Ahhhh. It's nice to get a win. It's like a drink of refreshing Iced Tea. Not that real Natural Iced Tea crap but that super sweet artificial lemon flavored one. Yea, that's the good stuff.
Yet despite the W tonight, I think there is one thing that the collective Warriors Nation can agree upon.
It should NOT have been that close.
Kabuki to the hole!
(AP Photo/Ty Russell)
What happened in the first quarter? Why such terrible shots? Why were we forced to sit and bite our nails in the fourth quarter as we played an inferior team that happened to be missing 4 of their main players? What would have happened tonight if Chris Paul was in the game? Why so many threes, AGAIN?!
Okay, I'm not going to be "that guy". Y'know, the one who beats up on his team even when they pull in a win. I am just as happy as the rest of you that we walked away with this one in our pocket. I just knew that to some degree we were all thinking it.
Tonight we saw some definite positives as well as negatives from our squad. Barnes continues to establish himself as a sleeper hit with a killer 29 points, 11 boards, and 5 jacks. Not to mention his EXTREMELY clutch 3 pointer in the waning minutes of the game.
Baron did exactly what we needed from him tonight. With no Monta and no JRich, he shouldered the load, playing a full 48 minutes with 29 points, 7 dimes, 7 boards, 2 jacks, and a sweet block from behind.
The problem tonight was the production spread. The rest of the team looked relatively dead out there tonight. Murphy, McLeod, and Beidrins, among others, logged some serious minutes tonight with extremely low production. No one is saying that they need to be nailing 30 point games each, but there needs to be consistency among our supporting cast. Baron is more likely to injure himself than ever logging all of these minutes, and while I love the progress that Barnes has made, he cannot be relied upon to perform like this every game (yet).
Kabuki didn't exactly impress either, but he gets the benefit of being new and having a really hard name to spell. That wins points with me. I don't know why.
But a win is a win and we're above .500. Let us march on to Memphis and shame them at home in front of all of their fellow Memphibians. Lets get this streak started.
Warrior Wonder: Whew, this is a tough call so I'll let you decide. Is it Baron or Barnes? Convince me!
UPDATE: Live from OKC... it's loyal GSoM community member Zorgon with another great recap of the Warriors' win against the Hornets!