, FSN Bay Area

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Washington Wizards
 (6-5)


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Golden State Warriors
(3-7)


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<h4 align="center">Projected Starters</h4>
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PG Daniels SG Stevenson

SF Butler PF Jamison C Haywood


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PG Azubuike SG Davis 

SF Jackson PF Pietrus C Biedrins

 
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<h4>Team Stats</h4>
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<td class="strong">Scoring</td>
<td>100.0 PPG (14th)</td>
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<td class="strong">Field Goal %</td>
<td>43.0% (25th)</td>
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<td class="strong">3-Point %</td>
<td>29.4% (28th)</td>
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<td class="strong">Rebounding</td>
<td>45.5 RPG (3rd)</td>
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<td class="strong">Assists</td>
<td>19.5 APG (23rd)</td>
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<td class="strong">Scoring</td>
<td>106.1 PPG (5th)
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<td class="strong">Field Goal %</td>
<td>45.0% (14th)
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<td class="strong">3-Point %</td>
<td>32.5% (23rd)
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<td class="strong">Rebounding</td>
<td>40.1 RPG (27th)
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<td class="strong">Assists</td>
<td>21.4 APG (12th)
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<h4>Team Leaders</h4>
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<td class="strong">Scoring</td>
<td>Caron Butler (21.6 PPG)</td>
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<td class="strong">Rebounding</td>
<td>Brendan Haywood (9.7 RPG)</td>
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<td class="strong">Assists</td>
<td>Antonio Daniels (4.1 APG)</td>
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<td class="strong">Scoring</td>
<td>Baron Davis (23.4 PPG)</td>
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<td class="strong">Rebounding</td>
<td>Andris Biedrins (9.7 RPG)</td>
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<td class="strong">Assists</td>
<td>Baron Davis (8.4 APG)</td>
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<h4>Key Matchup
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Caron Butler vs. Stephen Jackson 

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This matchup will definitely be one to watch out for as Caron Butler is coming off a career high 39 points against the Bobcats and wants to continue his hot streak at home. Stephen Jackson is one of the league's top defenders, and as we saw in the playoffs, he's very capable of completely shutting a player down. Meanwhile, on the offensive end of the floor, Jackson is playing great ball despite being suspended for a couple weeks earlier this month. Watch out for this matchup of team captains.

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<h4>Keys to the Game</h4>
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<ul>[*]Defense: The Warriors are well known for Don Nelson's helter skelter offense. Few teams are able to stop them but the Wizards must at least slow them down to make sure they don't find a groove because once the Warriors find their touch, well you saw the playoffs.

[*]Role Players: Guys like Andray Blatche, Brendan Haywood, Antonio Daniels, Darius Songaila, Nick Young, and DeShawn Stevenson have played great ball on this win streak. With Gilbert out for the next 3 months, these guys will need to continue to put up numbers as they have so far. These guys need to come up big if the Wizards want to pull away with the W.

[*]Ride The Fire: The Wizards are on a hot streak. Winning our last 6 games has given our team confidence that we can play playoff caliber basketball even with Gil out. Andray Blatche, Antonio Daniels, and Nick Young have all been playing great basketball while Haywood has been terrific all year. Antawn Jamison and Caron Butler continue to put up their big numbers to lead the way and we have been un-stopable. Hopefully we can get our 7th straight win at home against a Warriors team trying to close out their road trip.
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<ul>[*]Control the Tempo: Without Arenas, the Wizards can't create tons of points in seconds like they used to be able to. This team loves to out-score their opponents and should test out how much firepower this depleted squad has. However, they should try not to get sloppy.

[*]Less Bad Shots: Warriors have been taking a ton of bad shots this year. Although they do like to take quick shots, GS needs to have some tolerance. Taking 87 shots against the Celtics and making only 29 of them is a sign that smarter basketball is needed. They can still push the ball up-court and take decent-good shots, just watch the Suns play.

[*]Contain the Duo: Although the Wizards role-players have been stepping it up, they still have recieved big contributions from Jamison and Butler who combined for 66 points against Charlotte. If the Warriors defense can slow down these two it will leave a big scoring load for the role-players to attempt to fulfill. However, if these two light it up, the Warriors will have a long night ahead of them.
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<h4 align="center">X-Factors</h4>
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 Andray Blatche

Andray Blatche has been the key to the Wizards win streak so far. He's played terrific basketball over the past couple of games and is starting to show signs that he can be a very valuable player in this league. He's got more confidence in his outside jumper, is playing terrific defense, and has done a terrific job banging on the inside. 

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 Monta Ellis

Monta Ellis is one of the hardest players to defend in the NBA. His speed makes him very dangerous and our perimiter defenders will need to play terrific defense to contain the Warriors 6th man. Although he has been in-consistent this year, the Wizards saw first hand last season that Monta can easily make his prescence known.

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<h4 align="center">Injury Report </h4>
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Gilbert Arenas: Meniscus tear. (Out 3 Months)
Brendan Haywood: Sprained left ankle. (Probable)

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Al Harrington: Personal Issues (Possible?)

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<h4>Prediction</h4>
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Wizards are on a hot streak and are playing terrific basketball right now even without Arenas while the Warriors haven't realized that the season has started. I'm going to predict a victory for Friday as I'm cheering us on in the stands. Should be a fun matchup.

115-106 Wizards
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Note: I'll be at this game supporting the Wiz. Judging from last year, should be a good matchup.

Run BJM · Nov 22, 2007

Awesome game thread. Al Harrington will be back with GS for this game btw. He stayed in NY with his family for some reason but hes meeting the team back in Washington DC so he'll play on Friday.

This is gonna be a fun game, go W's!

GArenas · Nov 23, 2007

In the end, the Wizards couldn't keep up with the Warriors. The one fatal flaw was our lack of PG depth. Behind Antonio, we have nobody who can push the ball up-court. Caron and Antawn had huge games, we'll need them to continue to play at this caliber if the Wizards want to play playoffs basketball and stay in the race before Gilbert's return. I'm so convinced that Andray Blatche has the potential to become an all-star caliber big-men at this point.He's playing terrific basketball with limited minutes at the young age of 21. His talent is unbelievable and I'm very happy that we locked him up for some years to come as he'll eventually become part of our core.

Nick Young beat his career high by 1 point, one game after Caron achieved the same exact feat. Looks like we'll be seeing Antawn Jamison score 52 points at some point in the forseeable future. One thing that was very frustrating was Songaila's lack of athletecism.He struggle finishing plays and even catching some hard passes. He's pretty much only helpful with those mid-range jumpers.

Defense was awful, just when I thought we were improving in this department we let thousands of wide open three's go tonight. Golden State shot 52% from behind the arc and when you're at the game it feels like 70%.

These ref's were a little bit trigger happy with the technical calls, it didn't seem as though any of the players were really going too far with their complaints.

Also, the crowd was very good for a regular season game most likely because we were going up against the most dynamic offensive team in the league besides the Suns.

Wizards have Memphis tommorow, I'll put up a game thread sometime in the afternoon if anyone is actually reading this.

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GT: Golden State Warriors @ Washington Wizards

GArenas Wiz Fo Champz

Run BJM Heavy lies the crown. Staff Member Global Moderator

GArenas Wiz Fo Champz

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GT: Golden State Warriors @ Washington Wizards

GArenas Wiz Fo Champz

Run BJM Heavy lies the crown. Staff Member Global Moderator

GArenas Wiz Fo Champz

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