Don't get me wrong, I like Cheany. I would just rather see Pietrus in the game to develope his skills and gain confidence in these last few games of the season.
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting Rudeezy:</div><div class="quote_post">Don't get me wrong, I like Cheany. I would just rather see Pietrus in the game to develope his skills and gain confidence in these last few games of the season.</div> Me too. He did annoy me at times on the court but he's a great role model and that is what is important. Giving support to the core group of young players.
Did anyone watch NBA Fastbreak tonight? The Warriors were picked by Stephen A. Smith as his pick to be the spoiler for several hopeful playoff teams. While I don't usually (almost never) agree with what he says, I gotta agree with this. The Warriors just stuck a dagger in Cleveland's dreams, and will likely hurt the Blazers when they play them next. Like he said, they've got nothing to lose, and neither does Muss since he probably won't be back next year.
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting kobeonfire:</div><div class="quote_post">Did anyone watch NBA Fastbreak tonight? The Warriors were picked by Stephen A. Smith as his pick to be the spoiler for several hopeful playoff teams. While I don't usually (almost never) agree with what he says, I gotta agree with this. The Warriors just stuck a dagger in Cleveland's dreams, and will likely hurt the Blazers when they play them next. Like he said, they've got nothing to lose, and neither does Muss since he probably won't be back next year.</div> I'm not so sure about Portland but you never know. The biggest threat in Portland is the size and athleticism they have at small forward. Dunleavy can't guard D-miles. I wish we could have picked D-miles but I never thought his attitude towards playing would change by moving him from Cleveland. What a mismatch that guy is in size and speed.
Pietrus got in quick foul trouble and never seemed to get in a rythem. That's what i saw at least. I only watched most of the first half. So i don't know what happened in the second half, just that i guess JRich took over and it was pretty much a JRich vs. LeBron matchup. Last month JRich averaged about 17 points, 6 boards, and 4 assists. I think JRich has developed a ton this year. And actually last month was probably his worst shooting month of the year at about 40% along with poor FT shooting and 3point shooting. So once he gets his shot going again, he's going to be dangerous. Next year maybe he'll average 20/6/4...that would be fun to watch. Also JRich was the only one taking it to the hoop. You have to like his toughness, even though it doesn't take much to attack the rim against that poor defense that the Cavs have. I also liked how JRich was passing it to the perimeter after he was stopped by the collapsing defense to get his teammates an open shot. That was a good thing to see, because he'd sometimes try to hard to get to the hoop, even though he'd be totally stopped by the defense and just end up putting up a wild shot or get the ball knocked out of his hands. Last game it seemed like he saw this on tape as well, and was free to pass it to Dunleavy, Calbert, or Murphy for the open shot.
I would like him to be at least #10 in efficiency ranking next year. Solid free throws, solid shooting, low turnovers, high assists, solid rebounding, at least a steal every game and a block every now and then. That'd be sweet.
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting kobeonfire:</div><div class="quote_post">Did anyone watch NBA Fastbreak tonight? The Warriors were picked by Stephen A. Smith as his pick to be the spoiler for several hopeful playoff teams. While I don't usually (almost never) agree with what he says, I gotta agree with this. The Warriors just stuck a dagger in Cleveland's dreams, and will likely hurt the Blazers when they play them next. Like he said, they've got nothing to lose, and neither does Muss since he probably won't be back next year.</div> See, even Stephen A. Smith backs me up. Unless they start playing better for the BEGINNING of each regular season, they are going to be a spoiler team every season. Or unless God sends Gilbert Arenas back to this team, the Warriors are going to stay playoff pretenders forever. Like I said in Cleveland forum, the Warriors have proved they can be a great team, but they're always set aback with pressure. Pressure to make the playoffs. When they're guaranteed of elimination, pressure flies away and the players play with the attitude of "nothing to lose". This doesn't signal a contender. A contender plays hard every single night regardless of its record. The Warriors don't show this. I love the Warriors (nice jersey!) yo but stop being spoilers! Rhino (chompin').
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting PupMelo:</div><div class="quote_post">See, even Stephen A. Smith backs me up. Unless they start playing better for the BEGINNING of each regular season, they are going to be a spoiler team every season. </div>Here we go again. The Warriors started out the season rather well despite some players starting on the IL. After beating the Lakers and Kings in back to back games, their record was 14-13. Than the injuries began to catch up with them. <div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">Or unless God sends Gilbert Arenas back to this team, the Warriors are going to stay playoff pretenders forever. Like I said in Cleveland forum, the Warriors have proved they can be a great team, but they're always set aback with pressure. Pressure to make the playoffs. </div>Are you kidding me? Pressure to make the playoffs? The only ones that had pressure to make it is the front office and they don't seem to give a damn. When all the experts predict the Warriors to be at the bottom of the West, is that pressure? <div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">When they're guaranteed of elimination, pressure flies away and the players play with the attitude of "nothing to lose". This doesn't signal a contender. A contender plays hard every single night regardless of its record. The Warriors don't show this.</div>Once again you are talking out of your ass and making yourself look like a fool. The Warriors HAVE played hard all season, that is one trait they have been consistent with. As I said before, they have had too many injuries and they are not good enough to make up for those. Stop commenting on a team you obviously know nothing about!
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting Rudeezy:</div><div class="quote_post">Here we go again. The Warriors started out the season rather well despite some players starting on the IL. After beating the Lakers and Kings in back to back games, their record was 14-13. Than the injuries began to catch up with them. Are you kidding me? Pressure to make the playoffs? The only ones that had pressure to make it is the front office and they don't seem to give a damn. When all the experts predict the Warriors to be at the bottom of the West, is that pressure? Once again you are talking out of your ass and making yourself look like a fool. The Warriors HAVE played hard all season, that is one trait they have been consistent with. As I said before, they have had too many injuries and they are not good enough to make up for those. Stop commenting on a team you obviously know nothing about!</div>
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting PupMelo:</div><div class="quote_post">See, even Stephen A. Smith backs me up. Unless they start playing better for the BEGINNING of each regular season, they are going to be a spoiler team every season. Or unless God sends Gilbert Arenas back to this team, the Warriors are going to stay playoff pretenders forever. Like I said in Cleveland forum, the Warriors have proved they can be a great team, but they're always set aback with pressure. Pressure to make the playoffs. When they're guaranteed of elimination, pressure flies away and the players play with the attitude of "nothing to lose". This doesn't signal a contender. A contender plays hard every single night regardless of its record. The Warriors don't show this. I love the Warriors (nice jersey!) yo but stop being spoilers! Rhino (chompin').</div> OMG. Talk about another waste of bandwidth for a clod that obviously was too lazy or stupid to even reply or acknowledge what was said in the Cavs forum about your "cavs are winners/warriors aren't because they aren't playoffs eligible" type of comments. But I'll reply because it seems that not only is your "skin thick like rhino", but so is your skull ...and NOTHING else. Help prove me wrong please. Here it goes (AGAIN): The warriors suffered injuries that went 2 or 3 positions deep all throughout the season, including at the start of the season. They still remained competitive though as Rudeezy mentioned above. Warriors starters Nick Van Exel (go to guy and veteran playmaker) and Troy Murphy (big guy who averaged a double double last year) were all important pieces that were supposed to add scoring punch and rebounding to get the offense going in the game. There were countless games blown that should have been won and things got especially worse when Nick Van Exel was too injured to play and the warriors needed to find another go to guy which nobody on the team was accepting of that role as indicated by the overpassing, shotclock violations and turnovers. Also Adonal Foyle, who was one of the leaders last year in blocked shots per 48 minutes, was supposed to be giving Dampier (league leader in rebounds, field goal %, double doubles, efficiency) rest from foul trouble so he could appear in the 4th quarter to rebound and put a body on people. We had no backup center or third string center and therefore Dampier had to come out earlier with a smaller power forward used as a center. And guess what? There were many defensive stops but no defensive rebounding. What's the point of playing good team defense to force bad shots only to give the other team another chance to score because there was no defensive rebound. BOTTOM LINE: You can't expect to win close games if you don't have a quality backup, your two starting players that are your team's leaders and your veteran go to guy healthy. Not only that, Pietrus, Richardson, Dunleavy, Claxton all had injuries where they missed a bunch of games where offense and depth was needed to last the entire 48 minutes. As soon as one guy got healthy another guy got injured. On top of that even our third string guys were all injured too or did I mention that already? That leaves about only 8 or 7 healthy guys with 2 of the most important positions (center and power forward) without any backups. How can you maintain a lead when you have guys, who are your defensive rebounders and inside presence, that are playing without rest or protection from foul trouble? This especially goes for most of those games where a defensive stop was made but they couldn't secure the rebound because they don't have an available center or true power forward. You're not going to get respect on any team forums if you're going to play it ignorant and not know anything about the team you're trying to make comments about.
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting PupMelo:</div><div class="quote_post">See, even Stephen A. Smith backs me up. Unless they start playing better for the BEGINNING of each regular season, they are going to be a spoiler team every season. Or unless God sends Gilbert Arenas back to this team, the Warriors are going to stay playoff pretenders forever. Like I said in Cleveland forum, the Warriors have proved they can be a great team, but they're always set aback with pressure. Pressure to make the playoffs. When they're guaranteed of elimination, pressure flies away and the players play with the attitude of "nothing to lose". This doesn't signal a contender. A contender plays hard every single night regardless of its record. The Warriors don't show this. I love the Warriors (nice jersey!) yo but stop being spoilers! Rhino (chompin').</div> OMG. Talk about another waste of bandwidth for someone that obviously was too lazy (or stupid, I hope not stupid) to even reply or acknowledge what was said in the Cavs forum about your "cavs are winners/warriors aren't because they aren't playoffs eligible" type of comments. But I'll reply because it seems that not only is your "skin thick like rhino", but so is your skull ...and NOTHING else. Help prove me wrong please. Here it goes (AGAIN): The warriors suffered injuries that went 2 or 3 positions deep all throughout the season, including at the start of the season. They still remained competitive though as Rudeezy mentioned above. Warriors starters Nick Van Exel (go to guy and veteran playmaker) and Troy Murphy (big guy who averaged a double double last year) were all important pieces that were supposed to add scoring punch and rebounding to get the offense going in the game. There were countless games blown that should have been won and things got especially worse when Nick Van Exel was too injured to play and the warriors needed to find another go to guy which nobody on the team was accepting of that role as indicated by the overpassing, shotclock violations and turnovers. Also Adonal Foyle, who was one of the leaders last year in blocked shots per 48 minutes, was supposed to be giving Dampier (league leader in rebounds, field goal %, double doubles, efficiency) rest from foul trouble so he could appear in the 4th quarter to rebound and put a body on people. We had no backup center or third string center and therefore Dampier had to come out earlier with a smaller power forward used as a center. And guess what? There were many defensive stops but no defensive rebounding. What's the point of playing good team defense to force bad shots only to give the other team another chance to score because there was no defensive rebound. BOTTOM LINE: You can't expect to win close games if you don't have a quality backup, your two starting players that are your team's leaders and your veteran go to guy healthy. Not only that, Pietrus, Richardson, Dunleavy, Claxton all had injuries where they missed a bunch of games where offense and depth was needed to last the entire 48 minutes. As soon as one guy got healthy another guy got injured. On top of that even our third string guys were all injured too or did I mention that already? That leaves about only 8 or 7 healthy guys with 2 of the most important positions (center and power forward) without any backups. How can you maintain a lead when you have guys, who are your defensive rebounders and inside presence, that are playing without rest or protection from foul trouble? This especially goes for most of those games where a defensive stop was made but they couldn't secure the rebound because they don't have an available center or true power forward. You're not going to get respect on any team forums if you're going to play it ignorant and not know anything about the team you're trying to make comments about.
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting PupMelo:</div><div class="quote_post">Cavs lost the game, that's too bad, James (34 pts) tried to step it up, scoring and carrying the team down the stretch, but Jason Richardson (35 pts) kept nailing the intentional foul free throws. This may have killed the team playoff hopes. I kept thinking, why wouldn't the Warriors let the Cavs have this one? Even when they won it, they wouldn't get any seed in the Western Conference, while for the Cavs they've still got the chance. If they could play this well, why didn't they play this well all season long and play like a contender? They're just playing a spoiler, I totally hate spoiler teams like the Warriors.</div> <div class="quote_poster">Quoting PupMelo:</div><div class="quote_post">You guys Warrior backers didn't answer my question "why didn't they play this well all season long and play like a contender?" Well, let me do it for you, early in the season the Warriors were playing with pressure and some sort of expectation by some people that they should make the playoffs. That's why they lost and lost and lost, now that the team is eliminated, they're like, "phewww, now we can finally play!" and stopped sweating. I'm just guessing that's their pressure-free attitude, which is common for pretenders. But, yeah I agree with one of your points: it's the Cavs' bad they couldn't win against pretenders... not an excuse.</div> <div class="quote_poster">Quoting PupMelo:</div><div class="quote_post">^^ That's alright don't bother me being embarassed my skin is thick like rhino you kno, anyway Damp's their key player tonight, he didn't play and they still managed to win the game. So, the Warriors can actually win games without key players just like the 76ers right? That doesn't erase the fact they couldn't win early in the season. No matter what team plays in what conference, there's a fine line between winners and losers. The Cavs are winners, they're playing for something here. Your team isn't playing for nothing, except for ending the season quick and off to holidays. But yeah they won, so what? You expect me to yell, "Go Warriors go!"?</div> <div class="quote_poster">Quoting PupMelo:</div><div class="quote_post">How are they winners when they have a losing record? True winners never fold during tough times, record doesn't show that, it's something more meaningful and important beyond record. They're competitive out there, playing for a reason. Ever heard a guy on a losing team say, "I'm a winner"? Countless times. That's why they play great. The Cavs lose this time, yeah but they're still winners because they're fighting, clawing, pushing, kicking, playing hard every game. That's winners... they never give up because they know if they don't give up there's a chance for them to do sth special: playoffs, duuhhh! The Warriors also didn't give this game up, which is.... good if they would have played their entire season like the way they play lately, I wouldn't give you all Warriors a hard time huahahaha.</div> <div class="quote_poster">Quoting Dre:</div><div class="quote_post">What was that about an IQ test to gain membership to JBB again? Sometimes that seems like a mighty fine idea.</div> 'nuff said. I'm not trying to attack anyone. It's nothing personal. I'm just trying to make a point that some ignorant things were said that were obviously going to irk any fan wanting to to set the facts straight and why true professionals don't lay down for anyone. Also the warriors pressure to make the playoffs theory doesn't cut it. They're playing well because it is a team of true professionals this year.
