[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.

Read the rest of this entry…

Tim Kawakami posted a nice analysis of Golden State’s defense — or lack thereof — and to amplify his point, I thought I’d highlight a couple of first-quarter plays from the Warriors’ 131-112 loss to Houston on Friday that illustrate the woeful nature of “defense” they’re playing right now.

With 8:15 remaining, the Rockets’ Rafer Alston elevated for a 17-footer over Jamal Crawford, top key left.

While the ball was in midair, Crawford floated out towards the 3-point line on the Rockets’ left wing (presumably in anticipation of an outlet pass) and Corey Maggette, who was responsible for Shane Battier, drifted all the way in from the 3-point line on the right side (where Battier was stationed) and got to within 8 feet of the hoop.

Neither of them gave a thought to boxing out Rockets center Yao Ming, who stood unmarked at the free-throw line, in perfect position to collect the (unsurprisingly) long rebound and feed it to Battier for a 3-pointer that Maggette couldn’t be bothered to contest.

The, in the final minute of the period, the Rockets set up a simple screen-roll on the right wing, with Ron Artest setting a pick on the inside of Crawford. From the broadcast, it didn’t look like there was much contact, if any, between Crawford and Artest. But it was enough of separation to allow Von Wafer to roll unimpeded to a 10-foot floater over Andris Biedrins, with Crawford trailing ineffectually behind.

It wasn’t so much the fact that the Warriors were out of position, or unable to counter what the Rockets wanted to do offensively. What was disturbing was the fact that, in both instances, neither player seemed to care enough to make a noticeable effort.

We’ll see if that changes in San Antonio tonight.

– Geoff