Jack is back. Unfortunately, I don't like the way the team is being coached. I think Nelly has to move Crawford over to SG with Watson in at apoint. Jax can't handle the ball too well and Crawford is too trigger happy to move the ball up. EDIT: My bad CJ Watson is out. They should go to Marcus Williams, then!
LOL. Crawford blocked Pachulia's shot a mid-court. The Warriors are fired up and on a roll now. Nellie, put in Marcus Williams.
Well, Nelly's has camel toe with the way he keep sitting Marcus Williams. Oh well, we're winning and turnovers are being cut down so who is complaining. As bad as the warriors flaws are you have to admit Sjax and Crawford are clutch in late game situations. Crawford is the probably the best guy we have that can shoot off the dribble from midrange, but it took him a while to get situated. He didn't settle for 3's which is good. Plus, Mags is a terrific finisher. If he can go inside every time he's like having a big guy score in the paint. The problem is he's too slow on defense. He's always late which indicates it's a combo of him not being aware, not showing effort on that end of the floor, and lacking foot speed. He's like a Troy Murphy in a way. Stat-padder! Mags is a bad passer and decision-maker at times... but I"ll take 20 and 10 with free throws and high fg %...
Biedrins made a defensive stop and got a huge rebound to lead the Warriors on a run in the 4Q. Woo hoo.
I love Turiaf, but Biedrins works for such an atrocious defensive team because Biedrins is simply quicker to the ball. He's a big guy that is able to block/contest a shot and immediately follow up. He's got such good recovery that he is able to get the rebound where most centers would be anchored down to the floor or out of position or off balance. Turiaf is slower, a better shotblocker per 48 minutes, but he works very well post-defense wise and making a statement with physical presence. If Turiaf didn't go after as many shots, he'd be getting more rebounds and we'd get more box outs. He's an excellent screen setter and he'll go to work early in the paint every time down without slacking. I think the bigs sort of won this game even though the big 3 scorers Sjax, Mags, and Crawford had big games.
Definitely the bigs won the game tonight. The W's outrebounded the Hawks. I like the combo of Turiaf and AB in there. Neither are real big offensive players, but they complement each other and they seem to help each other on defense. I was watching the Lakers play by play and Kobe missed a 27-footer to tie the game and send into OT. Lakers lose. That's icing on the cake.
Mags had 16 rebounds! Beans had 9, but SJax had 7 and Morrow had 6. We owe the rebounding to the guards. However, without Beans in there, we were sucking bad. He made all the difference in the end.
Pretty good game. As atrocious as this season has been I might even say things are looking a little bright at the end of the tunnel. We're still losing games but our FG% has been great the last few games and we're playing very solid offensively. The defense is still crap but for a team this young its good to see steady improvement on a game-by-game basis. The team FG% is really amazing though- we've still been losing a lot of games but we're playing well and thats without Monta, Jack (before tonight), Beli the last few games, and Wright. I'm not 100% for all of Nellie's moves this season but you can't complain about the improvements made offensively from the beginning of the season to this recent stretch of great team FG% shooting. I guess the defense is Smart's problem now? Its difficult for him because most of our players are offense-oriented and he can only work with the players put on the roster by the GM and the players in the rotation from the head coach. I saw some headlines of articles about the W's trying to re-work Crawford's defense perhaps like Ray Allen in Boston or even Marco Belinelli here in GS. Individually you can't complain about the frontline anymore- Beans, Turiaf, Wright, Randolph. Problem is when you put Mags at PF. With Jack back that makes the perimeter D a bit better but you've still got MAgs and Crawford stinking it up on D out there. Beli is also out now and hes one of our better defenders. Monta isn't really known for his D but he can force some TOs, once Beli and Wright get back that ought to be an upgrade as well. We'll see how this progresses.
Well, first, I will admit that Maggette scored and rebounded well tonight. But man, he was just a walking brain fart out there on defense. He kind of nullifies any positive contribution with zero effort on D. I swear, at 4:20 in the 3rd quarter, he let Smith just walk right around him for an easy finger roll. It wasn't a good move, or a missed assignment, he just stood there and showed no heart, no desire to even try. Seriously. Then, at 2:40 in the 3rd, he comes down in transition, picks up Bogans for a second, and while Bogans is dribbling on the wing, Maggette just turns and walks away! to go find his man, like "well, this isn't my man, so I'm not supposed to be guarding him. I better go and find my man." LOL! And Bogans looked at him in mid-dribble like "dude, where's he going? Doesn't he see I have the basketball?" I guess Maggette didn't factor in that part So then Bogans just swishes in an easy 10 footer like "are you serious?" BTW, I still think Morrow and Biedrins are the two best players for this team right now. Morrow just scraps. I like him on defense. I like him on the glass. I like his energy. I like how he gets pumped up and pissed off. I like how he lasers in his shots. I like how he's the 2nd best three shooter in the NBA. I hate how NOBODY passes to him. Ever. I'm so sick of watching Jamal Crawford take jumpers for this team. I mean, sure he scored plenty tonight, no question. But he's barely a career 40% FG shooter, which is bad, and a career 35% three shooter, which is bad, especially considering he's shot the 8th most threes in the league at 216 this year. Not only does he brick most of them, he shoots more than almost anyone! And this is a pattern. Here are Crawford's rankings for threes attempted per season (I'm going to show the following: year/ranking/attempts/attempts per game/percentage): 2003-2004: 3rd / 521 attempts / 6.5 per game / .317% 2004-2005: 6th / 512 attempts / 7.3 per game / .361% 2005-2006: 40th / 293 attempts / 3.7 per game / .345% 2006-2007: 28th / 322 attempts / 5.5 per game / .320% 2007-2008: 6th / 494 attempts / 6.2 per game / .356% 2008-2009: 8th / 220 attempts / 5.9 per game / .355% Do we see a pattern here? Almost every season he is top ten in attempts, and yet not once in his career has he ever flirted with 40% over a full season. Not even close. Guys like Peja and Joe Johnson should be shooting an insane amount of threes, yeah, because they make 'em. But why the hell are guys like Baron Davis and Jamal Crawford consistently killing their team's chances of success by shooting it every time they touch it? Anyway, I want to watch Morrow and Randolph. Wright and Bellinelli. Those are the players that matter to this franchise. Why are we letting the rental player Jamal Crawford shoot 30 shots a game? What this team should be figuring out is how to win with those young guys. Not trying to figure out how to win with Corey Maggette and Jamal Crawford lol. Because you'll never be a winner with those two guys as the focal point of your team. Not going to happen. I'm also sick of Nellie's dumb ass. What' is he thinking? Why is he pulling Randolph for one defensive error, and then subbing in Maggette for 20 minutes of CONSTANT defensive errors? I mean, Randolph is three times the defensive presence of Corey Maggette. If you're really making your substitutions based on defensive responsibility, then Randolph should be playing 40 minutes and Maggette 8. So don't give me that. I really think Nellie just uses that as an excuse to flex his power. The Warriors won tonight but they still look like garbage to me. Jackson still lollygagging instead of running back on D; and basically about 75% of the offense is just herky jerky one-on-one from Crawford/Mags/Jax. Morrow is twice the shooter that those guys could ever dream of being, yet they all REFUSE to pass to him. I think they're afraid of losing their jobs.
