By Geoff Lepper
48minutes.net

Your daily guided tour through the national and local media coverage of the always-entertaining Golden State Warriors.

PRINT MEDIA

Contra Costa Times (Marcus Thompson II): Eons from now, when they sing songs of the Warriors’ greatness in Valhalla, the Ballad of Raja Bell will ring forth and be heard.

(Of course, that’s not going to help Golden State in the here and now, as Bell is still set to undergo wrist surgery that probably, knowing this club’s luck, will cost him the rest of his season.)
Also: Ronny Turiaf’s bad knee would be in great shape if only the NBA were played on a straight line, kind of like this game.

San Francisco Chronicle (Rusty Simmons): Everybody feels good about losing because they’re close losses. We’ll see how long that lasts.

WEB MEDIA

NBA.com (Couper Moorhead): Kevin Garnett tries his hand at creating his own Yogism: “Nellieball is something different. It’s always been effective when it worked.”

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DON NELSON

DN: Well, it feels good to get our first win. Nothing’s very easy. Down the stretch, when we had a lead, I thought the turnovers gave them a chance to get back in it. But we survived it, and I guess young teams are going to do that, so so be it. We lost the rebound game, the free throw game, but we won a few games. If you’re going to be small, you’re going to have to shoot a good percentage. Morrow helped that, that’s for sure. 10-for-12 will help your shooting percentage. And I thought both our point guards passed the ball, moved the ball well. Monta was sensational tonight. I think that’s a career-high 12 assists [one shy -- 13]. His shot wasn’t even falling, and he still had a monster game, I thought. So that was good. They certainly had enough mismatches out there, they didn’t know which one to go to, they had so many mismatches. But we prevailed and so know we’ve got our first win. That’s good.

Q: Monta gave you a little bit of everything tonight?

DN: He did. I thought he played well with Steph (Curry) and then when I wanted to get Morrow in the game, so we made that change, and he picked right up at the point guard. I thought he called a good game and pushed the ball up and played — of course, there was a lot more room for him to maneuver tonight, because of the threats of the outside shots. That really helps both the roller and the ball-handler. So he took full advantage of that. Still hasn’t made a jump shot. I can’t remember a jump shot that he made but I’m sure he did. Going to the basket, some beautiful spin moves. Pretty well isolated (Ellis), the center had to help and then he was able to outmaneuver him. It really took a lot of their weak-side help away. It’s been really crowded in there. I thought that helped open that game up.

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By Geoff Lepper
48minutes.net

Warriors coach Don Nelson was a leery of pushing Kelenna Azubuike back onto the floor too quickly. Thanks to injuries and ineffectiveness, that fear lasted only two games before getting outweighed by necessity.

Despite missing a good portion of Golden State’s preseason work because of a bone bruise in his left ankle, Azubuike is expected to start Wednesday at small forward when the Warriors host Memphis. Azubuike will play small forward and replace Anthony Randolph, with Stephen Jackson sliding up to power forward.

“Every time he’s been out before, he’s come back and hasn’t been very good his first couple of games,” Nelson said. “This was the exception to the rule, so it’s just time for him to get back. And he looks good.”

If Nelson does start Azubuike, it will be the Warriors’ third lineup in as many games this season; last year, they spun through 46 different starting fives and never really found a winner.

Azubuike worked exclusively with the team’s first unit during Monday’s practice, and afterwards, Monta Ellis gave a preview of the team’s defensive plans: “Buke gonna play (Rudy) Gay, I’m gonna play (O.J. Mayo), Steph (Curry) is gonna play somebody else. That’s it.”

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We’ve just been allowed out onto the balcony at 1011 Broadway, and we were greeted by this sight in the half-court scrimmaging:

Blue team (typically the first string): Stephen Curry, Monta Ellis, Stephen Jackson, Kelenna Azubuike and Anthony Randolph.

White team: C.J. Watson, Acie Law, Corey Maggette, Mikki Moore, Andris Biedrins

Since then, Maggette has flipped his jersey around and given Jackson a rest, and Anthony Morrow has come in for the White side. It will be very interesting to see if the Warriors will be using small-ball, with AR at the 5, on Wednesday against Memphis.

Also, on the injury front, Devean George is still working out on his own, Speedy Claxton is only an observer and Ronny Turiaf, day-to-day with the sprained knee, is not on the court, presumably receiving treatment in the locker room.

– Geoff

By Geoff Lepper
48minutes.net

If you’ve already signed up with Twitter, you probably already know that it is fast becoming the NBA’s social network of choice. There are more than 100 active players on board (although some have not posted any information there in months) from a pool of roughly 425.

Some of the NBA Tweets are amusing, such as the back-and-forth bickering between former Warrior teammates C.J. Watson and Marcus Williams. Some cause concern, such as Michael Beasley’s famous “baggie” photo and ensuing messages (“Feelin like it’s not worth livin!!!!!!! I’m done”).

But none of them carry the heat of Nets swingman Chris Douglas-Roberts.

Douglas-Roberts was a second round pick in the 2008 draft who didn’t quite fall far enough for the Warriors to snatch him up (he went No. 40; Golden State got Richard Hendrix at No. 49, and we saw how that worked out). With Vince Carter offloaded to Orlando during the summer, Douglas-Roberts has become a starter in essentially a three-guard set with Courtney Lee and Devin Harris.

And when the Nets dropped games to Orlando and Washington on Friday and Saturday, respectively, falling to 0-3 to begin the season, Douglas-Roberts let loose on his Twitter account (@cdouglasroberts). None of this “Oh, we’ll get ‘em next time” stuff.

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