By Geoff Lepper
48minutes.net

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

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Contra Costa Times (Marcus Thompson II): “(Don) Nelson said (Stephen) Curry is tougher on his post defense now, and he defends pick-and-rolls well. Perhaps his biggest asset is that he understands and executes the game plan, which sets him up to have the help he needs.”

I’ll admit, I’m not in the room for post-practice film sessions or present during the installation of game-by-game tweaks during morning shootarounds. And, indeed, much of playing perimeter defense in the NBA is simply a matter of guiding a player the direction you want him to go. Maybe Curry is grading out higher on these internal measuring sticks.

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By Geoff Lepper
48minutes.net

It’s too bad that Spurs guard Manu Ginobili was afforded the courtesy whistle given to all visiting dignitaries in San Antonio’s 110-105 win over the Warriors on Monday.

Not too bad because it cost the Warriors a win. Too bad because it obscured the real reason why they lost.

“I have to be careful what I say because I don’t want to get fined,” Golden State coach Don Nelson said. “I thought we had the game won in regulation, but the late whistle (on Turiaf) cost us the game, really.”

All the grousing about Sean Wright’s personal Argentinean bailout plan is not without merit. (Fun fact: if you watch the play again on slo-mo, you can see that, at the disputed moment of impact between Ginobili and Ronny Turiaf, Wright’s line of sight from 30 feet out is completely blocked by the bodies of both Tim Duncan and Corey Maggette. That’s quite some vision Sean’s got there.)

But what cost Nelson and the Warriors the game wasn’t Wright’s call. It wasn’t even Stephen Jackson not getting a call when his last shot was defended tightly by Bruce Bowen.

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Warriors coach Don Nelson said this morning at Golden State’s shootaround that, with Stephen Jackson hurt, Marco Belinelli would open on Lakers star Kobe Bryant.

Then he smiled and joked, “My defensive stopper.”

But in the Warriors’ 130-113 loss to the Lakers in LA 10 days ago, Belinelli was no joke – or, at least, no more a joke than Jackson or Kelenna Azubuike when it came to trying to corral Bryant, who scored 31 points in 32 minutes before sitting out the entire fourth quarter.

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By Geoff Lepper
48minutes.net

In 18 months as an NBA player, Marco Belinelli’s stock has gone through more roles than a TV character actor: Summer League star, Jason Richardson replacement, defensive sieve, bench ornament, unhappy camper, trade bait.

So is Belinelli’s latest turn — reborn playmaker — just another phase, destined to vanish like the next full moon?

It’s still too early to tell for certain, but in the 13 games since Don Nelson refocused the Warriors’ attack, Belinelli has already weathered one dip and ridden it out. I figured that after back-to-back poor performances in Florida — combined 7-for-24 shooting with four turnovers against five assists in Orlando and Miami — Belinelli’s run was at an end, and that he would go back to being a pumpkin, metaphorically speaking.

Instead, he had one of his two best games of the season in the Warriors’ 117-111 win over Toronto on Monday: 23 points, 6-12 FG, 5-8 3FG, 6-6 FT, 6 AST, 2 TO.

After that game, Warriors coach Don Nelson said Belinelli was succeeding in the team’s revamped, Euro-style offense — 47.5 FG, 40.0 3FG, 16.0 PPG, 3.3 APG — because “he’s a much better shooter on the move than he is stationary.”

I disagree. Belinelli has tamed the wild leg kick that used to punctuate his shooting motion, but he still often twists his lower body to the left when he fires while moving, both off the dribble and situations where he catches and shoots on a cut.

In the Toronto game, for example, Belinelli was 1-for-6 off dribble-drives, 1-for-2 while catching on the move, and 4-for-4 (three of those from deep) on standing shots. All three of those treys came on plays that began with Stephen Jackson driving and drawing multiple defenders, then kicking out, either directly to Belinelli or through an intermediary.

The bigger surprise on offense has been Belinelli’s emergence as a passer. He’s never going to be a straight point guard in the NBA, not unless he significantly upgrades his open-court ballhandling, but as a half-court initiator, he’s just a half-step behind Jackson and Jamal Crawford in terms of finding open shooters.

The style of Belinelli’s passing makes it seem as though he’s cavalierly throwing the ball around. Just as many Italians would find speech without the punctuation provided by their hand gestures to be unacceptably bland, Belinelli seems to use a two-handed chest pass only as a means of last resort. Witness Belinelli’s behind-the-back…