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 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

It’s too bad the Warriors had a chartered bus ready to usher them out of AT&T Center on Saturday after Golden State’s dismal sleepwalk through a 123-88 defeat at the hands of the San Antonio Spurs.

It would have been fascinating to count up just how many cabs were needed to deliver them back to the team hotel.

Thanks to two championships in the last five years, the Boston Red Sox have shed their decades-old label of a team that requires 25 cabs for 25 different players due to a lack of unity and camaraderie, both on the field and off.

Based on what took place Saturday in San Antonio, it looks as though that mantle has been taken up by the Warriors. Things seem like they’ve gotten to the point where it’s time to declare “every man for himself” on the S.S. Nelson, which is taking on water at a frightening rate.

Check out what transpired over one 6-minute stretch of the first quarter, during which time the Spurs raised their lead from 8-6 to 28-16.

Golden State had 17 possessions during that timeframe:

** On one possession, the Warriors made three passes, going counter-clockwise around the perimeter until the ball reached C.J. Watson in the right corner. Watson used his agility to change direction quickly enough that Matt Bonner was forced to concede the non-shooting foul.

** On 11 possessions, the Warriors made only one pass in the frontcourt before the receiver would either make a move to the hoop or hoist a jumper. As a team, the Warriors went 3-for-9 from the floor on those possessions, with one trip to the foul line (two shots converted by Jamal Crawford) and one non-shooting foul drawn (Andris Biedrins on Tim Duncan).

** The remaining five possessions involved no passes at all. Twice, Crawford took an outlet pass and called his own number on jumpers, going 0-for-2. Twice, Corey Maggette collected rebounds and dribbled the length of the court, once getting fouled (he knocked down both FTs) and once missing a pullup jumper over Michael Finley. The fifth possession came about when Biedrins grabbed an offensive board and was whistled for knocking over Fabricio Oberto while trying to score the putback.

All told for those 17 possessions: 3-12 FG, 4-4 FT, 1 TO, minus-10 on the scoreboard.

And the good times were only beginning.

It was shortly after that hideous stretch that Maggette corralled a loose ball in the…

By Geoff Lepper
48minutes.net

My take hasn’t changed from what I wrote several weeks ago on the subject of Stephen Jackson’s extension with the Warriors, which after weeks in the works was finally signed Monday.

In terms of pure production, Jackson deserves to be the highest-paid player on this team (or perhaps second-highest, if Monta Ellis had kept himself healthy). It’s almost an insult that he’s slated to pull down the fifth-highest salary this season behind Ellis, Al Harrington, Andris Biedrins and Corey Maggette.

But by extending Jackson now, the Warriors are tossing aside their previously iron-clad rules of dealing with a player only when the team has used up all of its possible leverage. I’ll be fascinated to hear the explanation for this exception, if any is forthcoming on the matter.

One interesting note: Jackson told me a couple weeks back that he wasn’t asking for the max, but the reported numbers — three years for $28 million — don’t reflect any money left on the table. The most the Warriors are allowed to give Jackson under the Collective Bargaining Agreement is $27.8 million — $8.45 million in 2010-11, $9.26 million in 2011-12 and $10.06 million in 2012-13.

Outside of the reasoning for why the Warriors would break with their own philosophy, here’s the biggest question: How will the signing impact the Warriors in the summer of 2010, when a whole raft of top-notch free agents is scheduled to flood the market?

There is no real hope that a player with the stature of LeBron James will be willing to come to Oakland when the lights of New York are beckoning to him. But having maneuverability in that timeframe — when teams will potentially be looking to offload players in order to make a run at UFAs such as Paul Pierce, Jason Richardson, Josh Howard, Dirk Nowitzki, Tayshaun Prince, Yao Ming, Kobe Bryant, Michael Redd, Amare Stoudemire, Tony Parker, Chris Bosh or Caron Butler — would afford a franchise the opportunity to recast its core, if that was deemed necessary.

With Jackson in the fold, the Warriors are set to spend $51.5 million in 2010-11 for an eight-man core of Jackson, Ellis, Biedrins, Maggette, Kelenna Azubuike, Ronny Turiaf, Brandan Wright and Anthony Randolph.

Based on the trend line of the last few years, my guesstimate of the 2010-11 cap number would be roughly $64 million. (That’s assuming the league’s revenue total continues to ramp up, which is probably on…