The Golden State Warriors have their first regular season win under coach Nellie for 2006. It came against what Atma Brother calls a "college" team, the Trailblazers. I'll take it, though it wasn't very pretty. The Warriors decided to play a quarter of basketball because the first three were pitiful! Personally, I believe it's a start of things to come, but tonight showed that we still have a long way to go to become an elite team.
The Good: I always like to start with the positives and the biggest one tonight was the W. Not for Warriors, but for win! We needed a win to give us hope after a horrific loss to the Kobe-less Lakers on Wednesday. Pietrus a.k.a Pietri (a fan behind us kept calling him that) was a monSTAR! His 16 points and 10 rebounds were nice, but they didn't fully capture his intensity and freakish athletic ability that we saw in person. Soaring a full head over everyone else, Pietri was able to pull down impressive rebounds and kept pushing the ball forward playing Nellie-Ball. Monta was a crowd favorite zipping by the Portland defense and Baron had a quiet yet effective 19 points and 9 assists. The team really came together in the fourth quarter. Let's hope this carries till tomorrow's game.
This is where we found Pietri hanging out most of the night!
The Bad: So I bought into the whole Dunleavy at point guard idea yesterday, but after today's game I'd scratch that idea as fast as I would scratch an Eva Longoria itch! Trust me. It was FUGLY. I usually don't like to jump on the Dunleavy Hate-Wagon, but I have to say he was not the right fit to bring the ball up the court. We saw Dunleavy walk the ball up the court wasting time and slowing the game down way too many times. It did not seem like there was any rhythm. I'd be surprised if Nellie sticks with Dunleavy at the point again tomorrow, but maybe Dun just needs more time? To his credit he did have a solid 4th quarter ending with 14 points.
The Ugly: Quarter #1 was Ugly. Quarter #2 was Ugly. Quarter #3 was pretty ugly. The Warriors have not found their game yet and it will take a while for them to discover it. JRich is still obviously hurt and not as explosive. He probably won't be in game shape until next month. Nellie was forced to try four or five different lineups tonight. Pietri, Ike and Monta off the bench really helped dig our starting lineup out of a hole.
When are we going to see more of this?
All in all it was a fun game and I am positive about the season. We have a ton of work to do, but we wouldn't be Warriors fans if we weren't a little skeptical.