By Geoff Lepper
48minutes.net

After Wednesday’s 108-107 season-opening loss to Houston, Warriors Don Nelson called out the non-passers on his team — i.e., everybody except Stephen Curry and (when the spirit moves him) Stephen Jackson — for not keeping Anthony Morrow high enough in their thoughts.

Morrow, the NBA’s best 3-point shooter last season, uncorked only seven shots in 22 1/2 minutes on the floor, an attempt rate that ranked seventh out of the nine players Nelson used, behind Curry, Jackson, Monta Ellis, Corey Maggette, Kelenna Azubuike and Anthony Randolph. Only Ronny Turiaf and Andris Biedrins managed to keep themselves from outgunning Morrow.

“If you don’t get him the ball when he’s open, it doesn’t do much good to have him in the game,” Nelson said. “We have to do a better job of understanding he’s our best shooter, and you’ve got to know where he is at all times.

But the rest of the players on this roster are who they are — and they will resolutely remain so if there are never any consequences for them to face.

To wit: If you’re going to let Maggette, who went 3-for-14 in a little less than 25 minutes, jack up a steady stream of no-hope 19-foot clanks without recriminations, why on Earth should he even give a fleeting, momentary thought to passing off to Morrow?

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[Ed. note: As you might have seen in the post below, some technical difficulties knocked 48minutes.net off the air for a long while Wednesday. So here is the collection of Tweets that substituted for our typical live in-game entry. Start from the bottom if you want to read in chronological order.]

POSTGAME

** INSTA-STAT OF THE NIGHT: GSW assists in the second half? A whopping seven. That’s not an offense. That’s complete stagnation.

FOURTH QUARTER

** FINAL HOU 108, GSW 107. Morrow with a tough miss over 2 Rockets at the top of the key for the tie. Curry with the meaningless putback.

** Morrow in. Azubuike out, so it’s Morrow, Jackson or maybe Curry.

** 4Q, 6.6 seconds. HOU 108, GSW 105. Brooks’ travel gives W’s a final chance. I assume they have to bring in Morrow. Maybe Azubuike?

** It’s a comedy of errors: Scola bricks two FTs, Ariza ORebs but loses handle, Curry tries oop to Biedrins that falls 3 feet short.

** Of course, HOU goes right back to Scola, who drives and draws FTs on Turiaf.

** Curry with a second straight pullup J after good D forces ball out of Scola’s hands, cuts lead to 5.

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By Geoff Lepper
48minutes.net

Turns out that changing course with an NBA team in the middle of a season is not all that simple.

After the Warriors’ 119-108 defeat to the Houston Rockets on Friday — a game in which Golden State shot just 37.2 percent through three quarters, 40.2 overall — it’s easy for fans to say, “Look, the ball movement experiment failed.”

But in addition to just plain bad luck — such as Stephen Jackson’s missed dunk attempt — there were plenty of instances of Warriors pulling up for jumpers that clanged off the iron without the benefit of a pass to set up the shooter.

In the first 8 1/2 minutes alone, Jackson, C.J. Watson, Kelenna Azubuike (twice) and Jamal Crawford (twice) were all guilty of such infractions. Five of those six shots were misses; the only make was when Azubuike ducked behind a ball screen from Andris Biedrins and knocked down a fading 17-footer.

There were some positives: Several Warriors were aggressively using up-fakes to get past their man at the 3-point line — a place the Warriors, the NBA’s next-to-worst 3-point shooting team (30.3 percent), shouldn’t be firing from — and then stepping in for open 15- to 18-footers.

And kick-out passes made a reappearance, including a couple from Azubuike, who tied his season-high with four assists (a level he hadn’t reached in more than a month).

** The absences of Brandan Wright, Ronny Turiaf and Corey Maggette forced Jackson into spending 31 minutes at power forward, which was doubly damaging to the Warriors: Their best individual defender was relatively wasted shadowing Luis Scola while a rookie (Anthony Morrow) was tasked with shutting down Tracy McGrady. When you include the fact that Jackson is possibly the worst rebounding 4 in NBA history, you can see why it’s a problem.

** I will say this for Jackson at 4: He made some superb rotations defensively, including the first-quarter play to draw a charge on Yao Ming. The rest of the team was nowhere near as successful. Even when one player would make the right move — such as when Marco Belinelli came across the lane to shut down a drive by Luther Head, who had gotten past Jackson on a screen-roll play — a teammate would fail to make the next necessary rotation — i.e., Crawford not sliding down to the baseline to cover Shane Battier, who drained an open 12-footer.

** Crawford still needs to…

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 — After joining his teammates for the final 15 minutes’ worth of scrimmaging on Thursday, Warriors swingman Kelenna Azubuike is expected to play Friday against the Houston Rockets.

“It’s still a little tender, but it’ll be alright,” Azubuike said of his sprained left ankle, which had sidelined him since Saturday.

Azubuike said the ankle is probably 80 percent of full strength. It troubles him more going side to side than it does going up and down the floor.

“I thought he looked OK, for being out and not being on the floor for a while,” Warriors coach Don Nelson said. “It’s good to see him back out there.”

Azubuike’s return gives Nelson plenty of options in terms of potential starting lineups. The coach has started 10 different players currently on the roster at one time or another, and all of them are now (for the most part, at least) healthy.

One thing you shouldn’t expect to see, however, is the sight of Corey Maggette filling Al Harrington’s role as an undersized center nipping at Yao Ming’s size-18 heels.

“At the 5?” Nelson said of Maggette. “He’s got enough trouble playing 4.”

Nelson used Harrington to great effect against the Rockets over the last couple of years, forcing Yao into the uncomfortable role of chasing a 3-point shooter rather than staying home in the lane. Harrington made the plan work defensively by being able to front Yao, with a double team coming any time Houston threw over the top.

At 6-10 and with enough heft not to get pushed over by Yao, Harrington was able to force Houston’s entry passes so high that it gave help defenders adequate time to shut down Yao’s route to the basket or go for a steal. At 6-6, Maggette probably wouldn’t be able to emulate that success, meaning that the Rockets would be able to get the ball to Yao much more quickly, thus negating any help Nelson gave Maggette.

In other words: How does one say “dunk-a-thon” in Mandarin?

“I can’t,” Nelson said of recreating a Harrington-style lineup against Yao. “I can’t do that. I don’t have the personnel. You have to have a unique kind of player who’s quick and can front and make Yao play some guessing games.”

Besides, there were signs that the gambit of fronting Yao was beginning to wear thin, even before Harrington’s departure last month. After averaging 12.3 points and 9.0 rebounds in his first three…