Recap #40: New Jersey Nets 100, Golden State Warriors 109- Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day! + GSoM Kids Day 3

Efficient, nice stats, difference maker. Dave deserved it.

guarantee Nelson would have Curry dominating right now….Curry may not be the best player on the team, but he is easily the best playmaker and shooter. His defense, although not great, is not that bad when he doesn’t reach. Smart has done an awful job with Curry’s plays and playtime.

He is probably the worst defender in the league.

Not the worst at his position, let alone in the league.

recognizes every day as a holiday. they don’t do S***

For people who keep saying this:
Do you really think Monta is deserving of an all star spot over Steve Nash, Chris Paul, Deron Williams, Kobe Bryant, Manu Ginobilli, Tony Parker or Russell Westbrook?

my favorite part of this great recap. warriors played well, but i again can’t help but wonder why smart uses curry so horribly. Like others have mentioned, I’m starting to think Keith doesn’t like how Steph plays, and if that’s anywhere close to being the case, he should be fired within the minute. Not to mention another game with awful rotations and coaching decisions.

by the way, regarding our coach, he always seems to be reacting to the other coach. He’ll never make a substitution during a timeout (even when it’s fully necessary, such as when the opponents are on a big run and Curry/Lee have sat out for almost 12 minutes of game time). Then, less than a minute after that timeout, he’ll bring them in after the Warriors surrender a couple more points of their lead or get into an even bigger hole than they were in before. Why not bring them in when the ball is stopped during the timeout like a normal person? I’ve seen this happen countlessly lately and it’s beginning to infuriate me.

Jim Barnett is a total stud. Seems like a great guy.

Yeah, you already “ended” another thread with that quote.

Dude, we get it. Without checking, I’d guess 98% of your posts on this site have consisted of some variant of the “did you hear the one about how Monta rules and Steph sucks?” one-liner. A lot of other posters here are capable of discussing things with a bit more nuance, depth and variety. Let them.

Well, of course, by its nature, a blog in which the main subject is a bunch of pituitary cases in shorts running around trying to put a ball in basket is going to be a little “silly” sometimes.

That said… did you actually read this diary? If you did, and all you took away from it was Atma Bro “throwing gas on the fire of Steph v. Monta” … I really don’t know what to tell you.

(I am biased)

A couple of nice post moves…on offense!

As always, he was a great help defender around the rim. Did a great job at staying down on pump fakes

His FT form is looking pretty good. Nice deep knee bend and relatively smooth release.

Lopez mostly ended up settling for jumpers (I think, not sure what the stats are) because Beans was holding his own on the block against him

I remember one pretty sweet P&R with him and Curry; Beans catch and finish in the air.

Also, I know it was only against the Nyets, but when Biedrens and Lee both play well, the Dubs look completely different. Great rebounding presence, pretty solid-ish D (again, we played the Nets, so the bar is pretty low). And when Lee steps out to hit those jumpers, it’s nice to have Beans down low to fight for the rebounds

He played good defense and his offense was efficient. Pretty happy with it.

It looks better, Fitz pointed out he’s even better when he gets a deeper knee bend. Biedrins needs to have enough confidence to regain his aggressiveness. He used to be a jumping bean. It would be great if he wanted to get to the line.

I definitely took note of that first play you mentioned. Andris was about a step out of his range (which means he was two steps away from the basket ;-)), and had Lopez coming at him. Lee was closely guarded at the time, but his defender wasn’t in good position (exactly why he had to foul Lee), and Lopez was able to come over to help on Lee because Andris made the pass so early. I’d like to see Andris challenge Lopez, but honestly I’d rather have the ball in Lee’s hands in that situation. I think if Andris wanted to pass he should have waited another split second for Lopez to come out a step further, but he might have lost the passing lane.

It was a passive play for sure (though, not entirely a bad one). Most guys will just never look to pass that close to the hoop. He never had much in the way of killer instinct, but he definitely looks scared (or maybe passive is a better word?) at times. It’s no secret that he’s having trouble with his confidence. I hope he can work it out.

The second play I didn’t notice. I have noticed that in general he isn’t slipping screens the way he used to. At one point, back when he was playing at his best I’d say he probably slipped at least 80% of the screens he ‘set’. He almost never stuck around to actually put a body on someone. This season he is definitely holding the screens longer, and up to now I had assumed that was the way Smart wanted him to set them. It’s interesting to hear that Smart was actually calling for him to roll early. I’ll definitely keep a close eye on that.

I don’t think this team has really figured out how to run the pick and roll effectively with the current personnel yet. I think in general when you slip the screen early you are putting more pressure on the guard to make the pass. If you can’t make that quick pass with both defenders left up high then that is not going to create an advantage most of the time. I’ve seen both Monta and Steph make that pass plenty of times, but I’m not sure either one of them is particularly good at it.

On the other hand, if the screener stands his ground then it puts more pressure on the guard to make the offensive play himself. The hope is that either he looses his man, or forces the switch where he is expected to take advantage of the bigger slower defender.

One of the keys with the PnR is that your guard needs to be a good enough passer to make the roller a threat. I’m still not sure if our guards are good enough passers to accomplish that consistently. Yes they can hit the guy if there is a defensive breakdown, but if the defenders stay high and pressure the guard can they consistently make the defense pay? That is what makes Nash so amazing. If you pressure him high, he will make the pass to the roller. Is you suck in to protect against the pass, he will hit the open shot. His passing sets up his shooting, and his shooting sets up his passing. Add to that the ability to keep his dribble alive under pressure, and still make good decisions, and you’ve got a guy who is a nightmare to defend in the PnR. I think Steph has the shooting part figured out, and he’s getting there with his handles, but he hasn’t shown that he can consistently make those passes.

Anyway, thanks for the nice breakdown IQ. Good stuff.

Curry’s been okay. I don’t think he’s been “so bad” at all. He’s doing fine.