By Geoff Lepper
48minutes.net

These days, beating the Minnesota Timberwolves – coached in an ever-more-bizarre manner by Kevin McHale in the absence of lone star Al Jefferson – falls somewhere on the degree-of-difficulty scale between “clubbing baby seals to death” and “blasting .300 Win Mag rounds into wolves from a helicopter.”

But just because this was a game the Warriors should have won doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be rewarded for actually, you know, winning it.

Their 42 defensive rebounds were a season-high, a mark made more impressive by the fact that the Timberwolves (with Jefferson at least) are a top-10 team in terms of their offensive rebounding. Minnesota grabbed a combined 37 offensive boards in two earlier meetings with the Warriors this year; last night, that number was 12.

Golden State should get extra credit for that, because even though Minnesota plumped up the Warriors’ DREB opportunities by shooting 35.9 percent, a large chunk of those misses (almost a third — 19 out of 59) came off of 3-pointers, which generate the long bounces that become prime OREB territory.

The Sit-The-Veterans Experiment schedule was thrown off when Ronny Turiaf came up legitimately unable to play due to illness, so Corey Maggette did not get a night of rest and instead came off the bench to make sure the Warriors’ didn’t threaten their season best for turnovers (six in 28 minutes; the rest of the team had combined totals of five in 212).

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By Geoff Lepper
48minutes.net

The frontline void for the Warriors is kind of like the U.S. school system: You can throw however much money and manpower you want at it, and it just doesn’t seem to make a whit of difference.

The latest attempt to stem this tide is Jermareo Davidson, who was originally selected 36th overall in the 2007 draft by the Warriors but was traded before the night was out to the Charlotte Bobcats, along with Jason Richardson, for Brandan Wright.

Davidson, brought in today on a 10-day contract, essentially replaces Richard Hendrix, who was cut loose on Dec. 18 when Monta Ellis had to be transferred back from the suspended list to the inactive squad. It’s a funny coincidence, since they played together at Alabama for two seasons and were the two leading scorers on the Tide’s 2006-07 team. Here are the stats from that season (and remember that Hendrix was a sophomore, while Davidson was a senior):

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