(PROGRAMMING NOTE: No live conversation regarding tonight’s game in New Orleans. Check back in the morning for fresh, piping-hot Christmas Eve bon mots.)

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): Marcus pulls off an old favorite, the “glass-half-full switcheroo,” pointing out that the Warrriors made half their shots (yes, my in-game prediction was sadly made wrong by a late surge) and garnered 20 assists before driving it home with a Stephen Curry quote: “We had good stats, they had better stats.”

Also: It sure sounds like training camp invitee Cartier Martin is going to be rejoining the Warriors sooner rather than later, as Golden State nears getting a second injury exception.

Read the rest of this entry…

By Geoff Lepper
48minutes.net

Don Nelson focused his (quite brief) post-game comments after Washington’s 118-109 win Friday night on how the Warriors couldn’t stop Gilbert Arenas, but frankly, as his own team has proven, one player often can’t win by himself, regardless of how good he is individually.

Case in point, obviously: Monta Ellis has quite simply played his ass off since Stephen Jackson left, and the Warriors have nothing left to show for it expect for fourth-place status in the John Wall Sweepstakes.

Did Arenas close out the game, scoring 10 of the Wizards’ 14 points in the final 5:13? Sure he did. But all Washington did in the fourth quarter was nurse home the seven-point lead they had brought into that period. And that lead was built on the back of Caron Butler straight-up abusing the smaller, weaker defenders Nelson kept throwing at him in an orgy of smallball fun.

Read the rest of this entry…

By Geoff Lepper
48minutes.net

Larry Riley seemed to be going for laughs when he told various groups of media Monday that Don Nelson was so quirky, he might just play one of his new acquisitions, Raja Bell and Vladimir Radmanovic, 35 minutes on Tuesday against Cleveland.

It’s becoming more clear he wasn’t joking.

The team announced late Monday afternoon that C.J. Watson has contracted the H1N1 virus — commonly called the “swine flu” — and will miss the final two games on the team’s current road trip.

Watson posted the news that he was a suspected H1N1 sufferer on his Twitter feed, and included a picture of himself with the face mask he has to wear in public settings. He stayed behind in Milwaukee as the team flew ahead.

It’s a good thing Bell and Radmanovic were expected to join the team in Cleveland on Monday night and should be available Tuesday. The Warriors will need those two just to make the league-mandated minimum of eight players in uniform, although the San Francisco Chronicle is reporting that Devean George — who’s been out all year with a knee injury — is being flown in as well.

By Geoff Lepper
48minutes.net

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

WEB MEDIA

CBSSports.com (Ken Berger): The big winner of the day in the “Destined-To-Be-The-Most-Talked-About-Warriors-Story” sweepstakes. Now, a couple of points:

1) I don’t necessarily put a huge amount of stock into “a high-level coaching source” — the one that said Nelson could become a consultant, with Keith Smart taking over as head coach “by next week” — because there’s no indication of how connected this person is with what’s going on at 1011 Broadway. Kicking Nelson upstairs would mean kicking away roughly $10 million, and it’s hard to believe that Chris Cohan and Bobby Rowell are willing to eat that slice of humble pie. I will say that it’s been well known for a long time that Nelson wants to live out his days with such a consultancy in his pocket, to be the retired Don Corleone figure to some organization. It’s what he planned for in Dallas, before the fallout with Mark Cuban, and what he wants in Golden State.

2) I put a lot more stock into the anonymous source Berger quotes as saying “(Nelson) wants Monta out.” You can’t put guys on the block in this league without word getting around, and quickly. So I definitely can see heat to that fire.

3) “Rowell tries to be their friend, and they laugh at him.” No explanation necessary.

Read the rest of this entry…

By Geoff Lepper
48minutes.net

I didn’t see the game live (hence, no live blogging last night) but quickly watched the tape this morning. As Rusty Simmons pointed out, it’s the Warriors’ third victory against an opponent with only one win of their own. So while the 121-107 outcome against the Knicks is nice enough, it shouldn’t be used to prove anything other than Golden State can properly beat one of the four teams that definitely rank below it in the NBA firmament.

** On the one hand, Don Nelson deserves credit because the supersmall lineup with a frontline of Corey Maggette, Stephen Jackson and Kelenna Azubuike paid handsome dividends. Now, the fact that it was against a frontline of Danilo Gallinari, Al Harrington and David Lee probably should be taken into account, but when you’re 3-5, you don’t argue with what works.

This was an instance where the absence of Andris Biedrins and Ronny Turiaf actually helped the Warriors; those were the guys who simply couldn’t defend the high S/R in last season’s debacle of a loss to the Knicks, and without them as targets, the Knicks weren’t able to turn Chris Duhon into a Steve Nash clone. In a callback to the 2007 team, with the true centers off the floor, the Warriors were able to either switch or at least show hard on every S/R the Knicks did run, limiting the damage New York could do.

** One reason why the Knicks are so horrible right now: In one first-quarter sequence, Danilo Gallinari leapt over Kelnna Azubuike to secure an offensive rebound, then took two dribbles to the right wing, turned on the second one, went up at a 30-degree angle to the hoop, finished twisting in midair to square up to the basket and let fly from 18 feet.

The fact that Gallinari made the shot should in no way absolve him from the fact that it was a ridiculous decision, emblematic of the Knicks’ shot selection right now.

Read the rest of this entry…