Archive for the ‘Blog Entries’ Category

“It’s just like last year — it’s just that we have a better record this year, but we’re still fighting to get in the playoffs like last year,” said Stephen Jackson.

Jack knows it, as do Nellie, Baron and the whole crew. The Warriors are in for a fight to the end and losses like this one will not help their cause. The Spurs played as they typically do against the Dubs, and thus for 20th straight time in San Antonio, the Warriors walked out with a loss.

Baron had 19 to pace the Warriors, but Jack and Monta were off and that spelled doom for GSW’s hope for a sweep of the Texas two-step. With eight games to play in what has been a terrific season, the Warriors are still on the outside looking in - ninth place in the Western Conference.

While the Warriors’ big three were held in check, the same could not be said of the Spurs’ big dogs. Tony Parker dropped home 26 points, Timmmmy added 17 & 12 rebounds, while Manu the Flopper scored 16.

Adding insult to injury, the Spurs stifled GSW’s streak of having scored 100 or more points in 37 straight games. A stinging loss at a crucial time. We’ll see if the boys can fight back against Dallas in what could be labeled as the biggest game of the year.

Adam Lauridsen of the San Jose Mercury News and I break down the recent stretch of games, including this one, and look to the final eight regular season contests in our latest podcast.

Also, we have some breaking news regarding Marco Belinelli, as you’ll read here.

Or maybe not.

Your Warriors stayed one step ahead of the gimpy Mavs.

Box Score

The Dubs were shut out for the first 3 minutes, getting down 12-0 before Al Harrington threw down a frustrated dunk and put his teammates on notice that Dallas wasn’t going to kick its own butt.

The Warriors got with the program and rallied to take a 1 point lead by the end of the first quarter. The Mavs made small incursions throughout the rest of the game, but never got it closer than 3 points down.

Josh Howard stepped up to fill the Dirk gap for Dallas. He went off for 36 pts, 9 boards, and 2 blocks in his normal understated style. The other Mavs standout was their young forward, Brandon Bass. The 6-8 delicious Bass punished Andris in the paint late in the game. He repeatedly muscled his way down low, created space, and made his shots, often getting fouled in the process. Jason Kidd nailed some nerve racking threes when he felt like it but as usual focused on his passing and rebounding, picking up 14 dimes and snatching 9 boards.

The Dubs’ big three was the unlikely trio of Monta, Kaz, and Al. Monta has lately become the first option on offense. He was stellar in this victory. His jumper was falling and he was driving and finishing with grace and style. 30 points for All Day the most improved Mississippi Bullet.

Al kicked the Warriors in the arse in the first quarter, sailed through some questionable foul calls, and kept his aggression up all game. He’s taken it on himself to put in extra effort on the boards and it’s paying off. 9 boards for Harrington.

The final golden child was Kaz. The stain from his hideous night against the Nuggets was wiped clean by his gutsy play in this game. Azubuike willed in 15 points and snatched 9 boards. He made two separate momentum saving shots in the fourth, a three with 4 minutes left and an open jumper with just under 2 to go in the game.

There’s some serious congestion going on at the bottom of Western pack. We now share our 45-28 record with Dallas and Denver. It’s like 7am on the freaking Bay Bridge down there.    

It’s a special Western conference playoff race edition on TNT tonight. Dallas at Denver is the early game, followed by your Warriors vs. Portland.

Who to root for in the Mavs/Nugs clash? Do you want to see Dallas win and keep Denver at bay, or do you want to revel in yet another Dallas collapse, watching them struggle to get into the playoffs that they seem to consider their birthright? AI & Melo failing to live up to their potential, or Avery Johnson sweating teeny, uptight bullets? No matter who you’re rooting for, it’s some must see TV.

The Dubs caught a break on Tuesday when one of the Blazers’ conerstones went down. Jason Quick details the injury:

Brandon Roy says he wants to play again this season, but in all likelihood, the Trail Blazers guard said he will miss at least the next two weeks, and possibly the final 10 games of the season because of injuries suffered Tuesday night to his hip and groin.

There’s been a plague of groin injuries, Cro, Peety, and now the bug has moved North. You gotta stretch suckas! 

Forget about the West you may say, what’s up with Milwaukee?

Andrew “No Mates” Bogut is living a lonely public life as a Buck. Check out this impressive lack of chemistry.

Just nine underwhelming games into his magical, heal-all-wounds comeback tour, Webber is calling it quits. Citing his chronic knee problems, C-Webb officially announced his retirement today. While refusing to rule out another go at playing in the future, he did make it clear that he will not be attempting to rehab and finish out this season.

The reunion of Webber and Nelson as Warriors was a headline grabber, but ultimately a relatively low cost gamble. Once he was out of the rotation he was out of most of our minds.

There are too many exciting things going on right now to really pine after creaky Chris bricking baby hooks.

As Adam puts it so well on his blog, So Long Chris (and Thanks for the Distraction):

DJ Mbenga didn’t get a goodbye post when the Warriors cut him.  Arguably, Chris Webber doesn’t deserve one either.

From ESPN:

The 35-year-old will exit as one of the sport’s most polarizing personalities but also as one of just six players in history — along with Hall of Famers Wilt Chamberlain, Elgin Baylor, Larry Bird and Billy Cunningham and the still active Kevin Garnett — to average at least 20 points, nine rebounds and four assists.

Janny Hu:

“I think it was a good gamble that didn’t work out,” Nelson said. “It didn’t cost us very much and we needed another big guy. We were looking for something like him.”

The Warriors will end up paying Webber just less than $600,000 for his time, and may leave his roster spot open with only 12 games left in the regular season.

Fox Sports:

That Nellie was the guy who wanted him back for this season – only to watch him struggle miserably with that bum left knee limiting him to just 3.9 points, 3.6 rebounds and 2.0 assists in 9 games – was a fittingly ironic end to Webber’s career. 

A personal reflection from the SimonOnSports blog:

I’m 25 so I’m not exactly a child anymore anyway, but today marks the end of my sports adolescence. If you ask me the question of whom was your favorite baseball player or football player as a kid chances are you would get a different answer depending on the day. But if you asked me who was your favorite basketball player or favorite athlete in general, the answer is simple and immediate. The answer is Chris Webber.

Well, at least Kobe got his grill piece busted open.

Box Score

Regulation was insane. The Warriors again came out strong and swarming in the first half. They attacked on offense and defense, leaving the Lakers scattered and turning the ball over. Jack and Baron lit it up, going for 17 and 20 respectively.

Al’s three-point shot woke up; he added 12 points and pounded the boards hard - snaring 8. Warriors up by 11 into the half.

It was another gut check third quarter for the Dubs. They looked tired and were unable to get any kind of consistent scoring runs going. Kobe got his head into the game and he teamed up with Fisher and Odom to outscore the dubs 35-23 in the third, putting the Lakers up by one going into the fourth.

The Warriors looked dead in the water halfway through the fourth. Their legs looked gone and Kobe started doing that annoying superstar thing, hitting step back jumpers, threes, and grabbing rebounds. He had possible the lamest sidekick ever in the form of the floppy haired, flop prone Yugoslavian, Sasha Vujacic.

Vujacic was deadly from three point range and he hit two big ones, helping the Lakers stretch their lead to nine points with a little under 4 minutes to play. Things looked bleak, but Monta and Kaz saved the day by converting drives off of steals to bring them back within one with 33 seconds left. Odom missed one of his free throws and Baron made two huge ones of his own and the game went into OT, much to the delight of the raucous crowd.

OT was a battle. The Dubs got up but Fisher and Sasha “Vermin” Vujacic nailed killer threes to keep the Lakers on top. Kaz made a tough, tough tip-in off of a Monta miss to tie it up with 30 seconds left, but the Lakers went up once again as Odom found himself deliciously open right under the basket.

Final play: Warriors inbounding the ball down two with nine seconds left. The Dubs run a congested rotation of screens and Monta goes down in a heap on top of Fisher. It looks like they got tangled up and Fisher may have stumbled while pulling Monta down on top of him.

Referee Bob Delaney called an offensive foul on Monta giving the Lakers two free throws and ending an incredibly exciting and hard fought game with a huge let down. The call was a bad one. Fisher either fell back and grabbed Monta as he fell, or he intentionally pulled Monta down on top of him for a call.

Talk about anti-climactic. The Dubs and Lakers battled for 52 minutes straight only to have the game be decided by an official. No one wanted to see that. Horrible.

exclusive postgame audio

Don Nelson

Phil Jackson

Kobe Bryant

Derek Fisher

Lamar Odom

Pietrus has been outstanding since the trade deadline. He’s stuck to what he’s good at and has contributed valuable energy on defense and rebounding. After being completely written off as incompetent by many fans and pundits, the goof went and redeemed himself. Here comes the sympathetic press - Scott Ostler wrote a nice piece about Peety’s history:

Pietrus grew up on the French Caribbean island of Guadeloupe. His mother, who worked for the governor, died of cancer when Pietrus was 9, leaving nine kids (her own seven and two cousins) parentless. They were taken in by Mickael’s grandmother.

Mickael’s oldest brother, Ronnie Coco, went to France and became a basketball star. Mickael didn’t play basketball until he was about 14, and then only as a casual pastime, along with tennis and swimming. But when Mickael was 16, Ronnie brought Mickael and his brother Florent to France to go to school and play ball.

Mickael learned fast, signed a pro contract at 17, and by 21, he was in the NBA, with the Warriors.

Coming into the current season the Warriors were considered the Suns lite - a less refined version of the thrilling Phoenix squad. With the big Shaq trade, and the Warriors’ team identity solidifying, the most-entertaining torch appears to have been passed to Oakland. Marcel Mutoni from SLAM online digs the scene:  

There was a time, not too long ago, when a Warriors/Suns matchup was one of the most highly anticipated events in all of sports. A crazy mix of dunks, conscious-less three pointers, fast breaks, scintillating one-on-one plays, and total disregard for defense.

Basically, it was a sugar rush for the basketball viewing public, and we couldn’t get enough.

Today, you could say that things are slightly different.

The Warriors are the same team from last season (loose, care-free, and winning); Phoenix, though, has made one big significant change: With varying success, the Suns are experimenting with a strange combo of slow-it-down halfcourt execution and reckless fastbreak action (when Shaq takes a breather).

Tonight, in Phoenix, the Suns host the team that snatched their crown as the League’s funnest squad to watch. It’s safe to say that, should the Warriors have their way, things will get hectic out there. Try and keep up, Diesel.

The questions regarding the wisdom of the Shaq trade still linger for Phoenix. The question of what to do in the situation below requires no deliberation.

Andris speaks on surgery, Vegas, his love of magic and cats, and his bff Zarko:

And then I went to the animal show. This guy, Gregory Popovich, he has his own show where he teaches cats to do crazy stuff. I had a cat when I was back home and I love cats, so the show was really cool. The cats were standing on two legs pushing carts and walking on the tall stilts, it was crazy stuff. It was ridiculous. He has 16 cats on the stage and every cat he had taught something. It was funny.

Tim Kawakami has an extended Q&A with Nellie, Baron, and Jack about the Warriors’ picking up Nelson’s option and a bunch of other team biz:

 -Q: Will you talk to Baron about this?

-NELSON: I’m going to talk to Baron and Jack for sure. I won’t talk to everybody because some of them are mad at me and I know they’d say, ‘Why don’t you get out!’ It might sound good to them, too.There’s a few people that we’re building around and I think I already know their answer, but it’s important that we’re all on the same page.

Jeff Wong wrote on why the Raptors should be scurred of Monta, and he enlisted a squad of the best local bloggers to break down All Day’s game:

History smacks Raptors fans upside the head with this fact: our Raps have trouble defending athletic wing players. And few are as athletic and wingy as tonight’s opponent, Monta Ellis (a.k.a. “The Mississippi Bullet”) of the Golden State Warriors.

The Warriors announced today that they want Don Nelson back on the bench next season. They exercised an option on his contract that would facilitate a third season for Nellie, in his second stint as coach of the Warriors.

The only problem is that Nellie is non-committal about whether he wants to be back for another 82 games plus playoff grind.

“We’ll (Don and his wife Joy) have to reflect on it,” said Nellie. “It’s never a good time to make a decision at this time of year. It’s a very nice gesture on their part.“

You may recall a similar saga that played out before the start of this season, where Nelson held out until the Warriors relented and offered him a bump from $3 million with incentives to $5 million guaranteed per season to coach the squad.

The Warriors, in exchange for the guaranteed money, decided to hold an option for Nellie on next season. Now that they’ve exercised it, the ball is once again back in Nellie’s court.

For the sake of everyone - fans, the boys and the organization at large - let’s hope he’s back after a prolonged run in the playoffs.

50 wins is the number being tossed around as the minimum entry fee for the Western Conference Playoffs.

The Warriors’ current record is 39-23 with 20 games left in the regular season. Tomorrow night against Toronto will be the Dubs’ last game against the East.

The final stretch of games against the West falls into 2 categories: Contenders, and Lottery Bound. I’ve kept Portland in the contender category mainly because I’m a naturally cautious person and this whole exercise in augury is making me crazy nervous. 

Contenders      Lottery Bound

DAL x2               LAC x2

DEN x2              MEM x2

HOU                   SAC x2                

LAL x2                SEA

NO

PHX x2

POR

SAS

That’s 12 games against Western Conference players vs. 7 against the scrubs (with 1 against the East). We’re 11 games short of the semi-arbitrary goal of 50 wins. Can you find the path to the promised land amidst that daunting landscape?

The Warriors redeemed themselves in grand fashion to cap off their road trip.

After suffering a brutal loss at the hands of J-Rich and the Bobcats, GSW ended their roadie with back to back wins over flameless Heat and a solid Magic squad. The Warriors have won every road trip longer than three games this season, ending this trip 3-1, while keeping pace in the absurdly competitive Western Conference.

The Dubs’ defense, non-existent for stretches of the road trip, magically appeared in time to stifle Orlando’s stud center Dwight Howard. He torched the Warriors for 19 points in the first half, but Superman was “held” to 26 and 12.

Credit Nellie and the staff for sending double-teams to attack the big man in the second half before he got in too close for easy buckets.

Baron poured in his standard 33 and 9, MP nearly had a double-double again and Jack hit three treys, on the way to 20 points.

After a win like this, against a team that beat them on their home court, it’s hard to find much to complain about.  As you’ll hear in our latest effort, Adam Lauridsen of the San Jose Mercury News and I gush over the successful road trip, the stellar contribution from the bench and whether the Dubs are officially an elite squad.

Some interesting games against the Raptors and the Suns await.