48minutes.net

By Geoff Lepper
48minutes.net

Warriors forward Brandan Wright is 6-foot-10 and endowed with a 7-foot-3 3/4 wingspan that was just a half-inch short of matching that of the No. 1 pick in his draft class, Greg Oden.

So why is it that Wright can’t seem to put those tools to use fixing the Warriors’ recurring problems on the defensive glass?

I wrote a couple of weeks ago about the Warriors’ historically bad defensive rebounding rate (they’re on pace to post the league’s worst DRR since the 1999-2000 Mavericks) and Golden State has barely ticked the meter in seven games since then, upping their mark from 67.0 to 67.1 percent.

There has been some interesting individual movement, however, as charted here:

Marco Belinelli’s minus-1.8 drop is fairly staggering, but the most distressing item, if you’re a Warriors fan, a Warriors coach or, say, a second-year Warriors forward out of North Carolina, is the erosion of Wright’s defensive rebounding. He now ranks behind Ronny Turiaf (not a huge problem, given Ronny’s improvement of late) and even Corey Maggette, which is a blazing, 40-by-40-foot red flag, given how badly Maggette fared on the boards on his one healthy leg.

Shockingly, according to data at 82games.com, the Warriors are 4.1 percent worse at defensive rebounding with Wright on the floor (63.1 to 67.2). The only guy on the team with a worse differential than that is Turiaf (62.9 to 67.6).

The problem came back into focus after the Warriors were ripped yet again by opposing rebounders — this time for 14 offensive boards and 25 second-chance points by Oklahoma City a 107-100 victory Wednesday for the NBA’s worst team.

Jeff Green had five offensive boards, and Chris Wilcox had four. Wright, meanwhile, had just three defensive rebounds, and while part of that was due to a disparity in minutes — Green played 43:47, Wilcox 36:01 and Wright 19:58 — that’s not the whole story.

Here’s a collection of observations on the wrongs of Wright’s rebounding against OKC:

1, 11:17: Wright doesn’t get credit for one, but it sure looks like he blocks Green. In any case, the miss ticks off Wright’s right hand, although it’s eventually scooped up by Belinelli.

1, 10:08: Kevin Durant beats Belinelli to the R baseline, requiring Andris Biedrins to rotate over and close off the lane. When Biedrins leaves his man, Robert Swift, Wright is stationed about 10 feet from the hoop, looking over his left shoulder at the unfolding play while reaching out with his right hand to keep track of his cover, Green. Wright stays with Green, either by choice or by simply not recognizing that doing so allows Swift to walk in from the L baseline and tap home Durant’s miss.

1, 9:31: Desmond Mason back-irons a fading 15-footer from the L elbow. Wright elevates between two teammates to take the rebound with no Thunder pressuring the play.

1, 8:43: Russell Westbrook blows by Jamal Crawford then feeds Mason, who had cut past a completely inattentive Stephen Jackson on the right baseline. Mason’s reverse layup from the left side rims out and Wright, with Green hanging out at the 3-point arc, is free to go up and collect the easy board.

1, 6:53: Mason airballs a 19-footer under duress from Belinelli and Crawford catches it in mid-air. With Green again trolling the 3-point line, Wright plants himself in the lane. That said, Wright winds up a little closer to the hoop than he probably should, since he has his area well-covered and every step further in he takes at that point just increases the potential for a long board over his head to Green. (This becomes important later on.)

2, 7:27: Fresh off the bench, Wright provides good help to stop Wilcox’s drive on the left baseline. Ronny Turiaf recovers and slaps the shot off the backboard. Wright should have the ensuing rebound, but while he’s trying to corral it on the bounce, Westbrook gets a hand on the ball, which winds up going out of bounds off Wright for another Oklahoma City possession. The Thunder cash in with a jumper by Earl Watson.

2, 3:22: Watson misses a running right hook 6 feet out on the left side of the lane. Since Biedrins went to contest the shot, it’s up to Wright to outfight Wilcox for the board. Wright has the edge, but once again can’t control the ball, which bounces off his hands and fortuitously lands in Jackson’s instead.

2, 2:02: Watson misses a pullup J from 19 feet. But both Biedrins and Wright are heading to the rim when the shot, well short, clanks hard off the front iron and goes over their head to Wilcox, who pump fakes and blows by Biedrins for the layup.

2, 1:37: Wilcox biffs an open layup. Wright taps the ball off the rim, but when he tries to control it, Wilcox bats it away. The ball winds up going to Jackson.

3, 9:20: Durant misses a pullup 17 feet R wing. Wright has Green easily boxed out on the strong side, and when Durant’s shot comes back out on the R block, Wright has another unpressured board.

I know it’s a cliché to say that great rebounders latch onto a ball and never let go, but cliché’s are often just over-used truths. And that’s why the most concerning thing here is the number of times — four, in less than 20 minutes — Wright got a hand on the ball but was not able to come up with full possession. All the athleticism in the world doesn’t do you any good if you can’t close out the deal and finish a defensive stop for your team.

The Lineup Project

As bad as Wright’s rebounding was, the Warriors were still worse off without him on the floor, which was prompted in part because of Wright’s foul trouble (two in the first quarter, two more just 3:12 into the third period). Wright’s absence was all the more keenly felt because Don Nelson appears to have lost faith in Anthony Randolph after the rookie had two horrible turnovers in the first quarter against the Lakers. Since then, we haven’t seen him play a minute that mattered (he did come back for garbage time in Staples).

That left Nellie without many options, and he chose Kelenna Azubuike as his power forward for more than half the game (24:23) rather than use Turiaf there. Turiaf did make a cameo appearance at the 4, starting the fourth quarter up front with Biedrins, but that stint lasted less than 2 1/2 minutes — and Azubuike manned that spot the rest of the way.

Contact: geofflepper@48minutes.net

By Geoff Lepper
48minutes.net

By now, you’ve undoubtedly read Marcus Thompson’s blog item regarding the report from Stephen Jackson that Baron Davis wants to be traded back to the Bay less than six months after bolting to go back home.

Aside from the usual eye-rolling that comes with most Baron pronouncements, there’s a very specific and immoveable obstacle to this scenario: BD can’t seriously think that the Warriors (i.e., team president Robert Rowell) — who didn’t want to be on the hook for four fully guaranteed years because of concerns about Davis’ health and motivation — are suddenly going to be willing to pay for FIVE seasons.

Here, then, is a helpful guide to 30 things more likely to happen than Baron Davis coming back to the Bay:

1) Barack Obama arrives at the White House on the afternoon of Jan. 20, spots George Bush ducking out the back door, tosses him the keys and says, “You can keep it. I just got Hank Paulson’s last report, and I’m outta here.”

2) Tracy McGrady and Vince Carter each play 82 games — in the same season.

3) Clay Bennett goes bankrupt and the City of Seattle picks up the Thunder for $42,598 plus court costs in an Oklahoma City repo auction.

4) Warrior fans make it through a broadcast without being reminded that they’re missing (insert number here) points per game.

5) Larry Brown quits the Bobcats out of sheer frustration with Sean May.

(Wait, that one could actually happen.)

6) The L wakes up to the fact that Kevin Garnett has crossed the line from “hard-nosed” to “wantonly overaggressive” and finally takes some punitive action.

7) Allen Iverson takes two weeks off from the Pistons, undergoes 274 laser treatments and comes back without any tattoos.

8 ) Jose Calderon misses a free throw. But only one.

9) Gilbert Arenas announces that he’s quitting the NBA to switch to blogging full-time.

10) Jamal Crawford starts to play lockdown defense.

11) Barry Bonds is named the San Francisco Giants’ new strength and conditioning coach.

12) Kobe Bryant drops 71 on the Suns, then tells a live ABC audience: “Shaq, your ass taste like chicken. At least, that’s what Steve Nash said.”

13) Al Harrington tells Jackson that he’d like to come back to the Warriors, too.

14) Erick Dampier acknowledges that he hasn’t played up to the seven-year, $73 million deal he signed in 2004 and gives Mark Cuban an oversized posterboard check for $30 million in a halftime ceremony at a Mavericks home game.

15) Cuban’s attorneys immediately take half as a retainer.

16) The San Jose Sharks turn yet another glittering regular season into a Stanley Cup title.

17) Stephon Marbury returns to the Knicks at the All-Star break, scores 22.8 points per game the rest of the way and leads New York to the playoffs.

18) Corey Maggette misses 17 games after tearing his lat during a particularly vigorous weight-training session.

19) Eric Gordon takes a rainbow jumper that gets caught among the banners at the TD Banknorth Arena and never comes back to the court.

20) Thanks to a general outcry from critics, “ER” gets renewed.

21) Newspapers in the United States report a 450 percent jump in readership for 2008 over 2007.

22) Dikembe Mutombo stays retired.

23) Dennis Rodman doesn’t.

24) Gregg Popovich promises to dress like Gandalf for the duration of the Spurs’ playoff run.

Will Pop . . .

. . . pick up pipe-smoking as well?

25) Derrick Rose actually breaks Andre Miller’s ankle.

26) Kerri Walsh announces that because it’s too hard to choose a new partner while Misty May-Treanor recovers from her torn Achilles tendon, she’s just going to play solo on the AVP Tour.

And she still wins every tournament.

27) The luxurious manes of Pau and Marc Gasol are revealed to be nothing more than wild wigs when Ron Artest yanks on Pau’s hair during one particularly intense Rockets-Lakers confrontation.

28) Kevin McHale goes 1-62 as a coach. AND STILL KEEPS HIS JOB.

29) No, really: Jamal Crawford starts to play lockdown defense.

30) The Clippers wake up on the morning after the trade deadline and find that not only is Davis still clad in red and blue, but they also still employ Zach Randolph, Chris Kaman and Marcus Camby.

Contact: geofflepper@48minutes.net

By Geoff Lepper
48minutes.net

Warriors center Ronny Turiaf has an easy fix for Golden State’s problems when it comes to securing defensive rebounds:

“Plain and simple, go get the ball,” Turiaf said. “That’s it.”

Except that hasn’t been it, of course. Not by a long shot.

Including last night’s horrific 20-offensive rebound performance for the Indiana Pacers in their 127-210 victory, Golden State has chalked up a defensive rebound rate (DRR) of just 67.0 percent through its first 26 games.

The DRR — a team’s defensive boards divided by the sum of a team’s defensive boards and the opponents’ offensive rebounds — is a rough ratio of how many defensive rebounds a team gets (it doesn’t include team boards, so it’s not as exact as you would want).

At 67.0, Golden State ranks last in the NBA by a wide, wide margin. There’s a chart to illustrate that point below, but here’s some specifics as well: The Kings are 29th in the league at 70.5 percent and the league average is 73.1. The top-ranked Spurs are at 77.8.

Consider: Even if the Warriors closed half the gap between their DRR and the league average . . . they’d still be the league’s worst, at 70.05. So the data begs the question:

How bad are the Warriors, historically speaking?

Well, how about this: They’re the second-worst defensive rebounding team this century.

OK, I realize the 21st century is only in its ninth year, but still, the last time a team posted a DRR lower than 67.0 was in 1999-2000, when the Dallas Mavericks — put together and coached by familiar, white-haired adherent of small ball by the name of Don Nelson — pulled down 66.1 percent of their opportunities.

In an attempt to solve that team’s failings — both on the floor and at the ticket office — Nelson and new Mavericks owner Mark Cuban brought in a 38-year-old Dennis Rodman. Though the Worm helped somewhat — Dallas’ DRR in 12 games with him was about 3.5 points better than in the 70 without — it wasn’t enough to make it worth dealing with his particular brand of crazy.

I’m sure that Rodman would be game to pull down more NBA coin, but let’s assume for the moment that a washed-up, 47-year-old ex-husband to Carmen Electra isn’t the answer for Nelson & Co. this time around.

What can the Warriors do to solve this problem, which keeps biting them at critical junctures (such as the possession Wednesday where Jeff Foster simply bulled over Jamal Crawford, collected his own miss and allowed Stephen Graham to give the Pacers a second-chance layup for a five-point lead)?

“Well, it’s a very complicated thing,” Nelson said last week. “It’s not just one thing. There’s lots of different coverages, there’s lots of different assignments. It takes a while before it’s a natural thing for young players.”

It’s interesting to look at the Warriors’ individual DRR numbers this season compared to last season, when Golden State still ranked last but had a 70.3 mark that was at least within hailing distance of the rest of the league.

In 2007-08:

In 2008-09:

A few things that stand out: Harrington’s dramatic slide (-5.2) reiterates just how little he cared to toil in a Warriors uniform this season.

That was just one piece of the across-the-board decrease for returning players, such as Wright (-2.7), Azubuike (-2.3) and Jackson (-1.1).

Turiaf attributes some of the team’s problem to a habit of standing around and watching Biedrins (third in the league at 12.0 rpg): “Because Goose gets so many of them, sometimes we’re like, ‘OK, Goose, just go get it.’ We become somewhat complacent; ‘You average 13 a game, so we’ll just box out for you.’”

Yet even Biedrins is down 1.3 percent.

It’s been fun to watch the Phoenix Suns play this season and witness, even as they’re disintegrating because of Steve Nash’s disenchantment with new coach Terry Porter, Matt Barnes having a career year. Much like Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi,” where you “don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone,” Barnes’ tenacity on the glass has become so much more noticeable now that it’s not here, replaced by the pale imitation that has been Corey Maggette’s work as a “power” forward.

Watson deserves praise for his concentrated effort on rebounding, which has been rewarded with greater numbers, and so to a lesser extent does Belinelli. And, not to beat on a dead horse, while Randolph may have his problems in making the transition from teen-ager to NBA pro, going up and securing loose balls is not one of them.

But Crawford is as bad as he was advertised to be. And Turiaf, the Warriors’ alleged answer to such bangers as Utah’s Paul Millsap (20.4 career DRR) and Dallas’ Brandon Bass (17.4), is at a career-low number, continuing a slide that has not stopped since his rookie year: from 19.0 to 18.3 to 15.4 to 13.6.

There are a number of factors that lead back to different causes. That Golden State’s guards are doing a remarkably poor job at keeping opposing ball-handlers from turning the corner seemingly at will means that Turiaf and Biedrins are constantly pulled out of prime rebounding position to provide last-line-of-defense help around the rim. Nor is it helping that wings are supposed to be heading downcourt, seeking out early offense in Nelson’s system, rather than dealing with the heavy lifting of defensive rebounding.

Turiaf claims it’s all mental, and doesn’t blame even the Warriors’ near obsession with a small-ball setup that the coach keeps saying didn’t work because the opponent’s small squad was just flat-out better.

“It has nothing to do with not being strong enough, being small, blah-blah-blah,” Turiaf said. “It has nothing to do with that. . . . Regardless of what happens, just go get the ball. I’d rather have a turnover — I don’t think coach is going to agree with me on that one — but I’d rather have a turnover with two guys going to get the ball than not getting it. That’s pretty much it.

“Just go get it.”

Hendrix goes, Williams stays
The Warriors couldn’t bring themselves to pay Marcus Williams almost $1 million not to show up for the rest of this season, so they cut rookie forward Richard Hendrix instead to make room for Monta Ellis’ move off the suspended list. The decision saved the team costs the team roughly $600,000 less than losing Williams and makes sense from one perspective: There is no way Don Nelson was going to use either of those two players the rest of the way, so the team simply chose the option that represents less wasted money.

The Lineup Project
I don’t want to give anyone a stroke, so I’ll just point out that the 7:15 in the Medium line encompassed Brandan Wright’s entire evening.

Without Monta. . .
So it’s 7-19, then. I thought I was being pretty good at tamping any optimism when I wrote that the Warriors would be 9-17 by the time Ellis’ suspension ended. Guess I was wrong.

Contact: geofflepper@48minutes.net

By Geoff Lepper
48minutes.net

OAKLAND — That the Warriors were repeatedly gashed by Orlando’s pick-and-roll play in the Magic’s 109-98 victory Monday should have come as no shock. Golden State hasn’t defended the play well for most, if not all, of this season — most famously in the David Lee/Chris Duhon massacre at Madison Square Garden — and even with Dwight Howard out, Jameer Nelson was just too savvy for the Warriors to handle.

What did raise eyebrows was the way coach Don Nelson called out center Andris Biedrins for his handling of those plays.

“Screen-and-roll’s been very difficult for us,” Nelson said. “(Ronny) Turiaf handles it better than Goose and he’s just really struggled this year to keep guards in front of him, on the blitzes. They split him. We try about everything we can try to help him out. And then when they have 3-point shooters, it takes your weakside help away, so then they hurt you with the roll man, and (if) you cover that, then they have the 3-point shot open.

So, I asked, has Andris regressed this year on the screen-and-roll?

“Um, you know, I’m not sure. I think we had more veterans around him a year ago and they helped cover some of his issues,” Nelson said. “We were bigger and quicker and had more years under our belt. Now he’s more exposed. There’s other mistakes that happen and guys aren’t where they’re supposed to be and they’re not used to different coverages. So it’s harder on everybody.”

I thought therefore that I’d take a look at the Magic’s screen-roll usage and see what we could glean from that data.

Orlando used S/Rs against the Warriors’ man-to-man defense on 66 occasions, scoring a total of 50 points on 22-for-39 shooting (6-for-11 3-pointers). The rest of the time either resulted in a turnover, a loose-ball foul on the Warriors or, most likely, a pass to another player who reset the offense or worked one-on-one.

Of those 66 times, Biedrins was guarding the big man in 38 instances, typically Marcin Gortat, who was subbing for Howard. Turiaf got called upon 14 times, mostly versus Tony Battie. And Stephen Jackson pulled big duty 14 times, usually when Rashard Lewis was the screener.

Turiaf fared the best, allowing just four points in his 14 possessions (2-for-4 FG) and nabbing a steal with some quick hands. Those figures may also have something to do with Battie’s pretty severe limitations offensively, but give credit where it’s due — Turiaf kept the Magic ball-handlers from finding a third player to get involved.

Jackson didn’t do as well, allowing nine points (4-7 FG, 1-2 3FG) in 14 attacks, although he was most often facing the Magic’s top two available players in the form of Lewis and Jameer Nelson.

Biedrins, meanwhile, was the worst of the three, giving up 37 points in his 38 plays (16-28 FG, 5-9 3FG). The worst aspect, as Don Nelson pointed out, was the number of secondary looks for players not involved in the original pick-and-roll; giving up weakside help on the rolling big man opens up 3-point shooters on secondary looks, and the Magic went 5-for-8 on those type of shots (3-for-6 on treys) with Biedrins in the game.

Biedrins often left the screener open to chase the ball, but then failed to impede the ball-handler in any significant way. This puts way too much stress on a Warriors defense that is already stretched thin due to a lack of quality on-ball defenders.

And given the Warriors’ multitude of other problems, it’s too much to overcome.

Notes
** After Jackson’s 3-for-14 night, I’ll reiterate: Doing without Jackson entirely for five games is better than having him play as a shell of himself for 15, assuming it will make him healthy after the layoff. The Warriors very easily could go 1-4 or even 0-5 on this trip even with a half-strength Jackson. Why not use that time more effectively?

** On that same topic: Don Nelson dropped the ball in essentially abdicating responsibility when it comes to Jackson (“He thinks he can play on, so . . . It’s totally up to him.”). Jackson, for his part, said that he’ll play until his teammates tell him not to, but really, what guy in that locker room has the cred to pull him aside for that conversation?

I can just imagine the death stare locked onto Anthony Randolph as he tries to get through that speech. (“You’re 13-for-64 in your last five games. That’s . . . even worse than my shooting percentage.”)

There are three guys who might fit the bill, but they’re all disqualified either because they’re hurt (Monta Ellis), just arrived (Jamal Crawford) or both (Corey Maggette).

** There may be more passing in the Warriors’ new offensive focus, but it often seems like passing for passing’s sake, the NBA equivalent of moving deck chairs on the Titanic. The extra ball movement needs to lead to players being put in a position to score more easily, or else they might as well go back to isolation & stagnation as a game plan.

** Who would’ve thought that the play of Gortat (10 points, eight rebounds at intermission) would make folks pine for a halftime recovery by Howard?

** Jameer Nelson obviously had his way with the Warriors defense, but in a sad state of affairs, Magic rookie Courtney Lee (6-8 FG, 2-2 3FG, 2 S, 2 A, 0 TO) also easily outclassed every member of the Warriors’ backcourt. Lee’s night was summed up by a sequence late in the third quarter when he first raced across the court on a rotation to keep Turiaf from getting a clean look at a jumper from the left elbow. Then he spun on a dime and got back to his own cover, Kelenna Azubuike, in time to snatch up Marco Belinelli’s pass and draw a clear-path foul.

** The Warriors have until Thursday morning to either make an unbalanced trade or cut loose a player to make room for Monta Ellis coming off of the suspended list. A team source said the organization will be choosing from three possible plans of action, and confirmed the obvious: Cutting loose third-year guard Marcus Williams — who likely will cost the Warriors a first-round pick in a future draft — is one of the three options.

The Lineup Project
I’ll just let Don Nelson state his case:

“Well, it was a small man’s game tonight, the way we figured it. And our small team had to really play well. And their small team outplayed us, that’s all. . . . That’s been my problem, when we go small, the other team’s small team is often better. Makes it kind of a difficult time. But I think it was a match-up that we had to do. We had to go small. I don’t think any of our bigs could’ve guarded their front line-up.”

They couldn’t have been any worse than what you had, Don.

Lineup GS OPP Time
Large 0 0 0:00
Turiaf-Biedrins 0 0 0:00
Medium 31 32 12:00
Small 67 77 36:00

Without Monta. . .
The Warriors are 7-18 with one game to go before Ellis is off suspension. I think somewhere around Jan. 15 is the most realistic return date. Whenever Ellis does come back, it seems clear it will be to a team that is significantly below .500.

Contact: geofflepper@48minutes.net

By Geoff Lepper
48minutes.net

At a Warriors practice last week, Golden State captain Stephen Jackson stood on the sideline talked for roughly 10 minutes with team president Robert Rowell and minority owner Michael Marks.

I have no idea what the gist of the conversation was, but Rowell needs to have another meeting with Jackson, with one simple message:

Sit down until you’re healthy.

Like Oscar De La Hoya’s cornermen after watching him get pummeled for eight rounds at the hands of Manny Pacquiao last week, someone has to step in and say it, because Jackson refuses to admit what’s obvious to everyone — that his injured left hand is crippling his effectiveness on the floor right now.

Jackson showed reporters this week how his middle finger is misaligned, and said that the ligaments had been pushed out of place when he originally incurred the injury against Boston on Nov. 26 (his hand got caught in a Celtic’s jersey as Jackson tried to fight through a screen). Nevertheless, he steadfastly refuses to ask off the floor in games, even after he takes a shot and can clearly be seen between plays rubbing the hand to try and ease the pain.

The team has not given any indication that Jackson needs anything other than rest to get better. If that’s the case, then the rest should start immediately.

Jackson was 1-for-13 from the floor in the Warriors’ 123-105 loss to the Nuggets on Saturday. Teams are overplaying his right hand now, knowing that he can’t get anything going on a dribble with his left.

That’s bad enough, but let’s be honest: Even if Jackson had been playing at his 2007-08 level against the Nuggets on Saturday, does anyone really think that would have turned the tide? On a night where Don Nelson’s top three possibilities at power forward — Corey Maggette, Brandan Wright and Ronny Turiaf — are all off the floor? Maybe an 18-point defeat becomes an eight-point margin. But there’s not much more to it than that.

The only way the Warriors are going to make the playoffs — assuming you’re not joining the Tank Brigade after a quarter of the season — is if they win a stunning proportion of the games once Monta Ellis comes back. We’re talking a 65, 70, 75 percent proportion.

Running Jackson out for 31 minutes on back-to-back nights in games where the Warriors already have next to no hope because of their myriad other injuries is time he could be spending recovering. And getting ready so that when Ellis returns, it’s with a full-strength Jackson alongside.

Notes
Jamal Crawford may or may not be the reason why the Warriors’ defense went from “merely poor” to “catastrophically bad” in the past few weeks. But there’s no reason whatsoever why he should stand around near halfcourt and watch, dumbstruck, while Kenyon Martin streaks past him to set up a breakaway dunk after Chauncey Billups collects a missed 3-pointer and launches a lead pass. At least give an effort. Act like you care. . . . I’m going to search through the tape later today with an eye on Rob Kurz’s performance. I will stipulate that he was one of only two Warriors that could hit any kind of shot, but this no-mistake defense I keep hearing about was belied by two plays that jumped out on the first viewing: Kurz got pushed down the lane by Nene on the very first play of the game, which allowed Kurz’s cover, Martin, to cram home a dunk. (Thankfully, Kurz turned away at the last second, otherwise Martin would’ve given him the full Frederic Weis treatment.) Then, 90 seconds into the second half, Kurz came from the right block all the way across the lane to try to provide C.J. Watson help covering Anthony on the left wing. Except all that did was leave Martin open to tap home Anthony’s alley-oop pass. . . . Given that he couldn’t even get into a 25-point blowout until the final 3:02, it’s pretty clear that third-year guard Marcus Williams is the leader in the clubhouse in terms of being the player the Warriors to shed after Monta Ellis’ suspension ends on Dec. 17. Barring a very poor showing by DeMarcus Nelson on Wednesday while he fills in for Watson (who will be attending a family funeral), the only question would seem to be whether the Warriors can salvage a second-round pick for Williams, or just have to cut him loose with no compensation at all. . . . Anthony Morrow needs to learn to stay home when matched up with a 3-point gunner such as J.R. Smith.

The Lineup Project
Once again, no real chance to go big without Turiaf and Wright in the building.

Lineup               GS      DEN      Time
Large                   0        0          0:00
Turiaf-Biedrins      0         0          0:00
Medium               41       49        18:56
Small                  64      74         29:04

Here’s a season-long update, per 48 minutes

Lineup                GS      OPP      +/-
Large                   99.7     92.5      +7.2
Turiaf-Biedrins      107.1    97.4      +9.7
Medium               103.6    109.6    -6.0
Small                  107.3    116.6    -9.3

Without Monta. . .
7-19, here they come. Only two games remain, and both of them, like the Denver game, were predicted to be defeats.

Contact: geofflepper@48minutes.net