Warriors Game Day Links: Golden State Warriors 101 vs Phoenix Suns 107 - Frustrating offense: Small deficits feel like large ones

tonight at 10:30 ET on TNT

He had a good stint of minutes…his +/- was fine…he played decent D and made most of his shots.

Totally blew it!
WTF was he thinking?

With 40 seconds left,we were down five.
Dorell Wright couldn’t hold onto the ball first and then fouled Grant Hill as the shot clock expired.

end of game. stupid, stupid play

Where was Al Harrington…err, I mean, Brandan Wright? hmm…

I’m not seeing a lot of fire out anyone outside of Smart, Monta and Lee to be honest

they just need to develop more confidence with each other. curry has it, but had an off night offensively (other than his passing for the most part). I feel like Lee has been afraid to take initiative and attack and score on his own. Keith Smart/ Monta Ellis/ Stephen Curry or any combination of them need to take Lee aside and tell him to be assertive and aggressive. I see him passing up a lot of open shots. This may be due to his inefficiency from the mid-range, but he’s shown improvement as the year has worn on, and he needs to keep shooting to get that jumper back to where it was last year. He’s just got to gain that offensive confidence back.

-WE NEED A CLOSER!

smart’s rotations are always terrible. I watched on TV and Biedrins supposedly had stomach problems so he was back in the locker room. I agree completely for Monta. I’ve argued relentlessly lately that Keith is wearing him out with all these minutes and he’s been unable to close out close games. All his jumpers in the 4th always look short, he’s not getting enough lift, his defense gets worse, and he lacks the energy to attack as he does in the opening quarters.

because Monta was the only reason we were still in the game. He shot the ball at an efficient rate. Maybe you should watch the game again and look up the boxcscore. Meanwhile, Curry was too busy committing turnovers and shooting bricks. Both Curry and Wright shot horribly.

He wasn’t available, and who cares if a guy chooses to high 5 or not when he’s frustrated? It’s sports, not book club

the announcers said he was out with a hurt tummy

Even Cheryl Miller was clowning him about it

You guys expect too much from Curry. Remember the Sac Kings version of Mike Bibby? That’s what Curry is skill wise. Of his 4 turnovers only 1 was a pass. 2 travels and the other was the eyes getting poked play.

Lin makes a difference on defense.

Curry will never be a top tier PG. He is a very limited player. His ceiling is a better shooting Sam Cassell.

given the W’s history it’s almost guaranteed that they trade Curry and he ends up being a star somewhere else.

if there was a place to put money on this happening, i would do it. if Cohan still owned the team, i’d put my life savings on it happening – little less sure with Lacob.

at least illmaticwarrior will be happy. lol.

last season, and admittedly this year’s version of Ellis is better, but his assessment, if Ellis is the best player on the team, you might have a good team but it’s won’t be a serious contender. Ellis’ natural will to dominate the offense, in the absence of other equal or superior talent, can fail to make his ’mates better, even inhibit them.

Mike, this game points out why it is so important to actually look at rebounding , not simply total rebounds. FYI, the Warriors got 24 of 28 available defensive rebounds. That’s a 86 DREB, which is great. The reason it seemed liked they got outrebounded is their damn defense let Phoenix make too many easy shots. You don’t get rebounds on made field goals.

Andris wasn’t available

Any news on Beans though?

The announcers said he stayed in the locker room for an “upset stomach”

we had a buncha D leaguers and AR…I guess they are better than our bench though…pretty sad. Can’t wait for Amundson and Udoh to come back. People wont be able to make any more excuses for Smart being a bad coach.

I found this to be a particularly discouraging loss.

Not for me. Look, we are not a very good team. However, there are signs of improvement and we can’t just expect to all of the sudden have a new identity…We still are not a strong defensive team. And our no non-Nellie offense has lost some punch.

That said though, we are right in Phoenix’s league. We coulda won this game, and only ended up losing by a few buckets. Suns don’t have Amare anymore but they are still a playoff-caliber team. The fact is, we should really be measuring ourselves against teams like this…(and much as I hate to admit it, the Grizzlies)

We may have lost, but it was a legitimate close game that we could have won. Without any roster moves, we are a team that can expect to be fighting for that 8th playoff seed.

All of the biggest issues for this team seem like they can be coached/played through.
We will get better at the pick-n-roll, our offensive and defensive sets will run tighter as the season goes on.

This seemed to be the most winnable game during this stretch which I suspect will push us down there with Sac and the Clips to end 2010. Hopefully 2011 will dawn a new day…..

I don’t know if it’s “gacking” so much as the fact that his FT shooting is just poor for a 6’3" guard. He’s now at .711 on the season. Not only did he clang that pair with 3:15 left that would have cut the lead to 1 — one of the game’s big turning points, imo — but a couple minutes before that he barely rattled in two of three (Frye’s lane violation gave him three chances to make two).

Hard to complain too much about his offense last night when he basically carried the team through long stretches, scored efficiently, and didn’t cough the ball up, but it is to the point where I cringe when he comes to the line in a tight game. Some serious work with Mark Price seems in order.

Your Monta/Steph question, and the question of whither Andris are the two big names that will have to be traded to craft this team into what it needs to be.

Of course these trades need to be worked on, not rushed. No leaks to media lessening trade value etc.

But eventually, imo, AB and Ellis are the best places from which to trade. AB because as athletic as he is and as well as he rebounds, his skinniness, almost complete lack of offensive game other than garbage put backs from the left side, crippling in more ways than one FT%, and lack of intimidation/size/toughness on D….and the fact AB still has some trading value.

Ellis because he takes away a lot of all he gives you through effort and skill, with his head/awareness. It’s sad. Put a high hoops IQ in Ellis and you’d have an absolutely amazing player. But, it is what it is, and as we go forward, considering Curry’s game despite his poor D (although some of it this year has been due to ankle,) Curry is the one to keep if/when they are broken up. And Ellis’ trade value is likely high.

Of course not for just any deal. And mask it, don’t make it so it’s league knowledge they could be moved. But a lineup eventually of:

Curry
Bigger, better fitting SG
Dorell
Lee
Bruising C who just does more for your D with his presence/ability on that end, and who likely isn’t THAT MUCH worse on the offensive end.

And some of what you get back in the trade could be an extra pick, or some bench value…or if it worked out that way, even an upgrade over Dorell, who i like, but i’m just saying trading AB and Ellis we’d have to get something good back….but those two, for the longterm formation of the team, are the ones i’d prefer trading.

He’s somebody who makes everyone around him better. (I mean, isn’t that obvious at this point? His eyes get scratches and the team offense falls apart.) His game is rawer, and his defense is worse (which is saying something) but the ability to play either guard spot and his overall unselfishness make me want to build around him more.

… is that Lee was doing something. And big men are dependent on the guards to get them the ball.

Even a moderately efficient guard may be hurting your team if he takes shots away from good big men. I don’t have a huge problem with Monta’s play last night … Curry struggled after his eye got hurt, so it makes sense for Monta to take up some of that slack.

But I’d like to see the team do a better job of going to Lee in crunchtime.