#43: GSW @ SAC 1/26/10

PreThoughts

As games between the third-worst team in basketball and the sixth-worst team in basketball go, this one threatens to be pretty watchable. Two regional rivals, both young and eager to run, led by leading ROTY candidates, with the winner getting back bragging rights in the all-time series? Sign my shit up.

It's tempting to say that the Warriors will have an easy time tonight, too, for the Kings have been in free-fall; they've lost 12 of 13, and are an incredible 1-10 when Kevin Martin plays. The conventional wisdom is that Tyreke and Martin is a loser of a combo, and that certainly seems to be true...

...but they're going to win again at some point, and tonight could easily be the night. For at least one of those two is going to be defended by a li'l fella at all times, and, well -- Tyreke's 6'6" and built like a linebacker, Martin's 6'7" with freaky-long arms. Curry and CJ have their work cut out for them. (Nellie's decision to open with a Curry/Cartier backcourt is a sound one.)

If Curry outplays Evans, the Warriors will win, and have a boatload of fun doing it. But if he doesn't -- if he has a cold shooting night, or if he struggles to find halfcourt openings as he did in Phoenix -- G-State will need a big night from an X-factor guy. The Kings' frontcourt is thin and unimpressive, so Anthony Tolliver, I'm looking at you.

Players To Watch: Stephen Curry! Tyreke Evans! Basketball! AMERICA!

PostThoughts (Kings 99, Warriors 96)

YUCK. Lordy lordy.

The good news: Curry was very good in every aspect of the game. He continues to struggle to create space in the halfcourt, but he did find a couple openings here, and only recorded one turnover (though he had a couple close calls). He played pretty good defense as well, getting beat several times, but generally sticking with guys pretty well and avoiding the reaches he was so prone to earlier in the season. He's also been doing a fantastic job on the defensive boards of late; he's the worst offensive rebounder on the team, but outrates Monta, CJ and Morrow on the other end. I'm still not convinced that he's a point guard -- he's faced three straight terrible defenses and hasn't really cracked any of them consistently -- but the kid in absolutely a player. And while he never imposed his will on the game like Tyreke did -- I'm not sure that Curry's capable of that without someone else setting him up -- Curry was the most effective rookie on the floor tonight. High marks.

Other good news: Biedrins & Turiaf did fine under-the-radar work (combined line: 44 minutes, 14 points on 7-13 shooting, twelve boards, two assists, five blocks, one turnover, only four fouls). Cartier was energetic on both ends, and even managed a by-God assist.

The bad news: grossest game ever. Ever. Other than Curry and the centers, the team went 13 for 59 -- that's a 22.0 FG%, folks. Maggette was the obvious culprit, with a 3-22 night that ended his run of good games with a resounding thud, but Tolliver and CJ stank badly as well. Oh, and have you been missing Vlad Radmanovic? Me neither! He was nauseatingly bad in his seven minutes, and thank God Nellie benched him for Tolliver; if Nellie's going to be infatuated with a crappy stretch four, I'd definitely rather it be Tolliver. The only Warriors that shot 50% or better from the field here were Andris (4 for 6) and George (1 for 2). Ugly, ugly, ugly.

Finally, I'd be remiss if I did not mention the return of smallball. Nellie went small for long stretches here; the Warriors got outrebounded by nineteen; the Warriors lost the game. That's not to say that there's a clean causal thru-line there, because there isn't; the littlest Warrior on the floor grabbed nine rebounds, and the small lineups did defend well for stretches here and there. Nevertheless, this game serves as a useful reminder of the perils of the strategy. Thanks to smallball, Spencer Hawes recorded his season high in rebounds tonight. Thanks to smallball, Sean May, a guy who hadn't played in six weeks and had only grabbed sixteen boards all year, got eleven rebounds tonight.

None of that would've mattered if the team had shot with even reasonable efficiency. But that, in a way, is the point. You're going to have some ugly games here and there, when nothing goes down and the ball's caroming all over the place. You can still win some of those games if you're willing and able to go get the ball off the backboard. If you don't allow yourself to do that, every ugly game will be an ugly loss. You can not opt out of the battle on the glass on a night like tonight, because at a certain point, the battle on the glass is the only one there is.

The Warriors end this two-game Monta-free road trip with a pair of losses and a new appreciation for his importance to the team; nobody else seems able to make anything happen against a set defense. He returns tomorrow, and just in time, for while the Hornets' defense is below average, it's far better than those of New Jersey, Phoenix and Sacramento. And while both Curry and Monta have been developing in promising ways lately, neither one has a shot at slowing down CP3 on their own. Together, and back home in Oakland, can they make some magic? We shall see.