December 5, 2009

ORL @ GSW 12/5/09: PostThoughts

1) Ugh, what a classic Oakland finish. After three quarters of rousing play, the Warriors didn't score for six of the last nine minutes of the game and simply came undone. Fatigue again probably played a factor.

2) Very impressive game from Anthony Randolph. He garnished a career-high 28 points on 22 shots with 13 rebounds, five assists and no turnovers in 35 minutes. Perhaps the best game of his career to this point. And he handled Dwight Howard (17 points on 11 shots, 8 rebounds) about as well as anyone could. Randolph still takes too many 20-foot jumpers, but he drove more this game than he had in previous games.

3) Monta Ellis continues to amaze, with 33 points but the toll of 40+ minutes every game shows in his fouls committed (5 tonight) and in his turnovers (7 tonight, and averaging 6.3 over the last seven games).

4) Nellie's Smallball for much of the game seemed to be...working? Ellis, Curry and Watson shared the floor for much of the game, and played well

5) Corey Maggette: 11 points on...one made basket. How modest.

6) Overall, nice game. Golden State forced Orlando to play to their style, and almost came away with a huge, huge win. Orlando should have won this by 30 points.

7) On a very personal note, I was in Orlando about month ago, and I have to say, it is a sweltering, oppressive place. For one, it is the most dangerous place in America to be a pedestrian. More insidiously, the smiling face of Mickey is everywhere, and the area is surprisingly expensive.

1 comment:

Owen said...

UGGGGHHHTHATSUUUUCKED

I mean... look. Great effort. The whistles went our way, but still, you can't complain about a competitive effort against a team as good and hot as Orlando.

I'm going to anyway. Nellie coached an absolute turd of a game tonight.

Chris Hunter enters the game towards the end of the third quarter, confronts Dwight and plays brilliantly. We outscore the Magic by six in Hunter's five-minute stint. This earns him zero more minutes the rest of the way?

Stephen Curry's out there for 46 minutes, tiring him out so much that he plays like a junior high schooler in the fourth quarter... why, exactly? CJ was on the bench, playing his fifth actively good game in a row -- he can't give Curry a blow? Why, because CJ's slotted as the two for the game, and we can't change guys' positions, because they'll get confused, because of course C.J. Watson's always our starting two and Monta's always our starting three?

Complete nonsense from Nellie. The problem with his smallball love is not that smallball never works... it's that he never strays from it when it stops working. We got away with it for a long stretch in this game, but when it stopped working, it stopped working. How do you not at least try a normal-sized lineup featuring Randolph and Hunter when we're getting sliced up in the fourth? How do you change things up so flippantly in between games, but then become completely rigid within games? What is going on with this guy?

I mean, big picture, everything here was great. Everyone played hard. Nellie seems aware that Mikki is useless... I don't know why he still bothers starting him, but that's a positive. Randolph gave a strong, strong performance (jumpermania aside) that was too high-profile for Nellie to blow off. If tonight won't earn the guy 25-30 minutes per, nothing will. And Nellie's in absentia for the next five games, so we'll be spared some of his crazier quirks. It's all good, really.

But, what the fuck. Nellie's poisonously bad right now. Just go AWAY, you wonderful man.