Another game for the Warriors. It's already end of the first period and Marco looks great. Defense is non-existent. The arenas is half full or empty, depending on how you want to look at it.
Marco looks good, but the Hawks are outshooting us 61% to 35%, that's...not so good. I guess they should be happy to only be down 10. Another start for Kurz? WTF?
I don't know if he can sustain it long-term, but there is no doubt in my mind that Marco is the best PG on this team right now. Defensively he's still not good, but on this team that a minor sin at worst, and the offense definitely flows so much better when he's bringing the ball up the court. B Wright also looking very good tonight.
My favorite 5 from this game: Marco, Wright, Turiaf, and I forgot the other 2, I think it was Azubuike and half Morrow, half Crawford.
Another blown game. Three tough turnovers. Two by Marco, one by Crawford. The defense disappeared again in the end. I mean Marco left a hot Joe Johnson, wide open, fortunately he missed it. Then he came down and bricked a 3. Maybe Marco is not conditioned yet for so many minutes. Still good games by many players out there, including Marco and Wright.
Yeah, GS looked so much better with Bellinelli / Wright / Biedrins in the game together. I like them paired best with Morrow and either Az or Watson. Watson Belly Morrow Wright Beans That looked great for GS. They look SO MUCH more like a team when Maggette and Jackson aren't in there. How about BEans/Belly together? Now there's some chemistry! The only 1-on-1 chucker left of the bunch still in there was Crawford, and he was the sole reason why GS lost the game tonight. If Crawford could just swallow the fact that he is not a good shooter, maybe GS would've had a chance. But I don't think Crawford will ever stop and-1 mix-taping. That's just who he is, and it's the reason why he's never been part of a winning team in 9 seasons. I mean, the dude goes 3-15. The three makes were lay-ups. The 12 misses were jumpshot bricks. He comes down when a guy like Wright or Belly is red hot, and instad of finding the hot hand or the open guy, he just has to do one of his triple-crossover NBA-Live 2K9 moves and then fire off another brick. I swear, Crawford will do his triple crossover robot move even when there's no one guarding him. It's like he's pre-programmed to try to get on the ESPN highlight reel every time he touches the ball. It just kills the chemistry of the team when the other 4 guys all know Wright has a mismatch down low and is feeling the fire. There's a big neon sign saying PASS BRANDAN THE BALL!! and all Crawford can think is "I've got to fire off another one of my ugly-ass bricks off the side of the backboard." Warriors minus Jax/Mags look so much better as a team. Now if we can just get Crawford out of there somehow, we might get to see some winning basketball.
how come we are in every game in the fourth quarter, and without fail, as soon as crunch time hits, we fold like a bad hand in poker???
We don't do well in the 4th because of lack of mental toughness, defense, and experience to close out games. Plus, we don't put the game away sooner. I think that requires more guys with a weaponry of moves, killer instinct, and clutchness and the team to get that guy open. But again, like there's any discipline with this team's "stars". There's really no coaching to tell guys to not shoot the long ball clanker.
Because with a guy like Wright hot inside, the W's fail to execute a play late to get him the ball at the right time. Or go away from Andris late even though he's 10-12. Stupid.
The problem is that few on the Warriors can handle the ball when being pressured. So unfortunately, if it's a tight game, the only way the Warriors will win is if it's Crawford or CJ that's hot. Because they don't get into any kind of set until there's 7 or 8 left on the clock.
Yeah, this is in general something that's been bothering me about the Warriors for the last few years (and I think Nellie has to shoulder part of the blame for this): they just don't keep pounding on what is working. They fail to continue feeding the hot hand (which is a different thing than whatever outside jacker happens to be hot "heat-checking" himself with an idiotic 24-footer). If someone goes 4-5 or 8-10, you need to keep exploiting that until it stops working. The Warriors don't always do that, while the good, winning teams do that relentlessly.
