“Fair is foul, and foul is fair.” — Macbeth I,i.
Bill Spooner, Jason Phillips and Mark Ayotte are the three refs that cheated the Warriors out of this win tonight. If they are going to take it on their shoulders to change the outcome of an NBA game in the final seconds, then I think it’s only right that they get full credit. Continue reading
As the only team to take the court with actual centers, the Warriors figured to have the size advantage in this game. But that’s not the way it worked out. There is more than one way to have a size advantage in basketball. You can have it the traditional way, on the front line. But you can also have it the way the Portland Trailblazers had it in this game, at the wings. Portland used the size of its wing players, Brandon Roy at 6-7 and Martell Webster at 6-7 to dominate their far smaller Warriors counterparts. The Warriors wing defenders, Monta Ellis, Stephen Curry and CJ Watson, who all go 6-3 in their dress shoes, were completely helpless against Roy and Webster. Roy avenged his terrible performance in Oakland with a brutally efficient 37 points on 12-16. Webster went for 21 and 11. And with the help of these players and Dante Cunningham off the bench, the Blazers outrebounded the Warriors 43-36.
Back to back games with a real NBA center available. Back to back games in which the Warriors looked like a real team. Back to back great wins against two of the best teams in the league.
Coincidence? Virtually every Bay Area sportswriter and blogger, not to mention every NBA writer on the planet, has been telling you that the Warriors are a mess, and that the problem lies with Don Nelson. He’s washed up, he can’t communicate with today’s player, the league has caught up with him, he’s destroying this franchise.
This much was made clear by this game: The Golden State Warriors have passed by the New Orleans Hornets in talent. They are the better team. All that is needed now is for the Warriors to get their team back.
In this game, the short-handed Warriors were playing on the road on a back-to-back. They played a 7 man rotation, while the Hornets got contributions from 11 players. They played their power forward at center, their small forward at power forward, and a back-up point guard at small forward. And they gave the Hornets everything they could handle. In fact, if it weren’t for the fact that the depleted and undersized Warriors couldn’t keep the Hornets off the boards, they may well have won this game going away.
Let’s just call this one B minus two. B as in Beans. The Warriors are counting down the games until their starting center returns to action, and they never missed him more than they did on this night. Because with Biedrins in the middle for this game, the Warriors might very well have come away with the win. Marc Gasol and Zach Randolph steamrolled the Warriors front line for a combined 55 points and 27 rebounds, and came within one of fouling out both of the Warriors “centers,” Chris Hunter and Anthony Randolph.
After that last road trip, my jitters are getting bad. And now my computer is shrieking non-stop that the Warriors are in trade talks! Horrors! Is it too early to hit the Lagavulin?
What I need is a home game against a nice soft team like… the Spurs? The same Spurs that took a shellacking against the Suns last night, and are going to come into the Oracle mad as hornets and with their ears red from a Pop tongue-lashing? Instead of a nice restorative Scotch, I’m being served a double oy latte. The Spurs are a +5 road favorite against the Warriors tonight. Oy. Oy.
The wind chill in Chicago tonight was 12 degrees. It appeared that the Warriors felt it: they shot 38% in this game. I’m guessing in the second half it was a lot closer to 25%. Its pretty tough to win on the road when you are that cold. And yet, the Warriors looked like the better team for most of this game, and despite all their struggles, had a tie score and the ball with 24 seconds left. They ran an isolation for Monta Ellis at the top of the key, he drove the lane, ignored Anthony Morrow standing wide open in the corner, and flung up a contested airball. The Warrior’s frigid shooting continued in overtime, and that was the ballgame. Continue reading
Keith Smart began this game by putting the ball firmly in Stephen Curry’s hands. Curry ran the point, Curry ran the plays, and Curry took most of the shots in the opening minutes. Monta played off the ball. This was a great call by the coaching staff, one that set the tone for a new Warriors philosophy of ball movement. I could tell right from the start that this game would be about sharing the basketball. Continue reading
Dwight Howard and the 15-4 Orlando Magic are in town. I suggest we start Maggette at center, Morrow at the four… oh, wait! Anthony Morrow is out for this game. So scratch that idea.
Just as in the last game, the Warriors came out in the third quarter firing on all cylinders. The Rockets, perhaps road weary on the back-to-back, were a step slower than in the first half. The Warriors went on a 15-4 run to turn a 7 point half-time deficit into a 4 point lead, and looked like they were on their way.
Then, towards the end of the third quarter, Rick Adelman went small. Out came Scola and Hayes. In came Landry and Lowry. The Rockets went 6-8″ across the front line, and had two 6-0″ point guards in the backcourt.
