Posts tagged ‘rockets’

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 danced a torrid Texas tango on Tuesday night, but eventually got straight torn apart by a tall, dark stranger.

Box Score

It appears that Yao Ming has gotten over his aversion to scoring massive amounts of points against the Warriors. Al and Andris played their hearts out against the mysterious giant from East, but Yao came out way on top with 36 points and 19 rebounds.

Skip To My Lou (Rafer Alston) went jaw to jaw with Baron in the first and backed it up with solid play all game. Add a little Luther Head to the mix, spice it up with some Scola for flavor and you’ve got yourself a Rockets victory stew (I personally think the foul called on Andris off the ball with less than a minute left and the Warriors down two made the base taste rather bitter).

The Warriors shot disgustingly bad for the first and most of the second quarter, with the worst offensive odors coming from Al’s direction. They got fired up and started swiping the ball and running out on break in the third and completely turned on the BELIEVE juice in the fourth, but couldn’t quite pull off another comeback win.

Andris kept his motor running all game and fought hard for position and rebounds against Yao’s massive frame and ample elbows, earning another double-double to go with a new black eye. Jack played remarkably under control (one turnover), shot a gorgeous 7-14 from the field, 5-7 from deep, along with dishing out seven dimes.

Al battled himself and Yao before exploding for 10 big points in the fourth. Monta pulled out some incredible finishes and was very efficient with his jumper, but didn’t score as much as his last few games. Peety showed good energy and hustle on defense when needed, proving that he still might be worth something trade-wise.

The first two quarters were borderline unwatchable, the fourth was a vintage Warriors blockbuster. The Dubs finally got serious on D and took the lead for the first time all game behind massive 3-pointers by Al and Baron. But the Rockets were able to dump it down to Yao and he stayed rock solid, making his free throws when he didn’t convert outright. The refs warmed up their whistles and eventually the flash of the Warriors was overcome by the substance of the steady Rockets execution. Game over.

It was a fun game, but a tough loss. I really liked the effort from Andris against Yao and the run to take the lead late in the game was massively exciting.

The guys are going to have to shake off the loss and ice down the bruises because the crazy dominant Hornets are sharpening their knives for a showdown tonight.