By Geoff Lepper
48minutes.net

Don Nelson focused his (quite brief) post-game comments after Washington’s 118-109 win Friday night on how the Warriors couldn’t stop Gilbert Arenas, but frankly, as his own team has proven, one player often can’t win by himself, regardless of how good he is individually.

Case in point, obviously: Monta Ellis has quite simply played his ass off since Stephen Jackson left, and the Warriors have nothing left to show for it expect for fourth-place status in the John Wall Sweepstakes.

Did Arenas close out the game, scoring 10 of the Wizards’ 14 points in the final 5:13? Sure he did. But all Washington did in the fourth quarter was nurse home the seven-point lead they had brought into that period. And that lead was built on the back of Caron Butler straight-up abusing the smaller, weaker defenders Nelson kept throwing at him in an orgy of smallball fun.

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By Geoff Lepper
48minutes.net

When Monta Ellis came into the league, there was a school of thought (with his own coach being one of the adherents) that he wouldn’t succeed in the NBA because all he did in high school was just break down some poor, under-equipped defender from the Jackson Public Schools league and get to the rim.

He can’t do that in The League, the doubters said. Not regularly, anyways.

OK, so that myth just exploded on Tuesday.

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We’ve just been allowed out onto the balcony at 1011 Broadway, and we were greeted by this sight in the half-court scrimmaging:

Blue team (typically the first string): Stephen Curry, Monta Ellis, Stephen Jackson, Kelenna Azubuike and Anthony Randolph.

White team: C.J. Watson, Acie Law, Corey Maggette, Mikki Moore, Andris Biedrins

Since then, Maggette has flipped his jersey around and given Jackson a rest, and Anthony Morrow has come in for the White side. It will be very interesting to see if the Warriors will be using small-ball, with AR at the 5, on Wednesday against Memphis.

Also, on the injury front, Devean George is still working out on his own, Speedy Claxton is only an observer and Ronny Turiaf, day-to-day with the sprained knee, is not on the court, presumably receiving treatment in the locker room.

– Geoff

By Geoff Lepper
48minutes.net

Gilbert Arenas can’t talk enough for the NBA’s liking. I’m betting that Stephen Jackson is talking way too much.

Arenas was fined $25,000 Tuesday by the league in response to avoiding two weeks of interview requests. (And when he did finally speak Wednesday, it wasn’t to say much.)

After a second consecutive day of musings and ruminations without much heed to ramifications, can Jackson’s second league fine of the season be that far off?

Twenty-four hours after renouncing his captaincy, Jackson took the opportunity Wednesday to expand the circle of blame for his L.A. meltdown, lumping the teammates who didn’t ride to his rescue in with coach Don Nelson.

(We’re not even going to delve into the ridiculous notion floated by Jackson, that he’s as good as Kobe Bryant.)

“Nobody reacted but me so the team didn’t have a reaction,” Jackson said of his five-fouls-in-10-minutes Friday. “It was only me standing up for myself. I don’t think anybody else stood up for me. But if the shoe was on the other foot, I would have stood up for somebody on my team. And they didn’t do the same for me.”

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VIDEO

KCAL (via YouTube): Start here, with Shannon Brown crapping all over Mikki Moore in hi-def. (Or click on the jump for the embedded video.) Honestly, that dunk was so personal and intimate, it felt like we ought to give the two of them the arena, alone, for a few minutes, to work out the ramifications amongst themselves.

BLOGOSPHERE

Ball Don’t Lie/Yahoo! Sports (J.E. Skeets): The Dunk Heard ‘Round The Internets.

(BTW, all jokes aside, when you take the Brown dunk and combine it with Kobe Bryant skirting Moore like a pylon on the Lakers’ very next possession on his way to a banked layup and three-point play, it does make you wonder if all Moore can give you defensively is a poor imitation of Mike Dunleavy Jr.’s constant attempts to draw charges. Because if that’s the case, the Brandan Wright injury is going to hurt more than I even expected.)

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