GAME THREAD: New evil Empire vs Warriors

[wraith985]

It's turk's favorite argument - Curry's got Klay and Lee to utilize and much better talent around him generally.

Except Monta had Lee and Curry for a season and a half. Turk's other favorite argument was that Monta was creating for Curry, but with Monta's dip in efficiency this season, it looks more like Curry was creating for Monta.

Granted both of their shooting percentages have dropped, so they were creating for each other on some level, but Curry creates space just by standing past the half court line and creates a free-flowing offense for multiple guys at once. Monta creates only for whoever drives and kicks out to.

You reminded me of an interesting article I ran across. Don't know if it was linked here, but have at it:

http://hoopspeak.com/2013/01/dont-try-t ... d-offense/

While obviously not conclusive evidence by any stretch of the imagination, this analysis gives good reason to believe that Steph is the engine of this offense, and that nobody else (including Monta) would be able to do what he does for this team.

[Quazza]

I was watching the clippers broadcast for this game and I think the announcers claimed curry is 4th in the league in 4th quarter points.

I'm not sure I believe this. I can't fathom the Clipps announcers mentioning a player from the other team

[Mylie10]

Ok I know you guys are jumping on Turk here, and for him knocking Curry to much, but taking it to the Monta card ruins the discussion.....I'd have loved to have seen Monta play with a roster this strong.

And that includes Ezeli and Green as reasons why the team is better....they help win games and believe it or not Monta won games here with a far crappier roster.

I love what's happening now and don't want to get into the Monta versus Stephan thing because both things aren't equal.

It is also true that Monta is up there in 4th quarter scoring and has been since coming back from his own ankle issue....if we had This roster in a lot of those close losses the last few years we may have won those games.

[Onus]

I was watching the clippers broadcast for this game and I think the announcers claimed curry is 4th in the league in 4th quarter points.

I'm not sure I believe this. I can't fathom the Clipps announcers mentioning a player from the other team

they were debating whether he's an all star a lot of the game. Ralph said no the other guy thought yes.

[Onus]

Curry is the heart of this offense. He's having a huge effect out there. I'm curious what we could get for lee?

[turk3d]

Yeah, but no Jack, Landry, Barnes, Green, Ezeli (not great been much better than Biedrins was) and even Bogut for a few games not to mention a new and improved MJ plus a full training session.

Green and Ezeli are not factors on offense. It's silly to even mention them playing a factor in Curry's offense. Curry' makes THEM better, not the other way around. Rush, Nate, and Dorell added plenty of offense last year (though obviously this team is much better).

It's their defense that should help make him better (i'e, taking Curry out of the game at the end and putting Green on his man had given him extra rest in addition removing some of the defensive burden from him which takes a lot out of on offense).

Not sure but may have been the highest scoring backcourt in the league so yeah, you'd think they helped each other out on offense.

Pretty sure we were the highest scoring backcourt in all the years of Monta/Curry too, so this is pretty irrelevant.

That's what I was referring to, Monta and Curry (don't think he and Klay are so Klay and Curry are irrelevant in that sense).

And of course (as you pointed out) no Klay with Curry in there. You guys love making up bull to support your arguments. You guys want to make it all Curry's play which has brought all the success we've had so far this season. Not by a longshot.

It's not all Curry's play. No one's claimed that except when building a straw man.

A lot of have been claiming that and that's what I'm arguing actually (not that Curry isn't a contributor but this MVP crap has to go). How about something like "he could turn out to be . . . .", "I'm hoping he becomes . . . .". That wouldn't bother me. I just don't like to see credit being taken from his teammates and piled on to him when it's just not so. And I'm glad you admit it (at least someone does).

But Curry IS the most important contributor. Lee is close, and you can argue which was bigger depending on the game, but seeing how poorly we play without Curry has tilted me towards Curry as the heart and soul of this team. As much as you want to take credit from Curry by claiming certain other players make him better, you've actually got it backwards. He makes *others* better with the space and ball movement he creates. I know you know this since you're all about the eyeball.

I wouldn't even say that. What's he missed, just two games? Pretty small sample size. However, we do know that without him or Lee we'd be in trouble but to say he's the most important contributor, I wouldn't even go that far. I think Klay's important, so is Barnes, so is Ezelie for that matter. ''

Jack and Landry have also been very important and if any of our guys are having an off night we're going to have trouble. We're just not that dominant of a team. Jack has probably been our best and most consistent 4th quarter contributor. Does that make him Team MVP. No I think that honor should be divided up. Right now there's more than one MVP on this team imo.

No doubt he's a threat, but to claim he's making it better for the team when he's taking "bad shots+ and turning the ball over, or not assisting very much, I don't think he's doing all that great for the kind of praise he's been getting. Yes, he's starting to get his assists up and turnovers down I believe, but that's just been recently, at least on a consistent basis.

You can't take what he's done recently (which is good no doubt) and build a case for MVP type status. Let him keep it up, keep playing more like a PG and balance his game for a while before giving all the accolades.

Yes, he's a great shooter as everybody talks about but he even needs imo to get more consistent at that in order to be an MVP type players. I did a cursory on his 4th Qtr stats and it's what I thought, they're actually not very good which maybe why no one's published them as yet.

A small handful of games so far this season where you can say that he honestly put up MVP type numbers and there were a few of them where he practically disappeared. This is not even looking at what his opponent did on the other end of the floor.

Again, I listed a long list of acheivements and stats for Curry that argue for him being MVP of the Warriors (not league wide). Apparently that's still not satisfying enough, because you can always come up with one more way he can be better, something you never did with Monta when Lee was pretty much playing the same game. It does start to make sense why you might be inclined to beileve Lee's a completely different player than last season: it makes Curry's play on a Monta-less Warriors seem less glowing.

I'll have to look back in this thread and see what "achievements" you listed because I don't remember them being that significant. I clearly pointed out that he's not even playing better than he did last year (FG% down, 3pt same although it probably went up after today's game). He's got a few more points. He does seem as though he's been getting better as of late. Let's hope he keeps it up.

However, if you are being honest (especially when you're talking any kind of MVP) you have to look at the entire season. With Monta there was nothing that could be done, none of the coaches he had were willing to get him to play the right way.

In Nellie's case, we weren't even trying to win (tanking most of the time). That's another thing that's way different now, at least we're trying to win and coach Jackson is trying to make them accountable. This is a totally different scenerio than what we had in the Monta years. And BTW (not sure who said it about Curry) but Baron Davis was our best PG.

Do you know in looking the games log this past season I noticed Curry 1) didn't start most 4th quarters (usually came in minute 7-9) and was taken out quite about after brought in sometime in favor of Jenkins. That should tell you something about coach Jackson's confidence level in Curry in the 4th quarter.

Now I'm not saying I'm in favor of all of Jackson's coaching substitutions, however I found it quite interesting when I noticed how often Curry was not even in the game at critical moments. Why you guys continue to bash Monta is beyond me. He's gone and aint coming back and Curry's definitely here to stay. So let's see if he can measure up to the hype. If he's as good as some of you seem to be claiming it's not going to be about the shooting (everyone pretty much knows he can shoot the lights out).

But if he's going to be up in the MVP stratosphere, he's going to need to try and bring the rest his game maybe not to the same level as his shooting (which may be next to impossible since it's so good), but at least a step up as far as I'm concerned.

[cellomac1212]

Well to be fair, Monta was pretty high in both clutch stats and fourth quarter scoring the last few years with the Warriors (close to the top of the league). But, with that said, Curry is a much better fourth quarter player this year then before. Last year even Klay Thompson was consistently outplaying him in the fourth. Good to see him stepping up...

Difference being that Curry's numbers are leading to wins.

Reading Turk's posts have given me cancer.

Yeah, I agree. But the number of moral victories were countless when Monta was at the helm... Curry is a better shooter and decision maker than Monta, but Monta put an underwhelming team with a lack of talent on his back just to get games close. The teams Monta had were not going to win as they were not set up to win. Curry is taking advantage of his opportunity, but the new Warriors also have filled all the holes the old Warriors were missing and ultimately is allowing them to get over the hump. I think everyone knew Curry could be this player we see and this is what we hoped for. But this is the first time he's doing it in his career and hopefully he continues to progress...

[cellomac1212]

It's turk's favorite argument - Curry's got Klay and Lee to utilize and much better talent around him generally.

Except Monta had Lee and Curry for a season and a half. Turk's other favorite argument was that Monta was creating for Curry, but with Monta's dip in efficiency this season, it looks more like Curry was creating for Monta.

Granted both of their shooting percentages have dropped, so they were creating for each other on some level, but Curry creates space just by standing past the half court line and creates a free-flowing offense for multiple guys at once. Monta creates only for whoever drives and kicks out to.

I think Curry is better off the ball like Turk. He can pass and run a team, but his strength will probably always be in his scoring ability. The guy is deadly off the ball and a very good player on the ball. He can score anyway you want, but just from watching the games, you would be lying if you said Monta didn't consistently set him up... Curry also setup Monta as well...

[Onus]

It's turk's favorite argument - Curry's got Klay and Lee to utilize and much better talent around him generally.

Except Monta had Lee and Curry for a season and a half. Turk's other favorite argument was that Monta was creating for Curry, but with Monta's dip in efficiency this season, it looks more like Curry was creating for Monta.

Granted both of their shooting percentages have dropped, so they were creating for each other on some level, but Curry creates space just by standing past the half court line and creates a free-flowing offense for multiple guys at once. Monta creates only for whoever drives and kicks out to.

You reminded me of an interesting article I ran across. Don't know if it was linked here, but have at it:

http://hoopspeak.com/2013/01/dont-try-t ... d-offense/

While obviously not conclusive evidence by any stretch of the imagination, this analysis gives good reason to believe that Steph is the engine of this offense, and that nobody else (including Monta) would be able to do what he does for this team.

Prime Nash is probably the closest. And we see what he's done for amare.

[turk3d]

From what I can tell (and still going over it) Curry in the 4th Qtr and overtime has shot 56/143 or 42% slightly under his season average which is currently 43.3%. This averages to approximately 1.5 shots made per 3.86 per game which does not seem to be too overwhelming to me. Looks like there were around 8 games where he didn't even hit a fg.

I was asking someone else to look it up because I have to do it manually in order to get something more accurate (thought that this actually may exist somewhere). I also have fts and some turnovers and a few assists (didn't see too many of those, perhaps because Jack is playing point much of the time).

[Onus]

It's turk's favorite argument - Curry's got Klay and Lee to utilize and much better talent around him generally.

Except Monta had Lee and Curry for a season and a half. Turk's other favorite argument was that Monta was creating for Curry, but with Monta's dip in efficiency this season, it looks more like Curry was creating for Monta.

Granted both of their shooting percentages have dropped, so they were creating for each other on some level, but Curry creates space just by standing past the half court line and creates a free-flowing offense for multiple guys at once. Monta creates only for whoever drives and kicks out to.

I think Curry is better off the ball like Turk. He can pass and run a team, but his strength will probably always be in his scoring ability. The guy is deadly off the ball and a very good player on the ball. He can score anyway you want, but just from watching the games, you would be lying if you said Monta didn't consistently set him up... Curry also setup Monta as well...

Take a look at that article posted above. It says our offense is predicated on currys on ball 3s. Basically they are playing him for his 3pt shot of the dribble. He makes such a high percentage of these that defenses have to go over the screen every time essentially doubling him off the pick and roll creating mismatches all over the floor. Idk if he's being wasted off the ball to put the ball in jjs hands tho. This is why jj has been having such a great year. He gets one on one coverage all the time. Damn if we had traded for harden

[cellomac1212]

From what I can tell (and still going over it) Curry in the 4th Qtr and overtime has shot 56/143 or 42% slightly under his season average which is currently 43.3%. This averages to approximately 1.5 shots made per 3.86 per game which does not seem to be too overwhelming to me. Looks like there were around 8 games where he didn't even hit a fg.

I was asking someone else to look it up because I have to do it manually in order to get something more accurate (thought that this actually may exist somewhere). I also have fts and some turnovers and a few assists (didn't see too many of those, perhaps because Jack is playing point much of the time).

As much as I don't agree with what the guys in the post game say, they made a good point today that I did agree with. The Warriors play their best 5-man roster at the end of every game. They don't play this lineup except to close out games:

PG-Jack
SG-Curry
SF-Barnes/Klay/Draymond (depending on circumstance)
PF-Landry
C-Lee

It kind of shows you Mark Jackson wants to run the most important minutes on offense through Jack and not Curry. Jack is more polished as a pg presence and Curry is much better catch and shoot guy so it makes a lot of sense. I personally attribute a lot of our team success to Jack and Landry, but Curry has had his moments as well. I just find it interesting in the most important moments of a game, Curry goes off ball nearly every game and Jack is trusted with running the offense...

[Onus]

From what I can tell (and still going over it) Curry in the 4th Qtr and overtime has shot 56/143 or 42% slightly under his season average which is currently 43.3%. This averages to approximately 1.5 shots made per 3.86 per game which does not seem to be too overwhelming to me. Looks like there were around 8 games where he didn't even hit a fg.

I was asking someone else to look it up because I have to do it manually in order to get something more accurate (thought that this actually may exist somewhere). I also have fts and some turnovers and a few assists (didn't see too many of those, perhaps because Jack is playing point much of the time).

As much as I don't agree with what the guys in the post game say, they made a good point today that I did agree with. The Warriors play their best 5-man roster at the end of every game. They don't play this lineup except to close out games:

PG-Jack
SG-Curry
SF-Barnes/Klay/Draymond (depending on circumstance)
PF-Landry
C-Lee

It kind of shows you Mark Jackson wants to run the most important minutes on offense through Jack and not Curry. Jack is more polished as a pg presence and Curry is much better catch and shoot guy so it makes a lot of sense. I personally attribute a lot of our team success to Jack and Landry, but Curry has had his moments as well. I just find it interesting in the most important moments of a game, Curry goes off ball nearly every game and Jack is trusted with running the offense...

[cellomac1212]

Take a look at that article posted above. It says our offense is predicated on currys on ball 3s. Basically they are playing him for his 3pt shot of the dribble. He makes such a high percentage of these that defenses have to go over the screen every time essentially doubling him off the pick and roll creating mismatches all over the floor. Idk if he's being wasted off the ball to put the ball in jjs hands tho. This is why jj has been having such a great year. He gets one on one coverage all the time. Damn if we had traded for harden

Curry is one of the best shooters in the NBA. I just think the guy doesn't miss off of a good pass from watching more than from stats. He will bury threes on ball all day as well, but if you run him around screens and open him up, I personally think he's even better. But if I was an NBA team I would not let him shoot a three no matter how he got open, so I do understand what your saying here...

[Onus]

From what I can tell (and still going over it) Curry in the 4th Qtr and overtime has shot 56/143 or 42% slightly under his season average which is currently 43.3%. This averages to approximately 1.5 shots made per 3.86 per game which does not seem to be too overwhelming to me. Looks like there were around 8 games where he didn't even hit a fg.

I was asking someone else to look it up because I have to do it manually in order to get something more accurate (thought that this actually may exist somewhere). I also have fts and some turnovers and a few assists (didn't see too many of those, perhaps because Jack is playing point much of the time).

As much as I don't agree with what the guys in the post game say, they made a good point today that I did agree with. The Warriors play their best 5-man roster at the end of every game. They don't play this lineup except to close out games:

PG-Jack
SG-Curry
SF-Barnes/Klay/Draymond (depending on circumstance)
PF-Landry
C-Lee

It kind of shows you Mark Jackson wants to run the most important minutes on offense through Jack and not Curry. Jack is more polished as a pg presence and Curry is much better catch and shoot guy so it makes a lot of sense. I personally attribute a lot of our team success to Jack and Landry, but Curry has had his moments as well. I just find it interesting in the most important moments of a game, Curry goes off ball nearly every game and Jack is trusted with running the offense...

That's because they're trying to get curry a good shot. Everyone's a better shooter having a ball passed to you. I also think it has to do with that curry isn't always very strong with the ball. He has flashy hesitation handles but they don't work in tight situations. He has to just learn how to beat bigs off the dribble. Once he learns that the world will be open to him.

[Onus]

Take a look at that article posted above. It says our offense is predicated on currys on ball 3s. Basically they are playing him for his 3pt shot of the dribble. He makes such a high percentage of these that defenses have to go over the screen every time essentially doubling him off the pick and roll creating mismatches all over the floor. Idk if he's being wasted off the ball to put the ball in jjs hands tho. This is why jj has been having such a great year. He gets one on one coverage all the time. Damn if we had traded for harden

Curry is one of the best shooters in the NBA. I just think the guy doesn't miss off of a good pass from watching more than from stats. He will bury threes on ball all day as well, but if you run him around screens and open him up, I personally think he's even better. But if I was an NBA team I would not let him shoot a three no matter how he got open, so I do understand what your saying here...

He's the best 3pt shooter ever. If he stays healthy he's breaking ray Allen's record

[turk3d]

I read that article before (it was posted earlier) and he makes some interesting points but one thing I'd like to point out is that our offense is structured that way more out of necessity than by design. As I said, earlier in the season from looking at the game statistics it appears that Curry was sitting out much of the 4th quarter.

One other thing I noticed (and this was earlier in the season) when Curry came in shooting hot in the first half, his scoring usually tailed off in the 2nd (if not he'd probably be scoring 30 a game). One of his problems is he's sort of a hybrid or a combo guard if you will.

I think playing the point some times takes away from his shooting for whatever reason (I think you make a good point Cellomac). It seems now that with Jack who's more than capable of assuming the PG role, Curry is allowed to do what he does best, and that's to shoot the ball and look for screens and open spots (the way he did in this Clipper game) which may be one of the reasons he had one of his better 4th quarters. He's not Nash yet. This probably has something to do with his lack of consistency.

[cj03]

I read that article before (it was posted earlier) and he makes some interesting points but one thing I'd like to point out is that our offense is structured that way more out of necessity than by design. As I said, earlier in the season from looking at the game statistics it appears that Curry was sitting out much of the 4th quarter.

One other thing I noticed (and this was earlier in the season) when Curry came in shooting hot in the first half, his scoring usually tailed off in the 2nd (if not he'd probably be scoring 30 a game). One of his problems is he's sort of a hybrid or a combo guard if you will.

I think playing the point some times takes away from his shooting for whatever reason (I think you make a good point Cellomac). It seems now that with Jack who's more than capable of assuming the PG role, Curry is allowed to do what he does best, and that's to shoot the ball and look for screens and open spots (the way he did in this Clipper game) which may be one of the reasons he had one of his better 4th quarters. He's not Nash yet. This probably has something to do with his lack of consistency.

Have you looked at his stats at all? A little less than half of his 3's are unassisted. He takes and makes more unassisted 3's than Nash did in his heyday. (per hoopdata.com) Turk, you have made a lot of generalization without any statistical basis for them. Honestly I feel like you are just going against the crowd just for the sake of going against the crowd. So much for searching for the truth.

[Mylie10]

Early in the year they were watching his minutes because of the ankle....Lee, Klay, and Curry were turds early on.

I think you're basing your argument against Curry purely off of this years shooting % and the last few years struggles....because he's improved on everything except his shooting % this year....he looks great and he's even improved his toughness.

[Onus]

I read that article before (it was posted earlier) and he makes some interesting points but one thing I'd like to point out is that our offense is structured that way more out of necessity than by design. As I said, earlier in the season from looking at the game statistics it appears that Curry was sitting out much of the 4th quarter.

One other thing I noticed (and this was earlier in the season) when Curry came in shooting hot in the first half, his scoring usually tailed off in the 2nd (if not he'd probably be scoring 30 a game). One of his problems is he's sort of a hybrid or a combo guard if you will.

I think playing the point some times takes away from his shooting for whatever reason (I think you make a good point Cellomac). It seems now that with Jack who's more than capable of assuming the PG role, Curry is allowed to do what he does best, and that's to shoot the ball and look for screens and open spots (the way he did in this Clipper game) which may be one of the reasons he had one of his better 4th quarters. He's not Nash yet. This probably has something to do with his lack of consistency.

Could it be that our best option to score is curry shooting. The best way for him to get a good shot is to set him a pick so he can get open. If he has the ball they just double him so he can't shoot. Thus they play him off the ball allowing jj to have a career year because the defense is trying to stop curry off the ball.