Who are these guys? What happened in that 24 hour span between New York and Milwaukee? These guys were focused, they executed their game plan as well as they could against a supposedly defensive team, and they played as a TEAM, even though Jack and, to a lesser extent, Monta were in the game. Say what???

On the offensive end, for the first time this season, I saw people moving without the ball, even when Jack had the ball. In the previous games, players without the ball would simply stand around and watch the play happen. But last night, players were moving around, cutting, trying to provide open passes to the ball handler.

Not only were the players moving, the ball moved too. Players passed the ball to the man down court, to the open man, set up plays for each other, inside then outside, back and forth like a hot potato. It was smooth, natural, in rhythm, no thinking required. It short, it was beautiful. This is the level of unselfishness I expected the Warriors to play at.

Speaking of selfishness, I’m still tired of seeing Jack trying to be a hero and take a quick shot, or a bad 3, or force his way inside, instead of moving it around. I mean, even Corey Maggette has some drive and kick backs to the 3 pt line. But at least the offense wasn’t running through Jack the entire night.

On the defensive end, they certainly put effort into double teaming Bogut down low and to force him to pass. They put effort into moving, deflecting, intercepting passes. They tried to gang defensive rebound. Still quite a few defensive breakdowns, though. In the first half, they didn’t rotate back out and left some wide open 3s. They didn’t get into a shooter’s face when the shot clock was running out. They didn’t chase Jennings off the 3 pt line or get physical with him once he got super hot.

Nevertheless, we must have been doing something right, as we absorbed a 55 pt Jennings performance and only lost by 4. We had nice distributed scoring across everyone except Morrow (What’s wrong with Morrow?). Still got killed in the 3rd qtr with a 16-2 run followed by a 9-2 run. But we didn’t give up, fought back from down 11, and almost had it.

Has the team figured themselves out? Or is this a one time thing? Bring on the Cavs and let’s find out with our 9 man rotation.

last night: outscored 43-26
NY: outscored 28-20
Indiana: 23-20 us
Minn: that whole game was a blowout but 37-22 us
SAC: outscored 31-23
LAC: outscored 34-16
Memphis: 34-23 us
PHX: outscored 30-22
HOU: outscored 35-19

in almost every game we have been outscored by a pretty wide margin in the 3rd, and 2 of the 3 that we outscored the other team we won. If this team is gonna have any kind of success this year(which isn’t looking likely), the 3rd quarter has to change cas we cant continue to be out scored by 8+ every game

Probably our most impressive performance of the year… it was only the second time we showed any ability to play with a decent team, and I think the Rockets hadn’t figured yet out their offense when we hung with them Opening Night. Would’ve been great to win, but I have no problem whatsoever in a well-played loss on the road like this.

Plenty of good performances here. Dumb push of Bogut aside, Maggette has been simply amazing so far, by far our best player… ‘Buike injury sucks, but if it means more Maggette, we won’t suffer for it. This was Monta’s most efficient scoring night of the year, and if this three-point stroke is for real, that really ups his potential. Curry had a strong game that will hopefully keep him in the rotation for good. Obviously Mikki’s best game as a Warrior… one board in nineteen minutes is pretty brutal, and I’m leery of trusting that jump shot going forward, but he contributed a bit last night. Good on him. Randolph definitely looked spazzy at moments, but you can’t argue with the production. And another strong energy game from Acie Law… at this point, there’s really no reason not to shop CJ when he becomes tradeable next month.

Most encouragingly, this was the best coaching performance from Nellie all season. I wouldn’t say he coached a brilliant game… we’re still playing a bit smaller than we have to, we were very late to correct for Jennings once he exploded, and the last play didn’t seem particularly well-conceived. But he coached a good game, and he actually strategized, based on game conditions. We double-teamed for stretches here and there. We went to Maggette consistently down low when it was working. Late in the game, they ran that Monta-drive-and-kick-back-to-Maggette-for-three a couple times in a row… that’s not the play I would draw up, necessarily, but it was a play, and it was predicated on what was actually working on the court, not general notions about smallness creating mismatches. For the first time all year, Nellie got more out of our roster than it could’ve gotten just winging it on its own. There was strategy, there was adaption, there was sanity. He was paying real attention in this one.

I’d still like to see Nellie gone. The team’s energy and flow is completely erratic, the lineups are too small even given our injuries, and there seems to be next to no defensive coaching taking place (and that is on the head coach, no matter how many “coordinator” titles he makes up)… that’s not to mention all the soap opera stuff. But if Nellie starts turning in performances like this, where he’s an affirmatively good offensive coach rather than a coach who just lets a bunch of scorers do whatever they want, his continued presence will be a lot easier to swallow.

Only two black marks on this one, one of course being Azubuike’s injury. The other started with 4:18 left in the third quarter. Jack hit a turnaround J, beat his chest and yelled “Give me the ball!” On the next possession, Randolph had the ball at the top of the key… Jack was behind the three-point line to his right. Covered, mind you. Jack motioned for the ball. When Randolph refused to give it to him (he ended up driving and drawing a foul), Jack put his arms down and stared at Randolph with complete contempt. Kudos, Jack! This moment, and Jack’s post-game complaint that he had to inbound on the last play, are useful reminders. Jack is by no means our only problem, and he is probably not even our main problem. But he is still a problem, and we really do need to send this turkey packing.

Fun, encouraging game. Tuesday should be fun… it’s as pure of a “nothing to lose” game as it gets.

Love: Monta’s left hand.

Monta’s a pretty great finisher inside for a guard…but I’m not sure what you’re seeing out of his left hand in terms of dribbling? I see a guy who really struggles going left and heavily relies on his right hand for all of his moves and drives. I’m actually beginning to get worried about it.

Jamal Crawford with NBA.com’s “Assist of the Night”

who here wanted jennings over curry before the draft?

I agree it was a pleasant surprise to see a high level of play from our guys, the loss of Azubuike is really devastating. He is easily one of our top 3 players this season, and now he’s out for the year.

Tim Kawakami