Yahoo! Final Boxscore
The Warriors have broken the cycle!
No, they didn't really break the cycle of poor interior defense. They definitely didn't break the cycle of NOT letting young bigs play. They sort of had a decent first quarter, though it was strange to see how close the score was even as they played an away game.
Yet, old habits are hard to break, but the Warriors got a win, thus breaking their usual win-loss pattern of 2-1-2-1-1-1-2-1- ... well you get the point.
3 GAME WINNING STREAK!
The Warriors matched their biggest win streak since Stephen Jackson's initial return in mid-November. They begin their road trip against mostly sub-.500 and all-in-all it's nice to see them hold on, again, to a win. With a double digit lead to start the 4th dwindling to within 6 with about 6 minutes to go, did anyone feel like it was a little deja vu? I wondered if I was watching the December 26th game vs. the T-Wolves where our Warriors blew a 20 point lead. I'm all about nailbiters and exciting basketball, but are these close games becoming a little too frequent even against horribly bad teams? Whatever happened to the good ole fashioned blow out that our Warriors are used to doing to even elite teams?
Baron holds clinic for young PGs
Quick tangent: The Warriors gameplay aside, is this trend among our Warriors not potentially laden with conspiracy theory projections? If not against a decent team, wouldn't you probably turn off the TV by the 3rd or beginning of the 4th quarter or switch to re-runs of Fresh Prince of Bel-Air instead? If national or even regional representation is partly based on visual advertisements and ratings, how would continuous blowouts do for these numbers? David Stern and conspiracy go together like Bert and Ernie from Sesame Street. Stern has been dealing with the droopy ratings and attendance as far as the NBA industry goes. His recent "Where Amazing Happens" seems like a continuous spate of strange NBA dealings with regards to NBA representation and branding. So, it seems to me that the recent "closer" games played by the Warriors and their opponents is just another one of Stern's band-aid like dealings in the recent past with respect to raising interests and viewership. Just a hunch. Anyway, end of tangent.
Warrior close games against bad teams is bad deja vu ... like this
Is it me or do the Warriors seem to play lackadaisically when they meet up with the Timberwolves? A win is a win and I feel bad that I'm feeling selfish when a 7 point victory disappoints me when winning ANY games was hard enough to come by. But maybe because a 23-16 team is playing down to the level of a 5 win team that looks as bad as untalented as the 97-98 Warriors.
Baron Davis had a solid game though, notching 5 steals to go with his usual balanced offensive attack. Monta Ellis had his way with the Wolves, in the first quarter, and was the media darling for the Minnesota FSN announcers. The Warriors offensive output was evenly distributed throughout the roster as 4 other Warriors scored in double digits (Croshere with a close 9 in limited minutes). Jax's, not necessarily known of recently to be a distributor, had several nice dribble drives and dishes to cutting Warriors.
Harrington plays some face-up defense
What happened to Biedrins last night? All players have slow games every now and then, but 5 fouls and 0 points in 25 minutes? For some reason, he just looked overmatched against Jefferson, who's not exactly known for caring about defense. Granted, the thigh bruise has been slowing him some and he hasn't quite been able to get the position he's wanted down on the block (especially against Indy). Maybe it was best to rest him more?
Big ups to the Lock-n-Lob! Easy buckets for the Warriors come and go in a game like the seasons, but it's fun watching them run this off the high post leading to some nice alley-oops. Towards the end of the 3rd quarter when the Minny announcers were hyping up the Warriors fun, team-oriented play, they spent considerable time explaining the lock-n-lob; its basically faking a high-post to get the defender to front of you, only to back spin towards the hoop for an easy lay-up or jam. The alleyoop jam to Pietrus is indicative of this great play!
While the obvious choice would be Baron Davis, I'm going to go for Austin Croshere. He's out for several games with back pains and comes back to provide two solid efforts... back to back! He's a lot more agile than I thought he was out there and surprisingly decent handles, which I guess lends itself to his face up game. Though not necessarily excelling in any area, his overall hustle is hard to ignore.
Basksetball photos courtesy of AP Photo/Jim Mone and David Sherman/NBAE via Getty Images