RECAP: Warriors 101, Sixers 117 -- The Answer

Can we have a section for anti-wonder too?

Maggette had one of the Maggettiest games you’ll ever see — he scored 24 points on eight shots, and yet it was just horrifying to watch. I sort of love Maggette. He is pretty good in a way that makes basketball excruciating. Randolph was good, the Devean George cameo was amusing… otherwise, dang.

It’s worth noting how historically bad our rebounding performance was tonight. This was just the 24th time since the start of the ‘86-’87 season that a team has been outrebounded by 33 or more. And the Sixers suck at rebounding! They were the eighth-worst rebounding team in basketball coming into tonight, and they more than doubled us up on the glass.

Not much to say. You can chalk it up to the end of a long road trip, but really, this whole friggin’ franchise is one long road trip. Grim, grim stuff.

Why the hell do Don Nelson and Keith Smart still have their jobs. I cannot see the point of having Vlad, Mikki Moore, and Morrow in the lineup. I think our best lineup would consist of:

PG – S. Curry
SG – M. Ellis
SF – C. Maggette
PF – A. Randolph
C – A. Biedrins (when healthy)

I really think this lineup has a lot of potential. Maggette can get to the line as good as anyone and Curry and Randolph can develop and only improve. Biedrins is one of the best young centers when he plays and Monta speaks for himself. Can anyone please explain why this lineup isn’t utilized?

Our first bench would consist of:

PG – C.J. Watson
SG – A. Morrow
SF – Vlad
PF – R. Turiaf
C – Mikki Moore

That isn’t a very strong bench, but I think Morrow and Turiaf can provide some good minutes. I sware I think we can be a much better team than our record shows if we make this simple lineup change!

http://losgswarriors.blogspot.com/2009/12/losing-rebounts-losing-games-golden.html

And it’s not even close. It wasn’t even fun. It was the most pathetic attempt at entertainment I’ve ever seen out of a sport, professional or otherwise. Girls 4th grade CYO games are filled with more intensity and excitement. From the opening tip, both teams played like it was just a casual pickup game – no defensive intensity whatsoever, no signs the players really cared (like an sort of emotional outburst, positive or negative)…for the Sixers, I can understand, as they were easily in control all game long. For the Warriors, well, it was sad.

More importantly though, the fans. There honestly weren’t more than 5,000 fans in attendance. The upper deck was almost completely abandoned. At least a third of the lower deck was empty. I bought face value $170 tickets for $29 the day before the game in the club level, and our club box was almost empty. Some dudes were sitting in our seats so we just sat a few seats down, everyone had a seat in between other groups as a buffer so you didn’t have to sit next to anyone. There was no noise at all, at no point did anyone in the crowd show any interest in the game other than a couple of 9 year old kids behind me. The atmosphere would have been better if I was alone in my room with a beer watching on TV. Every single aspect of it sucked. As I said, my ticket was only $29, and it might be the only chance I have to see the Warriors in person this season, and the money ISN’T going into Cohan’s pockets, and I still feel like I wasted $35 (after stupid stubhub fees). Honestly, the Sixers should just be contracted if that’s what it’s going to be like – hey , we could use some of their players. I’m planning on going to Sixers-Cavs tomorrow so we’ll see if a marquee matchup changes the atmosphere at all.

Now – on to some actual game analysis. I don’t know why Mikki Moore plays over Randolph. I don’t care to speculate why, as I said, I don’t know. What I can tell you is Mikki Moore does not provide anything of value. Watching him play basketball in person is the most painful thing I’ve ever done. He gets manhandled on rebounds that come to him. He doesn’t track rebounds down that don’t, heck, he doesn’t even try to go after them. He doesn’t play defense. His footwork is the most god awful thing I’ve ever seen. There was one play he got switched onto Young. Now, it took me all of 5 minutes to figure out THADDEUS YOUNG IS GOING LEFT. EVERY. TIME.

So Mikki Moore is guarding him, he’s a little to Young’s right side, which is fine as long as Moore has his right foot back so he can slide back with Young when he goes left. Not ideal since Young is quick enough to get the corner, and long enough to get a shot off if he doesn’t, but still a stance that gives him a chance. Young gives him a jab, and returns to triple threat position. At this point Mikki Moore brings his right foot forward and sticks it in between Young’s feet. He is no longer in position to do anything against Young. In a vacuum, you don’t want your right foot forward against Young because HE’S GOING LEFT and the offensive player wants to attack your front foot. But aside from that, Moore was on Young’s right side with his front foot forward. He might as well lay a red carpet down to the basket down for Young. He literally could have accomplished the exact same thing by just walking off the court at that moment. It was horrendous. Young went left and scored. Surprised? No, neither was I.

So that gets back to….Mikki Moore gets PT over Anthony Randolph. What I can tell you for a fact is in the 16 minutes Moore played (mostly to start the game), Mikki Moore hit 4 jumpers (good Mikki), grabbed 3 rebounds (god awful), and that was basically the only thing he did. In 16 minutes. Randolph played most of his minutes during garbage time in the 2nd half when the game was over, and while he didn’t rebound well, he was aggressive offensively, he affected a number of shots on defense, D’ed Young up solidly a number of times (Young did play a good game)….Anthony Randolph is simply a much, much better basketball player, right now, than Mikki Moore. I don’t care why the coaching staff starts Moore, I care that the coaching staff isn’t doing what they need to for us to win games, and that’s playing Randolph more often. There is absolutely no excuse. Not recognizing how worthless Mikki is reflects poorly on the coaching staff, and is a very strong point why they need to be fired. Last night firmly put me into the “fire everyone on the coaching staff, right now, no excuses” camp, which I was not in before.

Other observations:
- VladRad is pretty worthless, too. Not gonna get into the details I got in with Moore, and when he’s shooting he at least provides that, but he just doesn’t do anything of value on the court (other than shooting, when he does that). He’s just there.
- After Monta shot the ball, he was the last guy back down the court a bunch of times. He was starting under the hoop, so you’d expect him to trail the play, of course, but it wasn’t just that was he was the last one back. It was that he was basically slowly jogging back when he was 20 feet behind the other teams C, who also started under the hoop. It was good to get him some rest, though, he’s been playing too many minutes lately.
- Maggette – Maggette being Maggette. At one point he took the ball in two hands on his way to the basket and just smacked his guy with his arms/forearms/ball. Foul on the defense of course. Dude is an animal at getting to the line, and FT’s are the best shot in basketball. That 3 pointer he took when he got fouled was a savvy veteran move.
- Sixers didn’t play particularly well (though they didn’t play poorly by any stretch), the Warriors really were that bad.
- I hate Devean George. That said, he did some things that show he actually knows how to play a little basketball, unlike….Mikki Moore. Rotated on D, got his hands in the passing lane a couple of times on his rotations…watching him do these things made it painfully obvious how little the rest of our team does it effectively. Hopefully it was just last night, but I suspect that’s not the case. It’s so much easier to see this sort of thing live than on tv.
- CJ Watson is a terrible defensive player, on and off the ball. He’s also not a PG. Needs to look for his shot, though, cause he can knock it down.
- Curry is pretty bad on D overall, but he shows flashes of potential that make me think he can be solid. Every once in a while you see him anticipate well and get in a passnig lane or really read the defender and D him up and completely shut down what they’re trying to do. Most times this isn’t the case, though. Still waiting for his shot to show up. Makes some pretty bad passes at times.
- Chris Hunter is not very good, however, he’s at least a little more than a body on the floor (which is what Moore is). He contested a few shots and showed the ability to at least stick with guys sometimes, but other than that, he really didn’t do anything. Lots of 0’s across the board on his box score.

Man, I could have made that it’s own fanpost. :)

I haven’t been able to watch a full Warriors game in weeks and then I get this. The only good thing about it was that I was able to watch the team with somewhat fresh eyes. I mean, I lurk a lot on this board and I know what everyone thinks of certain players, but apart from the conventional wisdom, I came to the conclusion based on the small sample of one game that most of our players don’t belong in the NBA, our brightest lights (Monta, Randolph, Morrow, and Curry) are never going to be stars, and that our best player is Devean George.