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…

By Geoff Lepper
48minutes.net

OAKLAND — With the Warriors nursing a two-point lead and less than 3 minutes to go Wednesday against the Denver Nuggets, Golden State coach Don Nelson called for “one flop, point-five.”

The objective was to have a little give-and-go between Andris Biedrins and Stephen Jackson. Biedrins would feed Jackson the ball at the elbow on one side of the lane, saunter up to his position, then take a handoff back from Jackson while breaking into a sprint past his defender and to the rim.

It all sounded good in theory. More and more this season, Biedrins has been showing the perimeter abilities that executive vice president Chris Mullin has long maintained were in the fourth-year center’s arsenal, dating back to his days as a teenager in Latvia who despite his nearly 7-foot frame played on the wing, not in the paint.

There was, however, one problem. When Biedrins, a lefty, took possession of the ball at the midcourt line, Jackson was lined up on the right-hand side of the lane, with the other three Warriors clogging up the left side of the court.

“Before that play, I told Jack, ‘Go on the left side,’” Biedrins recalled Thursday. “And then I’m running down and I see he’s standing (on the right) and I’m like, ‘C’mon, Jack.’ I was like, ‘OK, let’s run it anyway.’ There was no time to move everything around.”

There was no need, either. Biedrins took one dribble with his unfamiliar right hand, two giant steps and then rammed the ball home for a one-handed righty slam over the attempted block by Denver’s Nene.

“I’ve never seen him really take it all the way with his right (hand) like that,” Nelson said. “That was quite a play.”

It’s just one of many plays Biedrins has made for the Warriors this season. Nelson said at the outset of training camp that Biedrins would be handling the ball more, and that level of responsibility has been rising lately as the rest of Golden State’s roster struggles from the floor.

Biedrins, who Thursday received a wooden plaque from the league commemorating his league-leading field-goal percentage in 2007-08, is shooting 58.3 percent this season; the remainder of the Warriors are hitting at a combined 39.7 clip.

“He’s playing the best out of anybody on the team right now and he’s shooting the best, so I think it’s only right that he touches the ball more,” Jackson said. “We’ll see…