FOURTH QUARTER

** At the buzzer: Warriors 104, Suns 101. Morrow finishes with 30, 15 in the fourth quarter, and a team-best +15, challenges TNT commentator Reggie Miller to a 3-point contest.

Miller’s priceless response: “Time, place and how much? . . . I’ll be your huckleberry.”

** Curry is pouring it on with his passing right now: Bullets down the lane to Biedrins and Morrow for buckets, just after his own drive to the hoop. Six unanswered points and a four-point lead with an FT for Morrow coming out of the break.

** The one interesting thing Reggie Miller has said tonight (among a whole lot of hot air), was pointing out how Stephen Curry must learn to go to his right; teams scouting his preseason tapes will overplay him to his left in short order. My add: It’s similar to Monta’s inability to go left, something he has worked hard on over the years to correct.

** Curry has played the most minutes of anyone in this game, and he looks it. Absolutely gassed.

** I’ve seen notes touting Earl Clark as a Shane Battier-type of player. I haven’t seen it in this game.

** Some current plus/minus #s for W’s: Morrow +14, Maggette (?!) +6, Ellis -10

THIRD QUARTER

** I love that quick-step step-back J from Curry. That shot’s unstoppable.

** Tough make by Monta Ellis, who has been quiet for much of the evening, hitting with a mid-air hang over Goran Dragic.

** It didn’t gain the Warriors possession, but I loved seeing Anthony Randolph’s blind side poke-away from Amare Stoudemire in the low block, taking the initiative against the bigger player. I didn’t love seeing Randolph fail to box out Stoudemire on the S/R with Nash, allowing Amare to get the putback bucket.

HALFTIME

** Don Nelson told reporters before the game, with respect to the two-game suspension of Stephen Jackson, that “I have never suspended a player before.”

Too bad that fact is, well, non-factual.

I haven’t done an exhaustive search of Nellie’s coaching record, but I’ve already found one instance: Nelson hit Latrell Sprewell, who was in the midst of missing practices in the wake of the Chris Webber fire sale, with a one-game suspension in January 1995.

Reading from the San Francisco Examiner’s account of the day:

Sprewell met with coach Don Nelson Thursday morning and the suspension was announced following that discussion.

In a brief press release, the Warriors announced that Sprewell would be suspended without pay for Thursday night’s game against Milwaukee but is expected to rejoin the team at practice Friday. The cost to Sprewell will be $9,756, 1 / 82nd of his $800,000 salary.

The suspension “is in accordance with team rules which were distributed to all players at the start of training camp in October and were reiterated during a team meeting led by Don Nelson on Tuesday,” the team explained in its press release.

Not to excuse Jackson’s outburst, but the idea that this is the first time Nelson has faced such a situation — i.e., that Jackson is a once-in-a-lifetime malcontent — is simply a convenient fiction.

It’s also interesting to note that the Sprewell suspension came just a few weeks before Nelson took a buyout and resigned from his dual posts as GM and coach.

** While researching Nelson’s suspension claim, I came across this unintentionally hilarious piece from the Milwaukee Journal in the wake of Nelson’s departure from the Warriors.

The humourous bits:

The tip-off was the case of Latrell Sprewell, suspended by Nelson for missing practice. Those who have followed Sprewell’s career he played in high school at Milwaukee Washington know that he was not some head case, not some petulant star. This was a man who had worked endlessly on his game and had been the picture of diligence.

So if you lose Latrell Sprewell, you have a problem, and the problem is yours.

Um . . . yeah.

SECOND QUARTER

** Stephen Curry is naturally unselfish with the ball, something that makes him different from almost everyone else on the Warriors’ roster. Other guys find the open man when they think about it, but Curry does it without having to hestitate, even just for a fraction of a second.

** @feltbot: Randolph was 5-for-13 on Js in the first Lakers game, and is 2-for-7 tonight. Last year, his eFG% on Js, per 82games.com, was 33.3. The only guys worse than that on the W’s: DeMarcus Nelson (29.0), Marcus Williams (21.4) and Andris Biedrins (15.3). It needs to improve, or teams will just sag off him.

** Nice teardrop pullup from Anthony Morrow, who continues to show more game than that of just a 3-point shooter.

** Steve Nash and Grant Hill did a great job of bamboozling Curry on the S/R with Corey Maggette. But Curry comes right back on the break and finds the right man (Maggette) for a layup.

FIRST QUARTER

** Two mid-range jumpers, two misses for Anthony Randolph. And now a 10-footer off the offensive rebound.

** I’ve got plenty of love for Jason Richardson, but if Monta Ellis can’t beat JR off the dribble … well, let’s just say it’s not good.

** One of the bonuses to playing against Channing Frye, the 3-point shooting center, is that the Suns aren’t in position to take such easy advantage of the Warriors’ rebounding deficiencies.

** Tough pull-up runner at the top of the key for Morrow, who gets the bank anyways.

PREGAME
Check back here at 6:30 p.m. Saturday for live blogging on the Warriors. Will the meeting of Stephen Curry and Steve Nash look something like this?

Three other things I’m watching for:

1) Obviously, what happens with Stephen Jackson. (UPDATE: The Warriors have suspended Jackson for two games — both exhibition contests — for what they termed “conduct detrimental to the team.”)Does he sit out at the team’s request? Does he chop block Jason Richardson and get tossed by the refs? Does he go 8-for-10 from the field with four 3-pointers? Does he go 1-for-10 in the first 7 minutes? The possibilities are truly limitless.

2) Anthony Randolph and his propensity to settle for mid-range jumpers. I think Randolph could and probably will develop the midrange J needed to be a legitimate wing on offense, but last season he didn’t show it. The Lakers played soft on him and dared him to shoot from 15 feet or farther out, and in those two games, he missed 11 of 20 Js. It seems clear this is how teams are going to defend him, at least to start the season. What changes will he make to his game?

3) Acie Law has looked impressive so far, more so than I thought he would. I’d say he has a real, if still slim, chance to unseat C.J. Watson as the No. 3 point guard, and he can continue to enhance that opportunity with another good performance here.

– Geoff