By Geoff Lepper
48minutes.net

OAKLAND — Get ready for the Monta Ellis Watch to kick into high gear.

Warriors coach Don Nelson said Tuesday that Ellis is “chomping at the bit” to get back on the court with his teammates, and that the fourth-year guard would have been playing weeks ago if it were up to him alone. Ellis has missed the season’s initial 36 games while recovering from an ankle injury incurred while riding a moped during the summer in violation of his freshly minted six-year, $66 million contract.

“He wants to play, and we’re being very conservative with him. But he’s getting close to having a practice,” Nelson said. “He feels he’s ready. And I think you treat the patient; the patient is the guy who knows more than anybody, but we want to make a good decision here and not hurry him back too fast. . . .

“If we’d have rushed him back, he’d have been playing two weeks ago, because he wanted to play. But we felt that we better be conservative.”

Read the rest of this entry…

By Geoff Lepper
48minutes.net

As the rift between the Warriors coach Don Nelson and rookie forward Anthony Randolph continues to widen unabated, with the teenager effectively serving an unofficial and open-ended suspension, it’s funny to think about who might have salvaged this relationship:

Chris Mullin.

Randolph was a Mullin pick; Nelson wanted Jason Thompson but came around eventually to Mullin’s way of thinking, which was to take a potential superstar if one was available at No. 14 — and Randolph fit that bill.

It stands to figure that Mullin would be the guy best equipped to keep Randolph’s emotions in check when he would get yanked by Nelson’s short leash. After all, Mullin was the guy who served as Monta Ellis’ biggest champion during a rookie season in which coach Mike Montgomery derided his talents and kept him mostly glued to the bench until Baron Davis shut it down in March.

But Mullin has been persona non grata for a while now, unseen at practice or even at shootarounds, where he used to be a constant presence. He’s been on the road scouting college games, which should give him some great insights (on the Warriors’ dime) when he goes to work for another NBA team next season, but that’s a whole other problem.

Much has been made of the shot Randolph delivered to fellow rookie forward Rob Kurz in practice last weekend; the obvious inference to be drawn from Stephen Jackson’s reaction is that Randolph deliberately nailed Kurz.

I don’t think he would have wanted to cause serious injury, but it wouldn’t surprise me at all if Randolph, having reached the height of his frustration, lined up Kurz’s chin and clocked him as a stand-in for Nelson.

Nelson has been almost unremittingly critical of Randolph this season. The coach’s biggest compliment — that Randolph had passed Brandan Wright on the team’s depth chart way back in preseason — turned out to be totally false, just a motivational tool to light a fire under Wright.

On the other hand, Nelson has been effusive in his praise of Kurz from Day 1, all but pouting when Kurz was cut on Mullin’s order and then campaigning hard to get him back once Ellis was placed on the suspended list.

I’m not saying definitively that that’s what happened. But I can certainly see Kurz being the epitome of everything that’s going wrong for Randolph — at least in Randolph’s eyes — and Randolph snapping after three months…

By Geoff Lepper
48minutes.net

Warriors coach Don Nelson has admitted on multiple occasions that his team’s small lineup couldn’t match up, talent-wise, with what the opposition put on the floor on a given night.

Against Charlotte on Saturday, that equation was flipped on its head: it was the Bobcats who couldn’t hang with the Warriors’ two-tower configuration of Andris Biedrins, Ronny Turiaf and three wing players.

For one 6 1/2-minute stretch in the third quarter, the Warriors outscored the Bobcats 23-6 using a lineup of Biedrins, Turiaf, Kelenna Azubuike, Jamal Crawford and Marco Belinelli (replaced near the end by C.J. Watson). That was the turning point in Golden State’s 110-103 win; the stretch ended with the Warriors up 81-69, and Charlotte never got closer than five points after that.

The Turiaf-Biedrins lineup played a total of 10:37 on Saturday, after getting some (less successful) run against the Atlanta Hawks on Friday:

Those two games represent the fifth- and sixth-highest total of playing for the Turiaf-Biedrins configuration this season, and you have to wonder how much of that is due to any added influence has gained Keith Smart as the team’s defensive coordinator.

Smart has no problem using the young bigs — recall the game in Houston when Brandan Wright didn’t sniff a second of playing time until Nelson was ejected, and then Smart brought in Wright almost immediately, helping spark one of the team’s only decent stints on the evening — and dumping small ball when necessary.

Of course, it might just be simpler than that. During most of the 23-6 stretch, Charlotte’s Larry Brown, who never met a 12-year veteran he didn’t like, was trying to get by with Juwan Howard at the 4 alongside Emeka Okafor, and the Warriors pinpointed that spot as something to exploit.

Howard was overmatched by Turiaf at both ends of the floor; in 12 offensive possessions, the Warriors ran their screen-roll with Turiaf as the big four times, scoring a total of eight points on those plays. Turiaf also handed off the ball twice in the high post to a curling Crawford, who knocked down an open 3-pointer off one of them with 5:17 left in the third.

There are distinct differences in the Warriors’ S/R with Turiaf as the screener versus Biedrins. Since Turiaf’s own offensive arsenal features much more mid-range jumpers (as opposed to Biedrins’ game, which is much more based on rolling through the lane), he’s able to sell out…

By Geoff Lepper
48minutes.net

There’s been a fair amount of statistical data collected that shows the Warriors have fared better in the short stints where they’ve played their two centers, Andris Biedrins and Ronny Turiaf, together on the floor.

That’s why, in Golden State’s 131-112 loss to Houston on Friday, Rockets center Yao Ming tried to break that pair up as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, Turiaf helped Yao push him to the six-foul limit.

Turiaf lasted only 22 minutes, and Biedrins 32, before they both fouled out. In the 17 minutes and 35 seconds Biedrins and Turiaf were able to team up, the Warriors outscored the Rockets, 39-34. In the remaining 30:25, Houston topped Golden State, 97-73.

Warriors coach Don Nelson made clear earlier in the week that he wanted to use Biedrins (who is not very effective when giving up a large weight difference) on Yao only as a last resort. So it was no shock that Turiaf earned his second start of the season and drew the unenviable duty of serving as Yao’s speed bump.

But the fact that Turiaf had five fouls in the first half — and was done for the night with 21:30 still to play — was not entirely attributable to the bulk of Yao. Some of it was Turiaf — who averages 5.7 fouls per 36 minutes over the course of his NBA career — not being able to contain himself.

Here’s a breakdown of Turiaf’s six infractions:

First quarter, 6:08 remaining: Turiaf defending on the right block behind Yao, who takes an entry pass from Rafer Alston. Corey Maggette and Stephen Jackson both come on a double/triple, but Turiaf it whistled for bodying up too hard.

First, 1:49: Alston loops around the backside of an inattentive Jamal Crawford to steal the ball, setting off a 3-on-2 break with Crawford and Turiaf as the defenders. Turiaf fouls Carl Landry on the trial layup try.

Second, 7:54: Von Wafer rebounds Crawford’s missed 3 from the left corner and dribbles into the frontcourt. With Crawford (who toppled backwards into the Warriors bench after the miss) late getting into the play, no one steps up to stop the ball and Wafer slices straight down the middle of the lane. Turiaf eaches in with a no-hope swipe at the ball and gets caught. Turiaf was pulled at that point, but came back in after a rest of only 2:15.

Second, 3:00: This was probably the one foul Turiaf could most legitimately complain…

By Geoff Lepper
48minutes.net

OAKLAND — In his pregame talk Monday before facing Miami, Warriors coach Don Nelson acknowledged the obvious: “Your small team has to be better than the other team’s small team. When it’s not, that’s not going to work that much.”

He forgot to mention: Your small team also has to be able to rebound. Or else that’s not going to work that much.

Yes, it’s time to dust off that old Warriors chestnut, the rebounding deficiency storyline. Because it cost Golden State a victory that the Heat snatched up in overtime, 130-129.

On this seven-game losing streak that shows no sign of ending soon, the Warriors have been outrebounded in every game but one (they managed to tie Chicago, 39-39). Golden State is dead last, and by a wide margin, in terms of defensive rebound rate.

Even so, Monday’s numbers were especially painful down the stretch, when Nelson finally gave in to the allure of small ball.

The Warriors led 94-93 when they went small for the first time all night at the 11:03 mark of the fourth quarter. Golden State had been alternating Brandan Wright and Anthony Randolph at the power forward spot up until then, and the youngsters had given the Warriors this combined line: 21 points on 9-for-16 shooting (3-for-4 from the free-throw line), seven rebounds, two blocks and a steal.

But when Wright threw up an ill-advised runner with his off hand — a shot that crashed high off the glass and never had any chance of going in — Nelson immediately sent Corey Maggette into the game in Wright’s place. With the exception of a 91-second stint after Maggette sprained an ankle in overtime and some last-second offense-defense exchanges, the Warriors stayed small the rest of the way.

The move was somewhat defensible in context. Miami went small first, moving 6-7 Shawn Marion to the 4, which meant that Maggette was not being asked to guard a man with 2 or 3 inches and 20 or 30 pounds on him, as he had been doing in previous games.

Nevertheless, the Heat managed to pound Golden State on the glass when it counted. In the fourth quarter and overtime, Miami had 20 rebounds (eight offensive) to the Warriors’ 13 (10 defensive). The Heat also notched 11 second-chance points to the Warriors’ four.

Included in those 11 points was Miami’s game-tying bucket at the end of regulation, where Miami utilized not one, not two…