[Ed. note: We're going to try something new this year. After every home game, we'll be putting up the raw transcripts here. Hey, we can't depend on stenographing machine Tim Kawakami to be at every game.]

DON NELSON

Well, I guess that’s why I hate home openers. Anyway, my complaint on the game with my team is that we came out of the locker room at halftime and just didn’t have very much going. Go from 10 up to 7 down in a matter of about 7 minutes. So, that quarter was very difficult.
We’re going to have to play a lot better than we played tonight. But still, I think that quarter probably did us in. I had some guys that I expected to play at a high level. Corey (Maggette) has probably been one of my best players in preseason, and he goes 3-for-14 and doesn’t really get to the foul line like he’s used to. So that was kind of tough.

I was very pleased with Curry. I thought he and Ellis in the backcourt were good and active. We have some work to do to get Morrow more involved. Azubuike, I didn’t think would play very much, but actually he did alright when he was in the game. That was good to see. So I could probably use him more consistently.

The problem, for me, when we start the big lineup is exactly what happened tonight; we’re vulnerable for fouls. So in the first half, I had both my centers with three fouls and I had to be careful of that. As it turned out, I would have certainly lost one of them in the game with fouls and maybe both had we not substituted in the third quarter. I like that lineup, but yet it makes us pretty light at center.

So we’ll have a day of practice and go to Phoenix.

(You pulled out Curry quickly in the third quarter. Why?)

I’m not punishing anybody. I just thought I needed to try something at that point. I wanted to get Morrow back in the game, give him a chance to do what he does – stretch the defense and maybe make some openings for us. But if you don’t get him the ball when he’s open, it doesn’t do much good to have him in the game. We have to do a better job of understanding he’s our best shooter, and you’ve got to know where he is at all times.

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[Ed. note: As you might have seen in the post below, some technical difficulties knocked 48minutes.net off the air for a long while Wednesday. So here is the collection of Tweets that substituted for our typical live in-game entry. Start from the bottom if you want to read in chronological order.]

POSTGAME

** INSTA-STAT OF THE NIGHT: GSW assists in the second half? A whopping seven. That’s not an offense. That’s complete stagnation.

FOURTH QUARTER

** FINAL HOU 108, GSW 107. Morrow with a tough miss over 2 Rockets at the top of the key for the tie. Curry with the meaningless putback.

** Morrow in. Azubuike out, so it’s Morrow, Jackson or maybe Curry.

** 4Q, 6.6 seconds. HOU 108, GSW 105. Brooks’ travel gives W’s a final chance. I assume they have to bring in Morrow. Maybe Azubuike?

** It’s a comedy of errors: Scola bricks two FTs, Ariza ORebs but loses handle, Curry tries oop to Biedrins that falls 3 feet short.

** Of course, HOU goes right back to Scola, who drives and draws FTs on Turiaf.

** Curry with a second straight pullup J after good D forces ball out of Scola’s hands, cuts lead to 5.

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By Geoff Lepper
48minutes.net

With tipoff hours away, I’m not going to do game-by-game predictions for how the 2009-10 Warriors will fare. Engaging in that kind of activity is almost as useless as waiting for the Bay Bridge to open.

Besides, I already went on the record last week on Comcast Bay Area’s “Chronicle Live” with my prediction for the Warriors: 34-48, picked not coincidentally because it matches Mike Montgomery’s record in both his seasons with Golden State.

(Isn’t it funny that Monty was brought in to teach the young kids, then Baron Davis was added to the mix, costing Monty his authority, and now that BD is gone, the Warriors, once again, are in need of someone to nurture youthful players? It’s the circle of GSW Life!)

I could see the Warriors pushing that to 36 or 37 wins, but I think the best they can do is to hold off the Clippers and Oklahoma City (sorry, Chuckles!) for the No. 9 spot in the Western Conference.

On the plus side: We’ll all get to celebrate Don Nelson amassing more coaching victories than Lenny Wilkens. Yay!

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Straight off the pregame show on TNT:

Charles Barkley: I’m telling you, the Clippers are going to be a surprise team in the West. And C-Webb just bet me, we’re going to bet a nice dinner, that the Clippers are going to have a better record than the Warriors, which is a no-brainer. The Clippers and Oklahoma City are BOTH gonna have a better record than Golden State.

Chris Webber: Oh, wow. The Clippers are real good at being terrible. They’re very consistent, every year. I’ve got Golden State having the better record.

CB: Every now and then, an ugly girl wakes up pretty.

Now, I know Charles is a veteran Warriors-hater — who can forget his promise that Dallas would beat Golden State in the We Believe playoff series? — but this just borders on the ludicrous. The Clippers, with Blake Griffin missing six weeks? The Thunder, who are still even younger than the Warriors?

Hey, Chuck, let me know where I sign up, buddy.

– Geoff

By Geoff Lepper
48minutes.net

Did Monta Ellis just become expendable?

It was obvious from the moment Stephen Curry fell into the Warriors’ laps on draft day — and the team immediately shut down talks to deal Curry’s rights to Phoenix — that he would be Golden State’s point guard of the future.

But if the future has arrived — as Don Nelson intimated Thursday after Curry’s 14-point, 10-assist, six-rebound, five-steal performance in the Warriors’ 126-92 exhibition victory over New Orleans, saying in the San Francisco Chronicle that “he won the (fifth starter’s) job tonight” — then what do the Warriors do about the present?

The immediate answer is that Nelson will do what he has wanted and planned to do all along since June: Install Curry and Ellis in an undersized backcourt, figuring (or hoping, at least) that the firepower will outweigh the lack of defense and rebounding.

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