we are definitely not making the playoffs playing like this...Nellie needs to make a new rule where if you go in and chuck contested threes, you're pulled immediately, and this goes for Baron as well.
This is the first game I've watched this season. I can see more clearly why CR2 and others are so pessimistic, despite some wins. I didn't think the interior defense or half offense was this bad. I think a lot of the jacking was because they have no half court offense whatsoever, which is really surprising to me because I thought that was one thing Nelson was supposed to fix. Once NJ stepped up the defensive pressure and slowed down the game so that the warriors could not get early offense and fast breaks, Davis and Ellis struggled to play one on one, since that's basically their half court offense. No movement at all, just everyone on the perimeter plus some useless screens. They could use Jrich's offense in the fourth. It gives them three guys who can create their own shot. TO's and offensive rebounds continue to be a huge problem. Also I can see why Nelson has to use the zone. I would rather let teams take open threes and hope they miss than allow everyone to get all these layups and two footers. Plus they can't rebound better with man-to-man D, so might as well go zone, since in the W's went man to man for part of the game and let Mikki Moore and Kristic keep getting their own misses.
I didn't see the game. Just got home from taking two finals. But it sounds like the same-o, same-o. We need a shooter and a go to guy. Preferably in the front court. I could be way off because of going by the box score and your comments, but how else can you explain the Warriors losing games this way? Losing the last two games really hurt. We were supposed to win those. We need Pau Gasol, KG or Rashard Lewis to fall into our laps somehow.
Yeah it was definitely the same-o, same-o. It's not really that they don't have shooters. It's more the type of shots they got in the fourth. They'd all stand on the perimeter and shoot a contested shot with the clock expiring. I agree that ago to guy would certainly help. Jrich is the best option there but he's not healthy. Monta could be the guy but he's still learning. Ike to certain extent could do that but he needs to learn to handle doubles first. Problem is that no one was moving at all. Dunleavy tried to set some screens, but they were completely useless. And then once Dunleavy tried to move and then he moved to where Pietrus was standing and he just stood there right next to Dunleavy until Dunleavy pointed for Pietrus to move, then Baron got doubled and subsequently picked. Everytime that they tried to drive they couldn't get anything and they had to pass out which usually led to a turnover or missed three. But mainly no movement. A lot of one-on-one. They were lucky that Baron was hitting shots in the third (since he was taking a lot of terrible shots without passing). I think the main problem is the lack of rebounding and defense. If they could ever secure the defensive rebound then their defense would improve quite a bit. But they would need a true PF to prevent teams from just throwing it into the block for an two foot shot.
Nice recap by Don Nelson, Mike Dunleavy and Baron Davis. http://www.nba.com/warriors/news/recap_121806.html. Interesting comment by Don Nelson here though; I wonder what question was being asked to make him say this. <div class="quote_poster">Quoting "Don Nelson":</div><div class="quote_post">On the Warriors’ Bench “Evidently, I didn’t have enough confidence in my bench, in the guys that didn’t play or didn’t play very much. I thought to win this game, we had to play the guys that we played, and that’s the way it went. My bench guys are already playing. They are called starters now.” </div> I wonder if the question had anything to do with Murphy, Zarko, Diogu, or all of the above...
I think what Nelson was referring to with that comment was that his original starting lineup was supposed to be - Baron, Jrich, Dunleavy, Pietrus, and Murphy with a bench of Ellis, Biedrins, Barnes, Roberson, Ike And now they have Ellis, Biedrins, and Barnes starting along with Pietrus and Davis.
I thought i was watching a tape of last season..... in the fourth quarter when i realized that biedrins and ellis were actually on the floor. But there was Baron playing how Baron likes to play, holding the ball, 8 turnovers, ridiculous, i think he got stripped 3 times. Baron entered the second half with 8 assists, he finished the game with 9. It was jeckyll and hyde with baron. 4th quarter he went into mr. hyde mode and started jacking up three's, no ball movement, baseline fade aways, and all sense of team ball lost. Dunleavy who played his best game all season was hustling, playing almost fearless at times throwing his body into the fray and attacking the basket. With about 6 minutes left Nelson pulls him and sits for all but the last minute. I didnt get it. What happened to IKe and J-rich? a cameo appearance by ike for a blink of an eye and was j-rich in the game the second half? Might have been Biedrins worst performance in quite awhile.... i take that back..... the team just didnt use enough. outrebounded by 17, 12 turnovers by our starting guard tandem of ellis/davis, 58% free throw shooting..... not going to win many games with that. Truly disappointed, i thought this was one we were going to get ....especially how aggressive we were playing in the first half.... the bright spots for me were ellis and dunleavy's play.
Yeah, I was really disappointed in Baron too. And it wasn't only in the fourth quarter. It was also in the third except he was hitting his shots. I'm beginning to think that he had a lot to do with their not executing any plays down the stretch. He's supposed to be the pg. Since this is and one other game is all I've watched, has Baron been playing like this all season? From the posts on this forum, it seems like this is what Baron does in the fourth a lot.
Nelson was quoted as saying that he wants the ball in Baron's hands on every possession in one form or another. It's not like Baron is just free-wheeling and going off on his own. Nelson specifically wants his go-to guy to get the ball nearly every trip. On many of those, they're plays involving motion and passes. But on others, those are set plays: basically Nelson saying "Baron, if they miss and we rebound, I want you to take the ball and make something happen. Green light." Sure, Peitrus is supposed to camp in the corner, and Beans is supposed to set the high screen and then roll. But the rest is left purely up to Baron. I wasn't complaining when he was nailing shots and dumping dishes; I guess I can't complain when the offense went cold. But man, the Warriors had a 10 point lead and they blew it in the 4th, and I want to know what the hell Nellie was thinking having no center in there while Miki Moore had a frigin field day in the paint. I know Beans was in the locker room, but Nelson had Foyle and Diogu on the bench and he left them there to watch while Moore played like Wilt Chaimberlain, getting GS into foul trouble like 3 minutes into the quarter. It seemed like Nelson was just too stubborn or something to abandon small ball. Moore and then Kristic both had their way -- the biggest GS player on the floor was Dunleavy -- and they ended up shooting 15-20 something freethrows in the 4th alone! Biedrins finally came back but it was too late; the lead was gone and NJ had all the mojo. Nelson refusing to go to Foyle against Moore in the 4th cost the Warriors this game, plain and simple.
It's amazing how you can go from one quarter thinking this team could be something special when they all get healthy and mature a little and yes, we are going to the playoffs, to the next quarter thinking wow, this team sucks ass, they are the worst team ever and they are cursed. Baron filled up the stat sheet...with 8 turnovers, 15 missed shots, and 6 missed freethrows. Warriors 1-9 on the road. How can we dream of the playoffs in the west when we routinely get jacked by the mediocrity of the east?
Warriors got thumped on the boards. Nellie saw-in hindsight-he underused Foyle + Ike. Dunleavy can't guard bigs inside,nice game offensively but the Nets would screen off Biedrens and get a big man open inside. We held them to a low FG% because the perimeter D was tough,but with Biedrens on his own,they just send guys inside. An end game with Baron,Dun,Monta jacking perimeter is too deja vu....complete with the negative outcome. GET IKE IN AT THE END.
<div class="quote_poster">Gohn Wrote</div><div class="quote_post">This is the first game I've watched this season. I can see more clearly why CR2 and others are so pessimistic, despite some wins. I didn't think the interior defense or half offense was this bad. I think a lot of the jacking was because they have no half court offense whatsoever, which is really surprising to me because I thought that was one thing Nelson was supposed to fix. Once NJ stepped up the defensive pressure and slowed down the game so that the warriors could not get early offense and fast breaks, Davis and Ellis struggled to play one on one, since that's basically their half court offense. No movement at all, just everyone on the perimeter plus some useless screens. They could use Jrich's offense in the fourth. It gives them three guys who can create their own shot. TO's and offensive rebounds continue to be a huge problem. Also I can see why Nelson has to use the zone. I would rather let teams take open threes and hope they miss than allow everyone to get all these layups and two footers. Plus they can't rebound better with man-to-man D, so might as well go zone, since in the W's went man to man for part of the game and let Mikki Moore and Kristic keep getting their own misses.</div> You can change the coach, but you can't fix the players. Yeah, it's obvious the Warriors lineup didn't fit a motion halfcourt offense because you need a better center with hands, smarts, and size than in small ball and a coach who can take control. But not only that, better defense, offensive awareness, and guys who can shoot when they're open. Everything on the Warriors up til now is all on Mullin. He had all this room to work with after St. Jean left and what does he do? Whatever it was, it sure wasn't a very balanced team for any type of coach. I feel bad for Nelson. He could have stayed retired and not worry about this disaster of a ball club. I'm sorry. It's just hard to say something nice about this club when to me it's destined for mediocrity. If only we could get bigger somehow... our small ball lineup will not play into Nelson's hands unless he has some nba ready guys that are smart, talented, and aggressive enough to do what he wants. Even the smallest lineup has one guy that can score inside. Amare/Shawn Marion, whoever.
<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">Nelson was quoted as saying that he wants the ball in Baron's hands on every possession in one form or another. It's not like Baron is just free-wheeling and going off on his own. Nelson specifically wants his go-to guy to get the ball nearly every trip. On many of those, they're plays involving motion and passes. But on others, those are set plays: basically Nelson saying "Baron, if they miss and we rebound, I want you to take the ball and make something happen. Green light." Sure, Peitrus is supposed to camp in the corner, and Beans is supposed to set the high screen and then roll. But the rest is left purely up to Baron. I wasn't complaining when he was nailing shots and dumping dishes; I guess I can't complain when the offense went cold.</div> Baron is not Kobe. Kobe can take over games whenever he wants. But he also knows that he has to get his teammates involved to win games. When Baron dribbles the ball up court and then takes a three pointer. That is not good basketball. When Baron dribbles the ball up court and stands at the three point line and waits and waits. That is not good basketball. I don't mind Baron carrying the team. Sometimes he will have to that because he is the best player on the team but he can't do it for the entire game. Like others have said before, it feels like sometimes he deliberately forces himself into a situation where he has to take the tough shot. Like in the fourth quarter, when they did not turn the ball over or take a quick shot by dribbling up the court and shooting, the offense took quite a while to be initiated (meaning Baron is dribbling at the three point line and everyone is standing around). By the time they started doing anything the shot clock was down to 14-16 seconds. And even then it didn't look like much of an "offense" being run. Also I read a Biedrin's quote about the team not listening to the Nelson's game plan on offense. I don't remember where I read it though. I know that he was no getting much help from his teammates. But one of the problems is that when you let the shot clock run down and don't run any half court offense, their bound to get a tough shot, usually a contested three for them.
Here's that quote by Biedrins after the game: ""It's a big problem that we take too many jump shots at important moments in the game when we have to get fouled or drive the ball like coach says all the time," Biedrins said. "Sometimes nobody makes a call and sometimes we don't run anything and somebody shoots the ball. Or somebody didn't hear the call and some other mistake ends up in a difficult shot."
<div class="quote_poster">Gohn Wrote</div><div class="quote_post">"Sometimes nobody makes a call and sometimes we don't run anything and somebody shoots the ball. Or somebody didn't hear the call and some other mistake ends up in a difficult shot."</div>Hmm. "Somebody". I wonder who that could be? I mean the whole team is guilty but perhaps one man more than most. And can't we blame Nelson for not coming down on these punks for blowing off the game plan game after game in critical situations?
You don't need an inside post game to get good shots. See Suns and Jazz. You can run motion offense, but there has to be commitment by the players. Jacking up 3s in the 4th, on the road. Someday the Warriors will learn. According to the Chronicle, after running the Nets for 3 quarters, they reverted back to standing around. That's on the PG, but also on the others too.
