It's the third quarter already but I figured what the hay. Lots of good ball movement tonight and the shots are falling...always a plus. I was really harsh on Watson but his shot has really improved and it's pretty reliable now. He can shoot 3's now. His release is really quick...like a set shot, but he doesn't seem to fully extend yet he follows through and the shot looks good. He is turning into a real good backup PG...emphasis on backup.
We could probably say the same about Brandan Wright. He's our starting 4 except look who's in the game now...4 guards and Biedrins. Jermaine O'Neal is out with the flu so that's why they said Nellie went small but I bet he would have gone small regardless. It's working now but Wright needs some burn.
The Warriors are also playing a tight rotation, which is weird to me. I mean, we can't guard jump shooters for our life and Morrow has a money shot. Which is my I'm surprised he's not in the game.
Morrow has kind of gone cold since he had those two big games. He'll emerge again but I think Watson shooting well, Morrow is too one-dimensional to be put in the game at the moment. Trust me, Warrior fans want to see Brandan Wright play, especially now that they're getting really perimeter and Bosh keeps eating up the paint.
I really don't like the way the warriors are continuing to roll with Sjax at PF. It's going to fail down the stretch. Mark my words.
I would love to see Wright vs. Bosh. Both have similar games and Wright should model his game after Bosh IMO. So far only Bosh, Moon and Jose really playing well. Good to see Moon in double digits. Also, Jose with a double double is nice to see.
Shoot, I was nervous for a while. Sjax is actually hanging in there at PF despite playing against Bosh and racking up huge minutes played. We were out-rebounded by a bunch... CJ Watson comes through in the clutch... I swear his midrange shot off the dribble is money. Belinelli has the home crowd fans chanting "Rocky! Rocky! Rocky!" Hilarious. The ball movement looked pretty nice in this game, but we essentially won based on superior shooting (especially from outside). This will not happen every game for us...
Damn, lost another. I really thought the Raptors had a chance, but the Warriors just out shot us. There needs to be a major shake up in Toronto man. Bosh isn't gonna be pleased scoring 30 and grabbing 14 rebounds to lose.
Well the Warriors lucked out by being so hot from the field. They gave up 20 offensive rebounds and the Raptors shot 17 more FGs. Turiaf is really starting to annoy me in how he keeps trying to block every shot. I thought Humpheries played a very nice game. It just came a little bit too late for the Raptors I guess. Overall this was a really good, close game. Each quarter was decided by one point - against the Warriors - but one quarter. It was just a 9 point advantage in the second quarter for the Warriors that was enough for the Warriors to win. The stretch of games where the bench got some PT to emerge is really key for this team. I think the Warriors are really improving, especially after the Boston win. They just need to clean up the defensive glass.
Yeah, we got lucky with this one. Again, Nellie felt the need to go small since the Raptors did. Just once, I'd like Nellie to go big (i.e. normal) against a team that goes small. I don't care if it's Biedrins/Turiaf, Biedrins/Wright, or Turiaf/Wright, but I feel we can defend the paint so much better in the half court by taking up a lot of space and matching size in the paint. Oh well, Wright is coming along pretty nicely, I suppose, and Turiaf is better as a primary backup to Biedrins. CJ really has stepped up his shooting. His hands are really active on defense as well. The coaches keep stats on deflections; I'd like to see Watson's numbers on that one. It seems he gets a hand on the ball a lot in every game now. He's got very long arms. Most importantly, it looks like he's having a lot of fun out there hitting key shots down the stretch. Belinelli keeps soaring and I'm loving that he's playing tons of minutes now.
I'll take the win, and for most of the game the ball movement was just superb, maybe the best I've seen from the Warriors this year. But that small ball in the 4th quarter still makes me very nervous. Nelson just has a permanent hardon for 4 guards + one guy a little taller than a guard. They had a lot of problems rebounding the ball (surprise!) and got very lucky that Toronto didn't cash in on those very efficiently. Again Wright sits most of the game on the bench for no apparent reason, Randolph doesn't even get a foot ont he court, while SJax plays all 48 minutes of the game -- I'm sure that won't be a problem because the Warriors have never had a problem with anyone getting tired towards the end of the season before, have they? Well I don't want to complain too much because a win is a win, and the Warriors overall are showing some good signs over the past week or so. But Nelson's stubbornness is not going away and it's mostly detrimental.
Yeah, I would like to see some tall player especially when Crawford isn't clicking and Toronto was getting 20 offense rebounds. We really dodged bullets, because Toronto missed tons of uncontested shots. But, I will take any win at this point...
Marco is the only guy who knows how to penetrate and kick. So it was killing me seeing as how he was on the bench from the 8 min to the 3:30 min mark in the 4th. Meanwhile, the rest of the team let the lead shrink to 2. Crawford jacking up some jumpers, along with Kelenna and Watson. Crawford was worthless except for that 3. He's not a creator for others. Why 4 guards while you get pounded on the glass while Turiaf goes for another shot block? Does Nellie realize that even the best shot blockers in the league get 2 a game meanwhile there are over 80 rebounds per game available? What's more important? Yes the Warriors won, that's exciting and great but they had to shoot 55% from 3 to win. Where's Wright and Randolph? Oh yeah, on the bench.
Randolph is a good rebounder. But is he someone you want in the game late in regulation? He is a pretty bad shooter and very highly turnover prone. Brandan Wright, I believe should get more minutes, but I am not sold on the idea that putting him in the game will suddenly improve the team's defensive rebounding to a very significant degree. I have not seen that yet. You can see Andris really getting some wear on him (I think he had a busy offseason playing a lot of ball too, which all may be catching up on him). Unfortunately he may not be able to play 40 minutes a night, but I thought just putting Biedrins in for Turiaf could have helped for rebounding. But then again, maybe I wasn't watching the game close enough, since someone told me that he was getting burned by Bosh. But I thought he did pretty well.
Wright isn't a great rebounder, but he's still better than any of our guards or small forwards. He averages 10.3 per 48 minutes*. The closest guard or small forward currently playing is Azubuike at 7.8 per 48, so that's a significant dropoff (24% fewer). I agree that Wright could and should do better rebounding, but he's still the best option we have there right now, and he can score and block shots. Randolph's rebounds per 48 are a lot higher, at 15.5, but he has a lot more negatives than Wright does currently, as you mentioned leading the team in turnovers per 48 and shooting only 40% from the field. I want more minutes for Randolph, but I probably wouldn't put him in a tight game in crunch time very often. I don't need to see Wright playing 35 minutes a game, I just think it's ridiculous the way Nellie is jerking around Wright's minutes. Unless he's really screwing up in a way that's much obviously worse than any other Warrior, he should be getting at least 15 in every single game. Not a couple minutes and then benched for the remainder. His minutes for the last few games are: 12, 7, 30, 8, 16, 18, 20, 31, 5. He's never going to develop like that. * Yes, I know Per-48 stats can be misleading, but in this case I think they are a pretty accurate reflection of the situation.
