Golden State @ San Antonio: Game Thread, 11/10/2004 (& Mike Dunleavy's ESPN Profile)

Golden State @ San Antonio: Game Thread, 11/10/2004

<u>Golden State Warriors</u> (0-4) at <u>San Antonio Spurs</u> (2-1)

Wednesday, November 10, 2004 at 5:30 PM PST
At the SBC Center in San Antonio, TX
Golden State: Pacific Conference, 3.5 GB, 4th place
Dallas Mavericks: Southwest Conference, 1.5 GB, 2nd place

Starters:
Dallas Mavericks
PG Tony Parker
SG Manu Ginobili
SF Bruce Bowen
PF Tim Duncan
C Rasho Nesterovic

Golden State Warriors
PG Derek Fisher
SG Jason Richardson
SF Mike Dunleavy, Jr.
PF Troy Murphy
C Adonal Foyle

Quick Recaps
San Antonio started off well with two wins, but lost their most recent game against the Seattle Supersonics. In that game, poiwer forwards Reggie Evans and Danny Fortson were able to keep Tim Duncan off balance, leading to a 4-16 performance by Duncan. Although Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili picked up the scoring for San Antonio as they have been since the start of the season, they did not have enough help to overcome Seattle's hot outside shooting. Duncan leads the Spurs with averages of 24.3 points, 13.3 rebounds, and 2.3 blocks per game.

Golden State has come off a close overtime loss to the Dallas Mavericks last Monday. Although Golden State showed signs of spirit and competitiveness, it has not provided the team with anything in the standings. Jason Richardson and Derek Fisher provided the scoring spark in that game, scoring 25 and 23 points, respectively and carried the team into overtime, but could not get the team past it. They will need to get over the hump and forget about their mental mistakes that cost them that game.

Starting shooting guard Jason Richardson (hand) and starting point guard Speedy Claxton (thigh) are fighting injuries, and Claxton is not expected to play tonight. Derek Fisher starts in Claxton's place.

Key Matchup
Manu Ginobili v. Jason Richardson

Stopping Tim Duncan may be more a sign of luck than skill. Thus, the Warriors will have to key in on San Antonio's secondary offensive threat, Ginobili, who has averaged 21 points through three games to go along with 6.7 rebounds, 3.7 assists, and 3.0 steals. However, in spite of his impressive stat line, Ginobili has also been turning the ball over far too often (4.0 turnovers per game). If Richardson and the Warriors can keep tight defense on Ginobili and his passing lanes, chances are they can capitalize on those turnovers. In addition, the Warriors will need Richardson to play through his hand injury and also do as well as he did against the Mavericks.

Prediction
The Spurs, considered among the top teams in the NBA, also come in having something to prove after their loss to Seattle. The Warriors will have overcome an eight year, 13-game losing streak in San Antonio, although they almost beat Dallas despite their past misfortunes in that city. The Warriors will need to muster their best defense of the season to stop the Spurs.

 

The Warriors always seem to find a win against tough teams. So I hope/expect them to come out hard and play to the Spurs level. Mistakes have cost the W's two losses (Blazers, Mavs) and bad defense the others (Jazz, Clips). And the W's are also walking a fine line right now. 0-4 is not what we all expected, and Monday's game showed that the W's can get something going when Foyle plays smart and doesn't get in foul trouble.

Fisher and Richardson provided the spark and hopefully we can count on JRich night in and out. But Dunleavy is shooting the ball well this season and should continue to shoot more. He needs to be more assertive. Bringing a post game against Bowen would be nice. Murph is playing well considering he missed last season. Hopefully he'll have a consistent game against Duncan.

Montgomery's letting this team find its own image without pressing them, hopefully a few more "character" games like the Mavs game will get the W's more confidence and poise. Subtract mistakes, add more free throw attempts with of course free throw consistency, and this team will be able to compete.

 

Hopefully.

I think the warriors will focus on Tim Ducan mostly because of his dominance but others like Brent Barry, Ginobili, and Parker could very well step it up. Plus they have Rasho, that rookie point guard Udrih who is looking good, Malik Rose is decent, and Bowen is just money when it comes to defense. I think we're going to be hurting this game shooting the ball and trying to get it inside because of Rasho and Duncan just denying any layup or point blank shot. I swear Rasho used to look really bad on defense, but now he's gotten better.

BTW Yayareafanatic I got some Mickael Pietrus avatar/sigs if you want them.

 

Hey CR2, thanks for the offer. I'll take you up it, I had a few avatar's in my day, but wherever I put them in terms of hosting always goes down. But sure, hook me up. I can't wait to have Pietrus back.

By the way, did anyone catch Sesay and the job he did. The W's would have lost the lead earlier but he simply didn't allow it. Hats off to Ansu. Let's hope he gets some PT today.

You're also right about a secondary scorer hurting the W's. Let's hope the D shows its face again. No mistakes from Dunleavy or anyone else, and better tempo from Fisher toward the end. JRich needs to have another breakout game and show that he can be consistent.

 

91-71. Thats disheartening. They weren't even close, which tells they are a really bad team. I don't know what's wrong. I feel that most nights NBA teams are good enough to at least be close most nights.

It kinda sucks when our supposed goto guy can't even shoot 40% .

Also I just can't stand how Murphy plays. I hated him last year when he came back and started jacking up shots every chance he could get.

 

WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED? What is wrong with us? This has to be the worst season since we traded Sprewell for that guy from the Knicks. I cant think of his name....

 

<div class="quote_poster">Quoting Warriorfansnc93:</div><div class="quote_post">WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED? What is wrong with us? This has to be the worst season since we traded Sprewell for that guy from the Knicks. I cant think of his name....</div>

I wish I knew.
The sad part is the future looks bleaker. I don't see much hope.

I'm glad I haven't seen any of the games this year. I don't think I could watch.

 

Are we running a half court offense? With our athletes, we need to be running as much as possible. THEN, if we get to a point where we have to set up a half court offense, work Monty's magic. What is up with Jrich and Murphy???? I am so pissed that these guys got these fat contracts and are playing like CRAP!

 

You mean the great John Starks days.

 

Yeah, thats him

 

Starks days? You must be more optimistic than I am. I was thinking of the 18 game win season when we traded Webber. Well, since we didn't part our future 3 picks for Lafrentz or some stiff, so I guess the situation is little bit better...

 

If the Warriors continued down this horrible path, could Montgomery be fired as early as this year?

 

Well I guess we might as well start to pay attention to the coming up NCAA basketball season and figure out who is going to the 5 best college players. It looks like we will end up winning 20 games this year.

 

No way Montgomery shouldn't get fired for this, it is not his fault this is Mullin all the way. These scrubs we have aren't even Montgomery guys. We have no big man that Monty likes and every player out on the floor either gets lazy on defense or they just suck period. But the biggest annoyance of all is nobody can execute, knock down shots, or hit free throws. There's no inside game either. We need Josh Childress. Forget Jrich, forget Murphy, forget Dunleavy. If we could keep Murphy he'd be off the bench until he can develop some Mehmet Okur post moves. The problem is we're playing with all Musselman and St. Jean guys.

 

<div class="quote_poster">Quoting Duckmyster:</div><div class="quote_post">Well I guess we might as well start to pay attention to the coming up NCAA basketball season and figure out who is going to the 5 best college players. It looks like we will end up winning 20 games this year.</div>

It is still a little early, but if looking to next year's draft helps you,
PG Chris Paul, C Martynas Andriuskevicius, and PF Christ Taft are the currently projected top 3 picks depending if they declare and how they do. Others to look for: C Johan Petro, F Nemanja Aleksandrov, C Tiago Splitter, PG Raymond Felton, and G Rodolfo "Rudy" Fern?ndez (no relation to mod extraordinaire Rudeezy).

 

Martynas Andriuskevicius is intriguing. Not that we'll ever get the #1 overall pick anyway. We'll get the pick after or after that.

 

<div class="quote_poster">Quoting custodianrules2:</div><div class="quote_post">Martynas Andriuskevicius is intriguing. Not that we'll ever get the #1 overall pick anyway. We'll get the pick after or after that.</div>
be a little bit more optimistic. Well I guess there really isn't a reason to be. 13 years i htink and still nothings gone right. They've teased us though acouple of times. Then they just fall apart

 

The problem is that they're too old.

I mean just look:

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/recap?gameId=241110024 (scroll down)

 

<div class="quote_poster">Quoting superder81:</div><div class="quote_post">I mean just look:

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/recap?gameId=241110024 (scroll down)</div>
they used a picture of dunleavy's father for Dunleavy jr