The softest interior in the league!
There are a lot of problems on this Warriors team. Tops among those is a lack of toughness both physically and mentally. Toughness gets you a long way when you lack skill. It means you work hard on defense, box out, crash the boards. It means you play smart and don't commit silly fouls. It means you lay it all out on the floor and work harder than the man opposite you. It means a whole lot of things that the Warriors just lack. It means you don't let the Timberwolves have their way with you.
How can this team be so Charmin soft for so many years in a row? The D-Leaguers last year had more heart and toughness than these guys do, especially the big men.
You know who's tough? Kevin Love. I'd give up a lot to get him on my team. It's Kevin Love and a bunch of crappy players. Imagine if he didn't have a backup point guard, backup shooting guard, backup small forward, and backup center starting with him.
37 points on just 13 shots (8-13)! He was 3-4 from 3 and he forced his way to the line 23 times making 18. Some were pretty lame calls, but when you force the issue like he does, you're going to get the benefit of the doubt from the refs. It's like that in the NBA, it's like that in college, high school, and even rec league.
23 rebounds is just ridiculous. He overpowered the weak Warriors interior.
I believe he's got 4 30-20 games. The rest of the league combined has just 1.
Big Scoring, Little D
I think by now, I'm willing to take a grind it out, D you up team versus a run up and down the floor and score a ton of points team. Been there, done that. I'll take guys like Kendrick Perkins. He scares me and I'm only watching him on TV. I think he would rather lock you up than score. Maybe we can mix those kinds of guys into this team.
As for this game, the Warriors scored a ton of points in the first, second, and fourth quarters. When they completely flopped in the third quarter, shooting 5-27 and getting outscore 16 to 35, they essentially lost the game. They nearly came back and made it a really close game, but you just can't have a massive lapse and dig such a deep whole and expect to beat anyone.
The Final Play
Who drew up that final play? The kindergartner behind the bench? Twolves coach, Kurt Rambis? C'mon.
Run Stephen Curry around 3 screens and then he'll be wide open! Perfect. Oh wait, the other guys don't just stop when they get screened, they can switch off and guard Curry too. Crap.
How can you not even got a shot off with 2.4 seconds left? Who does that except the Warriors?
Random Thoughts
- The Timberwolves let the Warriors back in the game in the 4th when they stopped getting Kevin Love the ball. Michael Beasley had a good overall game but in that 4th he really hurt the team with forced shots that missed. Why they stopped getting Love the ball in the 4th I have no idea, but maybe that's why they have the second worst record
- The Twolves drafted about 20 point guards in the last 2 drafts, but where are they? The guard play on the Twolves is pretty awful.
- That Anthony Randolph guy, what's the big deal about him? Why is he worth a first round pick? How could he flop even worse in NY than he did in Oakland?
- Can we get rid of Acie Law? Maybe Marcus Williams is available.
- Ekpe Udoh. We are planning on giving him more minutes so we trade away Brandan Wright. Why? I'm pretty good with him getting around 10-15 minutes per game until he is able to grab rebounds.
- David Lee put up some nice numbers again today: 20 points, 10 rebounds (5 offensive), 5 assists. He got into foul trouble so he missed some time. But the biggest stat for David Lee is 37-23, meaning the numbers that his counterpart Kevin Love put up dwarf what he did.
- Is there any point to the Warriors playing any more this season? Can we just throw in the towel and call it a season? I pretty excited for the playoffs, the draft lottery, and the draft. Woohoo! No sarcasm this time, really I'm ready to move on. It's a Warriors' fan tradition.
Stephen Curry. He shot really well tonight and hit the boards.
33 points on 13-21 FG's (5-7 from 3), 11 rebounds, but just 2 assists.
