Posts tagged ‘Al’

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.    

Your Warriors got cold in Denver.

Box Score

Baron Davis: 28 pts, 7 assists + Monta Ellis: 22 pts, 7 rebounds + Stephen Jackson 25 pts, 5 rebounds + Andris Biedrins: 17 pts, 17 rebounds = a loss!??

Perhaps we should look at this figure. Kelenna Azubuike: 6 pts, 0-5 for threes + Al Harrington: 2 pts, 0-4 FG, 0-3 for threes <  Kevin Martin: 30 pts, 11 rebounds.

It was a bad Saturday night in the mile high city for the Dubs. Small bursts of personal heroics from Baron & Jack as well as a much needed strong outing from Beans were all negated by the ice cold shooting touch from Kaz and the bench. Kelenna and Al couldn’t hit a wide open three to save their lives, or their team’s 8th seed position.

Denver’s bench had no jitters. JR Repeater Smith put up 20 points, and Eduardo Najera piled on 11 points, including two dagger threes in the fourth quarter.

AI had an unusually quiet game, preferring to sit back and watch micro-fracture mogul Kenyon Martin go for a season high 30 points.

Welcome to 9th. The Warriors flew home on the outside looking in. Dirkless Dallas is coming to the Oracle tonight. The Dubs have a chance to kick Dallas while they’re down and bleeding their way out of the playoffs. Kick ‘em, kick ‘em good!

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

Your Warriors got slightly rocked.

Box Score

Two teams on a mission met with a resounding crash on Friday night at the Oracle. The Warriors were desperately trying to pad their lead on Denver for the 8th spot in the West, and the Rockets were trying to avoid their 3rd straight loss after an amazing 22 game win streak.

This is what the playoffs in the West will look like this year. The intensity is way up, as evidenced by the techs on Baron and Pietrus, and teams are either coming together or falling apart under the pressure. While the Rockets are most certainly coming together after the devastating loss of Yao, I don’t think this is really a case of the Warriors falling apart - just falling a bit short.

T-Mac. was unstoppable at times despite Jack’s best in-your-face defense, but Houston’s bench both kept them in the game - and won it for them. The Rockets got 33 points from their non-starters, compared to the Warriors’ 6 points from Andris. Bobby Jackson may have won Houston the game with an insane, double clutch three in the fourth, and Carl Landry killed the Dubs with multiple hard drives and rebounds.

Despite what we may tell ourselves about Wright’s potential, Barnes’ toughness, Kaz’s rise, and CJ’s cool-head - this is not a deep team. The main 6 are going to have to get us the win in tough games like this.

The Warriors’ starting five all had great games, but the lack of teamwork made the outcome less than great. Monta put up his usual highlight reel finishes, Peety and Al combined for an outstanding 27 boards - 11 offensive, and Jack was focused on trying to defend McGrady but still managed to put up 15 and dish 5. Baron was able to get his points up (27) but only contributed 4 assists to the team. When Baron is only dishing 4 in 43 minutes something is up. The Boss is banged up physically, and or mentally. The fire is burning low when it needs to be its hottest.

This was a tough way to go into a back-to-back against the evil Lakers on Sunday. To top off the bad news, Denver won as well.

The playoff deck will be re-shuffled come Tuesday, let’s hope we can deal ourselves a good hand.

exclusive postgame audio

Don Nelson

Baron Davis

Stephen Jackson

Your Warriors dispatched the despondent Heat.

Box Score

With no Dwayne Wade, no real chance of sniffing the playoffs, no hopes, no dreams, and no motivation, the Heat quickly lost their heart.

The first quarter was fairly competitive. Miami ran the ball well while the Warriors seemed a bit lazy and jumper happy. Jack and Al held their own private shooting contest, going for 6 combined threes - 10 total for the game. Beans started and he came on strong, scoring the Dubs’ first bucket on a pick-and-roll with Baron. He looks fully recovered from his surgery but Nellie was careful about keeping him out there for too long, limiting his time to 6 minutes stretches - 18 total. The Warriors got more aggressive in the second quarter, scoring inside and out while harassing the Heat ball handlers. The lead widened and the piling on began.

The Dubs kept their foot on the Heat’s chest for the entire second half. Monta came alive, scoring 14 of his 16 total points in the third. Peety got hot after throwing up a brick fest for the first half and added 9. The Heat were rolling over and showing their bellies by the time the buzzer went off and Nellie was able to rest his starters for almost the entire fourth.

CJ and Kaz both played over 20 minutes and did well. CJ looked especially aggressive and ended the game with 4 steals.

The Warriors fielded their biggest line up in recent history during garbage time. We got to see 6-10 Uncle Austin, the 7 foot Patsquatch, and 6-9 (is that all? his arms really are ridiculously long) Jughead packing the lane together and generally looking funny.

This was the perfect outcome against a severely wounded team like the Heat. The Dubs didn’t let up for three straight quarters and were able to cruise with the subs in for the fourth - saving the big guns’ legs for what will be a much tougher game against the Magic.

Monta may be the current employee of the month, but Baron is still the boss at the Oracle.

Box Score

The big three were in the building and there were ugly patches of green scattered amongst the Warriors faithful. The mighty Celtics had come to town.

The Warriors opened with a brand new starting five, made necessary by Jack’s severe ankle sprain. Nellie threw out a squad of Baron, Monta, Pietrus, Biedrins and C-Webb to face the green monsters.

The first quarter started out rough. The Celtics charged ahead to a nine point lead. The Warriors picked up the pace and got back into the game behind some nice passing from Monta to Beans, a rare made three by Pietrus and some strong finishes from Baron and Monta. The intimidation factor wasn’t present and the Warriors were up three going into the second.

32-29 Warriors.

The loss of Jack really started to kick in during the second quarter. When Nellie rested Monta, the Dubs’ game faltered. Barnes was off and the turnovers started piling up. The Celtics had no such problems and were able to go on a couple of runs with Garnett and Ray-Ray resting behind some great shooting by their other Allen - Tony.

Celtics up 57-50 going into the half.

Play got very physical in the second half. The players started bumping, banging, and shoving, slowing the game down considerably. Ray Allen’s shooting was so pretty it made me sick. The Warriors got down by 12 before stepping up the D.

They started slapping the ball away and the refs were letting both teams play after a lot of contact. Pietrus stepped up big time and looked better than he has all season. Late in the third quarter, he soared in for a giant putback dunk after a missed three from Baron and then stole the ball from Pierce for an uncontested dunk on the very next play. The Warriors were back in the game and the stage was set for a huge fourth quarter.

84-82 Celtics.

The Celtics did not play much defense on this night. They had successfully shut Monta down in the third with tremendous pressure whenever he handled the ball, keeping him from scoring a single point. Ellis started the fourth determined to breakout and he got hot. He and Al stepped up, hitting their jumpers and drawing fouls while attacking the rim. Ray and Tony Allen went on a tear of scoring for the C’s and matched every Warriors run.

Baron had played his heart out all game and looked tired. He passed the ball to Monta early for most of the possessions, leaning on the young man to make the right decisions. The lead swung back and forth all quarter with both teams battling for every rebound and loose ball. Pietrus and Baron put the Warriors up 112-107 with made free-throws, but Ray Allen, Paul Pierce and Rajon Rondo shot the C’s back into the game.

114-113 Warriors with 1:28 left to play.

Once again it’s up to All Day Monta in crunch time. Al found Ellis open off of a low screen by Beans and the kid drilled a mid-range, baseline jumper to put the Dubs up by 3 with under a minute to play. Baron added a free throw after Rondo fouled him and the Warriors were up four with 38 seconds left.

Pierce sank two sets of free throws (one after Matt Barnes completely blows a play and airballs a floater - which Nellie harps on in the postgame below), and the game is tied with six seconds left.

After a time out, the Warriors inbounded the ball into Baron. He lowered his shoulder and started to drive, putting Tony Allen back on his heels. At the last moment, BD pulled up, stepped back and nailed a 20 foot jumper with .3 left on the clock. The massive crowd goes berserk, the bench goes berserk, I go berserk, you go berserk, the Celtics go home.

It was a wonderful showing by almost every player.

Baron is the boss, don’t mess with the man in his house.

Monta fought through some intense pressure and had yet another huge night. With Jackson out, he dished out a career high nine assists, many of them to Biedrins on pick-and-rolls and picked up 12 of his 26 points in the hard fought fourth quarter.

Al added 22 points and 12 rebounds coming off of the bench, and played stellar D against Perkins, Pierce and at times Garnett. His drives were under control and he didn’t try and hit every three–pointer he saw.

Pietrus had what was by far his best game of the season. He was all over the court as usual and came up big on several possessions offensively and defensively. Life would be a lot better for everyone if he could do that kind of thing more often.

Andris threw in a fat double-double with 21 and 13, a steal, and a monster block.

C-Webb watch: 20 minutes, 5 points, 4 rebounds, 2 assists, 1 steal, and 3 blocks. He’s looking better each game. He got severely scorched on D by the smaller guys and Garnett but those three blocks are a good sign.

Some mellower games coming up with the Hawks on Friday, and the Sonics on Tuesday. But if you know the Warriors, you know something nuts is going to happen.

exclusive postgame audio

Baron Davis

Al Harrington

Stephen Jackson

Don Nelson

Celtics audio:

Ray Allen

Kevin Garnett

Paul Pierce

Doc Rivers