Originally posted Mar 20, 2010 9:19 PM PDT

Any of you gals play center?

Open Thread (800+ comments)  | Game Day Links | Box Score |  Straight Outta Vancouver

It's getting tough to watch, isn't it? If this Warriors season were a prize fight, the corner would have thrown in the towel.  If it were a softball game, the ump would have invoked the mercy rule.  If it were a horse, the vet would have put it down.

Unfortunately, it's professional basketball, so it's going to be played out to the bloody, bitter end.  But with what players?  The Warriors have already lost their entire veteran frontline of Biedrins, Turiaf, Moore, Randolph, Wright and Radmanovich.  They've lost their starting wing player, Azubuike.  Their standout rookie point guard, Stephen Curry, is now hobbled by a mysteriously "locked up" ankle.  It's not a sprain, exactly, it's locked up. 

And tonight, their lone remaining player over 6-9", Chris Hunter, came up lame with a bad case of tendinitis of the knee.  How bad is it when you need emergency D-league replacements for your emergency D-league replacements?  100 year flood bad.  Black Swan financial crisis bad. NBA Rule No. 3 (Section 1A) bad.

Chris Cohan bad.

No sense in recapping this game is there?  With only one lonely player over 6-8" left , 6-9" Anthony Tolliver -- and he a mid-season D-league call-up -- the Warriors are an NBA team in name only.   There will be no more wins at all this season unless Curry gets healthy, and the Warriors find a big man.  Back-to-back road games against winning teams?  Forget about it.

So what's left for a blogger to do?  Invoke that special feature:

Lipstick on the Pig:

• Monta Ellis played a beautifully efficient game.  Now healthy again, he got wherever he wanted to on the court against OJ Mayo.  This 28 point performance on 12-20 shooting, coming on a back-to-back after putting up 39 points against San Antonio, shows just how special Monta Ellis is as a scorer.  

One man Thabeet.

• Earlier this season, still trying to figure out his role alongside Stephen Curry, Monta was plagued by turnovers.  He had only 1 in this game, and in the last four games his assist:TO ratio is 31:7. 
• Mayo had a decent game offensively, although its tough to judge a marksman in a turkey shoot.  You want to know how bad it was?  Even Marcus Williams and Zach Randolph hit threes.  On defense, it was another story. Monta Ellis is a tough cover, no doubt.  But Mayo is helpless.

Dude IS tall.

• Hasheem Thabeet:  Nellie has made a career out of making players like Hasheem Thabeet look bad.  This game was no exception, even though Tolliver couldn't hit a shot.  Nellie trade for Thabeet?  Not in a million years.  He'd rather shake hands with Tim Kawakami.
• Trade Monta Ellis for OJ Mayo and Hasheem Thabeet?  I wouldn't trade him for 3 OJ Mayo's and 5 Thabeet's.
• Reggie Williams has beaten out Anthony Morrow.  That seems clear enough now doesn't it? Williams has an all-around game that Morrow is still struggling to put together.  Of course, he suffered from the feltbot curse in this game, and couldn't hit a shot.  But he displayed a nice talent for offensive rebounding, picking up 4.  Will the Warriors keep him?
• Stephen Curry:  Curry ran the team well when he was on the floor, despite his injury.  He made the game easier for Monta, finding him for some open threes.  And he produced a highlight:  the patented Steve Nash hesitation reverse that caught Zach Randolph by surprise at 0:38 of the second quarter.
• Want a two word summary of this Warriors season?  Rewind your game tape to 9:22 of the second quarter to see Chris Hunter in agony on the Warriors bench.  And read his lips.

Tonight I'm giving it out to someone special:  Warriors fans.  Its a wonder there are any left.