Great game. Let the tanking continue. I can't fault Monta for that last play even though he had Morrow wide open. It was a crazy sequence and he didn't know how much time was left so he just ran to the line and jacked up a prayer...almost went in.
Yeah, but you can sorta blame him for going 5-23. When Curry is looking like Magic Johnson out there, at some point you have to accept that you're not the best player anymore, and stop settling for 1-on-1 jumpers. Monta looked like Maggette last night.
Yea totally man, Monta had 11 assists and just 1 turnover, not to mention playing lockdown D on Kobe forcing a big handful of turnovers, along with going 45 minutes. Sure as hell looked like Magette.
Yeah, but wouldn't you want your top scorer to try to score? They needed Monta to have a good game to win last night and he didn't. He did have all those assists with only 1 turnover and he played great D on Kobe. I think he did what he was supposed to do but his shots didn't fall. Some of them were suspect, but you can't tell your top scorer to not try to score. I think Monta is gradually accepting Curry's role as the floor general. Last night, he seemed fine that they drew up the play for Curry to take the shot. You know what would have helped? If Curry made the damn wide-open shot.
Also, at what point did Monta's play directly hinder Curry's play? Curry still had an outstanding game with or without Monta's bad shooting night. If Monta made a couple shots more, we would have won. It just wasn't his night but he delegated scoring (11 assists) and played D, so you can't blame the loss solely on him. What about the rebounding and free throw disparity?
Lol exactly what I was thinking. Monta and Curry made some damn clutch plays last night but FUCK that shot was open. Monta blatantly missed Morrow on the last shot and put it up with more than 2 seconds left on the clock but still can't really blame him as he got the offensive rebound and came real close to making it (this was all right after he hit a clutch 3 to get us within 2 pts of the lead). Curry was our chance to win- brilliant play drawn up by Nellie btw- we're lucky Monta even got that rebound and put up a shot that almost went in. I am a little mad at Monta for shooting so poorly. On the one hand I know he makes A LOT of those jumpers most nights but last night he was way off on a lot of them. He did keep shooting with confidence and hit that clutch 3 late. Hes still our go to guy and he'll shoot better typically but he does often force it a little to much and kill our rhythm at times. Hes no Maggette but why not pass up the awkward/forced shot. Worse case scenario you'll probably get the ball back with less than 5 seconds left on the shot clock and you can take the same shot. He obviously shoots a much better % most nights but I wouldn't mind seeing him scale back the isolation plays a little bit. Man I'd love to see Curry work with bigs who are more athletic/better finishers like Wright and Randolph. Just having Curry would make me 10x more excited about drafting a guy like Cousins, Favors, Monroe. Even Aldrich, Ed Davis, Patterson, Aminu, etc. Lets hope Riley/Nelly make a pick just as good as last season (we should have a top 5 pick this year).
He looked like Maggette in bricking all those pull-up jumpers. He settled way too often for those outside shots instead of attacking the rim like he normally does. Lock down defense on Kobe? I don't get it. Kobe scored 29 points on 9-18 shooting. Yes, Monta managed to play Kobe pretty well, but no better than your typical defender. Hey, the assists are nice, but I don't recall too many moments where Monta created plays for others (such as the wide-open Morrow at the end of the game). Some of those assists came from Monta having nowhere to go, and needing someone to bail him out, and then that someone hitting a shot. It's not like Monta was drawing the defense in (see Stephen Curry) and then finding the open players. He was often just going and-1 for the outside jumper. Curry is just so much better. He always has a feel for the floor, the spacing, an dhow to set up his teammates. Curry's passes help his teammates. Many of Monta's passes help himself. No, he didn't look like Maggette in the assist column, but he did look like Maggette with the selfish pull-up jumpers. It was one night, though, and that's not usually Monta's game (Where on the other hand it's Maggette's game for life). Monta's still our best scorer, but he just needs to learn to defer to the playmaker so he can get open for easy shots. Better shots. Open shots.
