Was a great game. Ellis and Maggette were the hot hands. The bench and role players were great tonight. There was a play of the year candidate on the Curry pass to Ellis over to Randolph which led to a slam dunk. Looks like I chose a good time to watch Turiaf comes back and they play against a run n' gun team whose rebounding isn't what you call dominant.
Yeah, Monta was pretty awesome with 33 points, 10 assists, 6 rebounds, 3 steals, and a block, although he had seven turnovers. A few of those turnovers were totally not his fault. Man, Magggette had an awesome stat line, but if I hadn't seen the box score I'd have said he was horrible. He was credited with 6 turnovers, but in reality he caused about 12. He was responsible for several of Monta's turnovers. Monta had him on a sweet drive and dish, Maggette caught the ball right under the hoop, ready for the dunk, and then just threw the ball out of bounds. How about CJ Watson's atrocious defense on Steve Nash? Nash hit like 3 threes in a row, each time Watson not even giving a hint of trying to fight over the screen. In fact, it's funny. At the top of the key, Watson will sense the pick coming, he'll turn around to look behind him, and then he'll go "seek out" the screener so he can run behind him. Even before the screener has set the screen. It's like "Hey, screener, let me make your job easier. You stay there. I'm going to come over there and run behind you so Nash can have 8 feet of daylight." I swear, it's laughable. At the end of the game, he went for the steal, something he always does, something that usually leaves his other teammates burned as they go 4-on-5. It nearly burned him. Nash of course avoided it, and had an open look. CJ did a good job of sprinting back to harass Nash, and Nash eventually missed, and Nellie was said to have told Watson "you made a good play." Well, he didn't. He just got away with a mistake. Nash had an open look, but he hesitated, and allowed CJ to catch up. CJ is always going for those easy steals. It's a lot easier to do that, and look like you "gave it your all," and then have your man score, than it is to try and stay in front of him the whole time, and get exposed as a terrible defender. Morrow never let it get to him, and kept trying to fight his way out of this slump. 14 points, 6 rebounds and 3 assists, despite 0-5 from three. He had a few clutch plays in the 4th, including a late rebound and putback. What was with Nelson playing Watson pretty much the entire 4th quarter over Curry? Curry was smoking hot from three in the first half, and was playing well. He was caught up a little bit in the Nash match-up, but that's good for him. Even though the stat line didn't show it, Randolph played one of the best games of his career. 17 points and 6 rebounds, but on 6-7 shooting, he really seemed to play under control, and more intelligent than usual. he had a few ugly miscues with Morrow and Curry (actually he had 5 TO, but they do not reflect his game last night). He had some 2-man game passes to those guys that went errant. But it's okay, they are young and are learning together. I like it.
LOL. I told ya so. Okay, so Maggette critics will disagree, but the reason why the Warriors are not a playoff team is because we still need more. With the way the Warriors play, we need a solid nine man rotation. The year we made it to the playoffs, we had Baron, JRich, Barnes, AB and Jackson as starters with Monta, MP, Buike and AL off the bench. It's up to management to spend the money to fill in the holes. We don't necessarily need to trade. So far, we got: Curry Monta AB AR BW INJ Bench Morrow Mags Hunter/Turiaf Buike INJ Bell INJ We should be able to put together a solid nine or ten man rotation if we can develop our players into solid performers and management gets us what we need.
I got some free tix to this game, I was so worried it would be a blowout and totally boring for my girlfriend and I but not only was it a close game they actually won! Just wanna say Turiaf is a fuggin stud. I think he might have the most impact on a game out of all the players on our team. Great post defense, great help defense, sets good picks, never turns it over, provides leadership and energy. There's a reason why Nellie always plays him at C to close out games. Monta and Mags played great. Curry had a nice game too though. Also I agree with Alleyoop, Randolph had an EXCELLENT game because he was so under control. Had a couple finishes on the fast break where he avoided a would-be charge for a sweet lay-in.
Jason, I'd rather see them consolidate some talent. Use trades to turn 6-9 above average to very good players into a couple exceptional players and some role players. Right now I think they're actually too balanced: loads of talent (when everyone is healthy that is), but spread too thin.
We need more guys like Turiaf, but with more offense. I think Maggette is awesome when he's shooting above 50% and not trying to play a low % game. I think a worry about playing Curry in the 4th is that the nba refs would think of some way to call a bogus foul on a rook. NBA refs are crooked. If they don't like a player, they'll show unfavorable bias toward that player when it comes to calls going either way. So then it becomes a game where the calls are inconsistent. Offensive fouls one way, blocking fouls the other. See Dallas game where Mike Dunleavy Jr. threw off his jersey in protest. The call they kept giving to Nowitzki, wasn't called the same for Dunleavy. Anyway, I defend that for now, Watson was probably the player to put in the game when it comes to field goal %. Plus, we certainly don't want to freak out the rookie too soon if he's put into a pressure situation like that.
That hasn't hurt Brandon Jennings or Tyreke Evans or Omri Casspi. Quit babying them and let them play and develop. Make mistakes, so what, they learn not to make the same mistake later.
Those are all guards, right? The way Nelson plays his bigs, they ain't allowed to make mistakes. Only the guards are allowed to.
ah crap, you're absolutely right. I was thinking of Randolph at the moment and not the argument to play Watson over Curry... I don't f'n know anymore. I can't defend Nelson, I hate his tactics. I think I'm tuned out. I just don't care about the Warriors this season. I'm barely paying attention as it is.
I feel your pain. I turned off the Blazer game and switched to the Sharks on Sat. night because Curry was not getting any time nor was Randolph. BTW, Casspi is a forward.
What I don't get is Nelson put up with Pietrus and Barnes and those guys were sheer bone heads. Pietrus was especially a bonehead, but both were extremely productive in their roles. I don't understand why Nelson can't let the rooks play. I love seeing Curry and Randolph get development time, but it's only a matter of time before Nelson rides them out of town or we lose them through free agency... I thought Casspi was a Hedo Turkoglu or a Tayshaun Prince type player. Tall enough to be small forward or power forward, but have the skill to play a guard.
I have only read about Casspi in SI and followed his box scores. Whatever he's doing, he's scoring 15 ppg consistently and the Kings are around .500 whereas the W's are 9-22. You tell me who's doing the better job, Westphal or Nelson?
No doubt Westphal has the Kings overachieving. Is there anyone arguing that Nelly's doing a great job? I know there's no way to know for sure, but I'd bet that there really isn't a coach in the NBA that would have the Warriors winning more than they are now and still showcasing players that need trading. Maybe Sloan is the exception. Losing all of your big knowledgeable big men really doesn't help Here's a question for the board, do you think CJ and Magette are more tradeable now than they were at the beginning of the year? Is that just dumb luck? Maybe, but I'll give Nelly credit for that. Side note: The team completely flopped in Portland on a game against a completely wounded team, and the beginning of the year has been without a big man. But the 2 bigs came back and were contributing right away, even though they're probably far from game shape. Oh...and last night's Denver game was a joke.
Def. not Nelson. He's riding his only star, whereas the Kings have been playing a lot of the season without Kevin Martin. Still, Nelson's excuse is that he didn't have his best big men playing and we lost Sjax who was a big part of chemistry/glue/whatever we want to call it. At least the Kings had a frontline of Thompson/Hawes to go with their forwards and guards. That's a lot more talent IMO than what we have going at the big spots. Plus, we don't have a Tyreke Evans. That rookie has been awesome. When Kevin Martin comes back, that's another 20 pt scorer they got there. Throw in Casspi and Noccioni and that's a lot of firepower coming off the bench. Sean May and Kenny Thomas can also chip in and do some good things. We have no big man depth, we lack experienced big men. We don't have a dynamic and potent swingman. We lost Azubuike. We don't have Sjax. There's no Brandon Wright this year. Turiaf and Biedrins weren't there. We traded away Belinelli for salary relief... I don't care what they said about Belinelli, he was going to be more than a Jiri Welsch. If he's just a Brent Barry, a shooter with hops and playmaking ability, hell I will take that. f'n mess this franchise is. The only good thing that has happened is addition by subtraction in getting rid of Mikki Moore who played smaller than Dunleavy and Harrington.
