Warrior's Open Practice....

Just watching the opening sootaround, is looks like Kosta Perovic actually has a servicable midrange shot. Pietrus also looked good shooting from his normal corner three spot, but before the practice spent most of his time clowning with the fans (he would throw the ball into the stands and have them throw it back, sort of like a communal game of catch).

Before the scrimmage game started, Nelson said, "If I were a betting man, I'd say that the white team is gonna take this,"so I guess it's good he isn't.  Baron Davis played pretty well, looked like he had plenty of spring in his legs. Monta Ellis was the big scorer for the blue team with thirty three points. On the white team, Barnes was on fire from behind the line, Jackson looked sharp, and Belinelli started slow but got hot in the second half. In fact, he even got a breakaway and showed the crowd his signature 360 dunk he's always dropping on all those italian youtube clips.

Anyways, as I see it, here's the positives:

-All the vets look like they're as sharp as they were at the end of last year.

-Al Harrington did, as Jim Barnett suggested during a recent preseason game, look much more confident and controlled under the basket.

-Austin Croshere looks like he lost a fair share of weight, and surprised me with his vertical leap. He threw down a few dunks in warmups, and looks like he's more than able to run with the rest of them.

-Ellis showed no rust from the injury.

-Patrick O'Bryant looked very nice. He has a very languid, almost lazy sort of demeanor on the court which I think sometimes hides the good work he does. I think he scored in double figures, got some tough boards, and blocked a handful of shots.

-Belinelli didn't get much from outside (I think he went something like 1-4, 1-5) but he showed great leaping ability, as well as his skill in getting to the basket that I was more concerned with than his three point shooting.

http://public.fotki.com/tway22/gsw_open_practice

Anyways I have all the videos including the Soulja Boy ones on my laptop...but im at my cousins house right now so when I get home ill try and get them up.....not too bad lookin either, I was in the 4th row. Monta's And 1 is my favorite, though.

incase u didn't look up heres parts 028
its not really 28 parts tho.28th video i took with my phone. anyways enjoy....

http://rapidshare.com/files/65930320/028.3g2

Onward to the notes i scribbled down:

Format
At the beginning of he practice were some fastbreak drills, 3 on 2, 4 on 3, etc where they practiced recognizing where to go on a break and where openings would pop up. Then they went into some halfcourt drills running all their set plays (there are a ton of variations). Then comes the intrasquad scrimmage, followed by ROOKIE HAZING.

Injuries
Azubuike (flu) and Wright (back?) out.

Offensive Plays!
Man, Nellie went through the plays extremely quickly, I couldn't chart them accurately. Here's what i did take from it though:

• Philosophically, Nellie prefers to run the offense through the elbow (free throw line extended), either side. The high post man will be a big, which means if you want to play for Nellie, you better be able to make a clean pass and have quick feet to move without the ball
• The most common set (I think it was called the "1-series") features bigs at each elbow, shooters on the baseline, and the guard bringing the ball up. Picture a 1-2-2 formation
• Guard enters the ball to one of the elbows, then cuts ballside, trying to rub his man off the big. This is one give and go opportunity that might catch a sleeping defender. Otherwise, the cutting guard proceeds to set a down screen for the baseline man, who will be cutting up to the ball. The big with the ball at the elbow has a couple options: 1) hand the ball off to the baseline man who has cut upwards toward the ball, 2) hit the screen-setting guard baseline, or 3) reverse the ball to the weakside, where the big at the opposite elbow will have set a pick for the other baseline shooter to curl around. If the opportunity arises, the big man with the big can also attack the basket himself.

• We will be seeing alot of high pick and roll action to take advantage of Biedrins' speed. The PIck and roll series is called "horns" with numbers changing to indicate who is involved. Biedrins can cut off a screen faster than many bigs, which means he either gets a bucket or draws a help defender freeing another Warrior for an open J. You have to respect our shooters, so a high pick and roll creates alot of open spaces.
• My favorite variation of "horns" is their counter to aggressive pick and roll defense. Biedrins will set the pick high, center of the court beyond the FT line. As the guard moves to use the pick, another guard or SF will slide up toward the top of the arc area. Because aggressive pick and roll defenses call for the defending big man to "jump" and cut off the penetrating guard, he leaves his man (Biedrins, usually) early. Biedrins, in response, will set the pick high, center court, but "slip" the screen (meaning he'll cut before the guard runs his man into the screen). The guard will hit the weakside man (G/SF) with a quick pass, reversing the ball away from the defenders who had hoped to "jump' the screen, creating a new angle for a second pass to the cutting Biedrins.

- Beyond specific plays, the scheme will always call for some sort of weakside action, where the guys away from the ball will be running their men through picks to dive cut at the basket or run to an open spot for open J's. Big men are, again, expected to pass and move without the ball and be comfortable catching it at the elbow/high post extended.

Defense
We will be running more man this year, and the zone was only installed this weekend. There are 2-3, 3-2, and 1-3-1 zones that we use.

Our defensive philosophy will be to aggressively attack the pick and roll to disrupt the play. Bigs will jump to cutoff the penetrating guards, and our guards will stick to their man and hopefully create more midcourt steals.

Individual Players
Ellis got chewed out by Nellie for failing to hit the open man a couple times, but he also flashed some fancy passing, hitting Biedrins in tight quarters with a behind the back pass in traffic off a side pick and roll. He also looked extremely smooth and confident with his midrange J, and even knocked down a couple 3's. Hitting those consistently is the next step in the evolution of his game. He was, of course, finishing everything at the rim in spectacular fashion.

Belinelli had a very inconsistent jump shoot, but came up with a number of steals. He also finished at the rim VERY strong, with a breakaway, 360 twohanded jam and another dunk in traffic.

Croshere flashed veteran mettle, getting a buncha baskets just by executing plays correctly and using his above-average mobility for a big man to beat defenders to the open spaces. He might be more effective than I thought.

Hudson was virtually useless as a creator for others, but in Nellie's offense, his jump shooting might also be valuable. He was on fire in the 4th quarter. I don't expect him to shoot so well all year, but there will be times when no one will can hit anything and we'll need him to step up and make big shots.

Baron was Baron. Unstoppable in transition, creating for everyone else, finishing strong in the paint (especially over our rookie bigs).

Pietrus didn't do much. As usual, he had some mental breakdowns and stupid shots, but also hit some J's from the middle of the court for once.

POB was active but not always productive. He had a nice block and some post-ups, otherwise he did not stand out.

Kosta sucked. He wasn't even finishing during layup and fastbreak drills. He really needs to get stronger and find a way to complete plays. He did not look smooth or athletic at all, moving very mechnically.

Lasme was active down low, the dude showed he had a motor. He had trouble executing some of the plays, probably not being accustomed to playing in the high post in a motion offense.

Barnes shot the ball extremely well....extremely well.

Harrington was bleh. He missed some shots he shouldn't have missed, but otherwise was everywhere. I wish i had a boxscore. His longrange J seems off, he wasn't hitting the 3P.

Jack was careless. He got a technical after arguing with a ref in an exchange I have to believe was scripted. He was pretty aggressive with his J, but didn't go to the rim much...that might hurt us during the year.

Thats all i have...or at least thats all I could read of my own scribblings.

Questions? Complaints?

(AIM: JetForze; email: Jon.d.ma@gmail.com)

But seriously though, who gets a technical in a practice scrimmage? lmao.

He has PG skills but not a PG mindset always...

Questions? Complaints?

(AIM: JetForze; email: Jon.d.ma@gmail.com)

1. if you have a dsl modem after your download turn it off wait 5-10 seconds turn it back on and you should be good to go for another download. repeat as  many times as you want.
   
2. there is this website thats lets you download rapidshare files one at a time but its unlimited. the site sometimes goes down like now its down for 5 more hours but after that you can just put the links in there and it will give you a download link.

Some Notes:

-Did any one notice that monta ellis was hitting a LOT of his 3-pt attempts?  Last year, his 3-pt shooting was pretty bad, so maybe he's worked on it this season?  If he has, he's gonna be even more of a threat, since defenders are always expecting him to drive with his quickness.  It may just be at practice, but Monta's 3-pt seems pretty legit.  We'll see how it develops in the season.

-Is anyone worried about Belinelli's shot?  It seems like he's lost a little confidence because of the off night he had at the LA Clipper game last friday.  His dunks at practice were sick though.  I'll take that 360 dunk any day.  Maybe I'm just paranoid, but a lot of his shots, 3-pt and 2-pt attempts alike, were off.  He even air balled a few of his threes.  Again, it's only practice, so we'll see how it goes during the reg. season.

Can't wait for it to start!  WARRIORS ARE GONNA PWN THE JAZZ TOMORROW NIGHT!