By Geoff Lepper
48minutes.net

Some quick thoughts from watching the replay of the Warriors’ 132-127 win over Phoenix on Saturday:

** All hail the Warriors for breaking their seven-game losing streak, but let’s not lose sight of how bad the defense was: Golden State allowed a team on the second half of a back-to-back to put up a ridiculous eFG% of 61.4. On the season, the Warriors are back to being dead last in eFG% allowed at 53.0.

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By Geoff Lepper
48minutes.net

I thought I would link to my own column over at Comcast Bay Area’s site — CSNBayArea.com — discussing the fine line Stephen Curry has to walk as a rookie PG on an NBA team with some established veterans.

[Brief CSNBayArea.com tangent: You can find fresh columns there all week, from folks such as myself, Ann Killion (late of the San Jose Mercury News), Michelle Smith (late of the San Francisco Chronicle) and Dave Albee (late of the Marin Independent Journal). End of pimpage.]

There were a few observations that didn’t fit into the flow of the column which I thought I’d note here.

First things first: Curry gets it. He knows exactly what’s going on, sees the “I’m getting mine” attitude that pervaded the first couple of games — exacerbated by the Warriors’ over-reliance on one-on-one play — and how it’s totally anathematic to any consistent ball movement.

This is not a new problem, obviously. Golden State was 29th last season in AST/FG ratio. Only the Grizzlies were more parsimonious in helping one another — which makes Memphis’ signing of Allen Iverson even more hilarious.

It’s also interesting to note the one play that, for me, stood out the most from Monday’s practice.

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By Geoff Lepper
48minutes.net

I can’t decide which injury Monta Ellis’ stiff left ankle – which will keep him on the bench tonight in Los Angeles, as well as against Charlotte on Friday and Utah on Sunday – brings more readily to mind.

Is this like Baron Davis’ sprained ankle in 2005-06, when he ended up shutting it down for the remainder of the season?

Or is it like Jason Richardson’s arthroscopic knee surgery of the following season, when he ended up pushing too fast for a comeback and looked terrible — until a broken hand forced him to rest for several more weeks, and then he came on to play a huge role down the stretch?

Based on the Warriors’ record, the obvious answer is to treat Ellis’ setback as the former. He’s shown that he can at least take the floor, and occasionally reached for the level he was at last season – although it was only for a play or two a night, with two dozen instances of rust and regression for every highlight.

But everything hinges on the one thing Ellis has not shown much of: The ability to get lift off of that left leg.

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By Geoff Lepper
48minutes.net

It’s too bad that Spurs guard Manu Ginobili was afforded the courtesy whistle given to all visiting dignitaries in San Antonio’s 110-105 win over the Warriors on Monday.

Not too bad because it cost the Warriors a win. Too bad because it obscured the real reason why they lost.

“I have to be careful what I say because I don’t want to get fined,” Golden State coach Don Nelson said. “I thought we had the game won in regulation, but the late whistle (on Turiaf) cost us the game, really.”

All the grousing about Sean Wright’s personal Argentinean bailout plan is not without merit. (Fun fact: if you watch the play again on slo-mo, you can see that, at the disputed moment of impact between Ginobili and Ronny Turiaf, Wright’s line of sight from 30 feet out is completely blocked by the bodies of both Tim Duncan and Corey Maggette. That’s quite some vision Sean’s got there.)

But what cost Nelson and the Warriors the game wasn’t Wright’s call. It wasn’t even Stephen Jackson not getting a call when his last shot was defended tightly by Bruce Bowen.

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By Geoff Lepper
48minutes.net

In 18 months as an NBA player, Marco Belinelli’s stock has gone through more roles than a TV character actor: Summer League star, Jason Richardson replacement, defensive sieve, bench ornament, unhappy camper, trade bait.

So is Belinelli’s latest turn — reborn playmaker — just another phase, destined to vanish like the next full moon?

It’s still too early to tell for certain, but in the 13 games since Don Nelson refocused the Warriors’ attack, Belinelli has already weathered one dip and ridden it out. I figured that after back-to-back poor performances in Florida — combined 7-for-24 shooting with four turnovers against five assists in Orlando and Miami — Belinelli’s run was at an end, and that he would go back to being a pumpkin, metaphorically speaking.

Instead, he had one of his two best games of the season in the Warriors’ 117-111 win over Toronto on Monday: 23 points, 6-12 FG, 5-8 3FG, 6-6 FT, 6 AST, 2 TO.

After that game, Warriors coach Don Nelson said Belinelli was succeeding in the team’s revamped, Euro-style offense — 47.5 FG, 40.0 3FG, 16.0 PPG, 3.3 APG — because “he’s a much better shooter on the move than he is stationary.”

I disagree. Belinelli has tamed the wild leg kick that used to punctuate his shooting motion, but he still often twists his lower body to the left when he fires while moving, both off the dribble and situations where he catches and shoots on a cut.

In the Toronto game, for example, Belinelli was 1-for-6 off dribble-drives, 1-for-2 while catching on the move, and 4-for-4 (three of those from deep) on standing shots. All three of those treys came on plays that began with Stephen Jackson driving and drawing multiple defenders, then kicking out, either directly to Belinelli or through an intermediary.

The bigger surprise on offense has been Belinelli’s emergence as a passer. He’s never going to be a straight point guard in the NBA, not unless he significantly upgrades his open-court ballhandling, but as a half-court initiator, he’s just a half-step behind Jackson and Jamal Crawford in terms of finding open shooters.

The style of Belinelli’s passing makes it seem as though he’s cavalierly throwing the ball around. Just as many Italians would find speech without the punctuation provided by their hand gestures to be unacceptably bland, Belinelli seems to use a two-handed chest pass only as a means of last resort. Witness Belinelli’s behind-the-back…