The Horri-Bulls come to Oaktown minus their best players Luol Deng, Ben Gordon, and Kirk Hinrich and what do the Warriors do?
Preview/ Open Thread (370+ Comments)
If this were Pictionary, Nellie would be trying to draw horri-bull.
They pick up an inexcusable loss on national TV.
More Horri-Bull-ness after the jump.
No Bull
First of all props to the Chicago Bulls. Make no mistake though, this a pretty bad team and if they were in the West their season would already be over, but these guys played way above their heads tonight. Let's take a closer look:
- Chris Duhon's always been a pretty steady and solid backup PG type (or starting with Ben Gordon off the bench), but he's the one who played like a snubbed All-Star tonight, not Baron Davis. He came out firing and even managed to intercept QB Matt Barnes twice which you rarely see. Monta might've had the highlights of the night, but Duhon won this matchup. That shouldn't be happening... ever.
Occupation: Warrior Killer
- A former Warrior #1 overall pick tore the roof up off the Roaracle dome tonight and it wasn't #4. Joe Smith looked like a superstar out there with 27 points and 8 boards. He also went Corey Maggette on the Warriors going 13 for 14 from the charity stripe. Memo to Warriors: It's not 1996.
Joe wasn't ordinary tonight.
I've always thought Smith was a nice solid player, but what kept him from living up to the hype of being a #1 pick was his softness. Well if he's soft, what does that make the Warriors?
Hey since we're on this whole throwback tip around these parts, you think Mully can hook up Joe Smith too?
- Tyrus Thomas and Joakim Noah, the Knicks gift to the Bulls, also looked pretty good out there. Thomas was pretty savvy down the stretch and Noah brought the rebounding and hustle (plus some incredibly laughable free throw form).
Tyrus Thomas and Joe Smith have trouble seeing where the hoop is.
- How do you let Ben Wallace score 10 points in 18 minutes?
The Bulls should feel proud of themselves for getting this win on the road minus 1/3 of their rotation. Blog-a-Bull's sure loving it.
The Webber Way
Tonight's biggest storyline of course was the return of Chris Webber. CWebb didn't play all that much, but here were a few positives:
- A nice feed to Biedrins a couple of feet away from the bucket from the high post.
- 2 jumpers from the elbow.
- A nice pass to a cutting Monta Ellis which is hopefully something for this team to build on. I would love to see CWebb and Monta work a little two man screen and pop game like the Sac days with Webber and Mike Bibby.
- A steal off a pass from Warrior Killer Chris Duhon.
This could be the start of something beautiful.
Final line: 12:38 minutes, 4 points, 1 rebound, 2 assists, 1 steal, 3 fouls
It's gonna take a little bit of time, but this looks to be a nice addition. Before people jump to irrational conclusions, I'll say this. Chris Webber was NOT the reason the Warriors lost what should've been a freebie at home tonight.
Keep the J's coming big man.
Warrior Worries
Win or lose I always like to spend some time in these world famous GSoM Recaps breaking down what the Warriors did well. However tonight I'm not going to waste your time and my time doing that on this winter Bay Area night. What's the point? This was just a dumb loss. There's no other way to put it.
Here's just a few of the many things that went wrong tonight:
- I really don't have all that much a problem with the 28 three's the Warriors attempted tonight. They were for the most part really good looks. Unfortunately they just didn't go down. I'm not even kidding. A whopping 75% of them were blanks.
- You always like to get off to a good start and finish games off strong. The Warriors did neither tonight and let the Bulls and Duhon run up 32 points against them in the opening period and 37 when it mattered the most.
- The Warriors were really sloppy on D the entire night. They racked up a whopping 31 fouls. To his credit Mickael Pietrus was very active on D and you could tell he was trying, but he still fouled out in less than 12 minutes of play. Andris Biedrns and Al Harrington nearly fouled out as well.
- I rarely question Nellie's coaching decisions. This man has more hoops knowledge in his pinky finger than 99.99999% of people out there including me (shocking isn't it?!). But I will question his substitution patterns near the end of this game particularly with Al Harrington. Al was pretty much the only Warrior with a reliable deep jumper tonight and Nellie seemed really averse to playing him at the most opportune moments down the stretch. Instead Nellie elected to go with Matt Barnes who wasn't in that scoring mode tonight. Very odd.
I'm sure people can fill in the rest of the negatives from this game in the comments, so I'll leave it at this. If the situations were flipped and the Warriors lost to the Bulls without Baron Davis, Monta Ellis, and Stephen Jackson, most of us would probably excuse the loss. Well let's be consistent here and not forget the situation the Bulls found themselves in tonight at the Roaracle.
This Warriors loss was inexcusable. Teams that want to be playing past mid-April win these ones. Teams that want to count lotto balls in May don't.
But Seriously... You've Got To Be Kidding Me
The Roaracle is supposed to be the best and most feared venue in the entire NBA. So why do the Warriors keep dropping silly losses at home? A few weeks back they lost to the Minnesota Timberwolves by 1 and tonight they lost to a MIA bad Bulls team.
That's just inexcusable. It's also very stoppable- yes, I went there.
Sure Mickael Pietrus had 2 stunning swats plus a crazy jam, Baron Davis walked away with some nice numbers (22 points, 8 assists, and 4 steals- although his shooting was awful), Monta Ellis had 25 points on 11 for 12 shooting, and Al Harrington dropped 20 points in under 27 minutes.
MP2 throws it down with his eyes closed!
But I don't think any single Warrior really brought it consistently tonight on both sides of the ball and deserves the honors. However there was one constant tonight and that was Andris Biedrins' amazing rebounding effort tonight. Biedrins inhaled an eye popping 18 boards with 9 of them coming on the offensive end. Just call him Windex. Nice work Andris!
To: Andris
Compliments of the GSoM Crew.
Say it with me now- FREE ARTEST 2.0!
CWebb points up north to Sac where help from a Tru Warier lies.
Photos: Rocky Widner/NBAE via Getty Images