Game 19: Houston Rockets (11-7) @ Golden State Warriors (16-2) - 10:30 PM ET

[azwfan]

Curry may need to gamble less. Teams will involve nonstop in ISO PnR situations to get him to try and reach in. At the very least it'll tire him out on defense.

The problem with tonight is it was the same thing on his 2nd and 5th foul calls--just abject stupidity in reaching in on Harden.

Yes, i agree. I just don't think its going to happen. It seems to me, that he's not going to change - or at least any change he makes is going to be minor. We just need to live with it or work around it.

On offense: Perhaps having him play off the ball even more then he already does, so he isn't in play making position to force those passes.
On defense: Perhaps telling him to play defense like Harden cause at least that way he can stay on the floor.

I think Curry usually makes a few overly risky passes / fouls in a game, but he made more than usual tonight and his shot wasn't on enough to overcome it.

[MastermindLV]

We're gonna lose games guys. It's just going to happen. No point in overreacting to one loss

[Franc]

Don't blame Curry. as he's also lost. He was star in a team , who had chemistry, that you can't buy with money.
I was sorry for the one lost ball. when he hit it backwards like he did it with Bogut, as he was always behind his back and vice versa.Their chemistry was a magic. You are now a first class team, but the beauty is lost. I will never forget Warriors and I believe neither will Bogut.
This post is not meant to be nasty, only
I am sad for Bogut being traded.When he was with Mavericks, somebody in Forum posted, that Bogut was keeping good screen for Curry . That is past, hopefully in the future you win all other Games.
Homer from Australia.
I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Heppy New Year

[Franc]

We're gonna lose games guys. It's just going to happen. No point in overreacting to one loss

Very good post.

[Franc]

Klay never stays on court to shake hands lol

He would shake hands if he was happy.

[wco81]

On Currys reaching, he got steals last year and he got a couple in this game so he's going to gamble a little.

One stat they showed is that since a certain point in the last season, Warriors have committed more fouls on 3-point attempts than any other team.

I guess they really want to contest those shots. On the one where Curry gave Harden 3 FTs, he was 1-7 up to that point from 3. Yet he did hit a big 3 in the second OT which kept them ahead for good.

[Phase 3]

I said it after last game and I'll say it after this game. Kerr's rotations have been maddening for awhile now. I don't know what happened to him. I never criticized anything Kerr did before his leave of absence from back surgery. Since he's come back, I find myself scratching my head more and more as I watch the games. He's making a lot of knee jerk substitutions, not allowing guys time to develop a rhythm on the floor. He always talks about wanting the team to develop a flow but how can they do that when he's subbing guys in and out every couple minutes? On top of that, he's started to play favorites this year. This is really irritating. What's this team's biggest hole? A defensive presence at center. Who's the one guy that provides some of that? McGee. Who does Kerr refuse to play? McGee. Instead Zaza, West, Varejao, and even Mcadoo get minutes at center...and those guys provide nothing that the Warriors desperately need at center. Ok that's my rant lol. I like Kerr...I'm just getting frustrated with how he's been coaching the team since he returned from the back surgery.

[DAWill1128]

Todays game was interesting, we had handled the Rockets pretty easily the past two years but tonight was different. This Rockets group has Gordon and Anderson who are much better complimentary scorers then previous groups. D'antoni has made that group far more unpredictable on offense. The Rockets seemed to find ways to play faster when we went big and slower when we went small, previous Rockets teams tried to play our pace and got blown out. Steph and Klay were off but I still expect the Rockets to be a tough matchup for us in the playoffs if we face them.

On another note I think Jones could play a very important role. Zaza is a little slow for some matchups and McGee makes some mental mistakes. Hopefully Jones can be some type of median between Zaza's bball IQ and McGees athleticism. I would've like to see Looney get some run tonight.

[Phase 3]

Todays game was interesting, we had handled the Rockets pretty easily the past two years but tonight was different. This Rockets group has Gordon and Anderson who are much better complimentary scorers then previous groups. D'antoni has made that group far more unpredictable on offense. The Rockets seemed to find ways to play faster when we went big and slower when we went small, previous Rockets teams tried to play our pace and got blown out. Steph and Klay were off but I still expect the Rockets to be a tough matchup for us in the playoffs if we face them.

On another note I think Jones could play a very important role. Zaza is a little slow for some matchups and McGee makes some mental mistakes. Hopefully Jones can be some type of median between Zaza's bball IQ and McGees athleticism. I would've like to see Looney get some run tonight.

Fwiw Bob Myers says Jones still has a ways to go and it will be tough for him to crack the rotation...http://www.csnbayarea.com/warriors/bob-myers-will-be-hard-damian-jones-crack-warriors-rotation

[DAWill1128]

Todays game was interesting, we had handled the Rockets pretty easily the past two years but tonight was different. This Rockets group has Gordon and Anderson who are much better complimentary scorers then previous groups. D'antoni has made that group far more unpredictable on offense. The Rockets seemed to find ways to play faster when we went big and slower when we went small, previous Rockets teams tried to play our pace and got blown out. Steph and Klay were off but I still expect the Rockets to be a tough matchup for us in the playoffs if we face them.

On another note I think Jones could play a very important role. Zaza is a little slow for some matchups and McGee makes some mental mistakes. Hopefully Jones can be some type of median between Zaza's bball IQ and McGees athleticism. I would've like to see Looney get some run tonight.

Fwiw Bob Myers says Jones still has a ways to go and it will be tough for him to crack the rotation...http://www.csnbayarea.com/warriors/bob-myers-will-be-hard-damian-jones-crack-warriors-rotation

Understandable, Looney is still getting up to speed with the NBA game but he's also shown good value in his raw tools. Even if Jones missed a duration he's gotta be more spry on the interior and full court game then West, Zaza, and Varejao. We have 60 games to get Jones up to speed, Ezili started a lot his rookie year.

[laika]

death lineup wasn't that good.

Actually the death lineup was awesome once again, at plus 16 in 16 minutes.

And people are blaming Curry and Green for the loss? Seriously?

Curry was plus 10, which should be enough for an easy win. It was the horrible minus 15 when Curry wasn't in that cost the Warriors the game.

[Impuniti]

Think some of you are overreacting a bit, this is Steph's first boot in 3 years. He just needs to be wiser once he gets to 3 fouls and it's early into the game. Was kind of sad seeing Steph getting to the bench with the last defensive play though. Not that I blame Kerr but taking out your best player in such situations is kind a brutal message.

The garbage ISO in display during the 2nd OT was quite a bad sight for my eyes. Klay really needs to stop shooting so much when he is shooting like garbage. 4/20, like cmon dude. He shot all 3s in OT2.. Missed all of them. At least drive for an easy lay up. KD needs to be fed properly, that pass the ball and hope he pulls something out of his ass like OKC type of ball should never be replicated again, and I'm hoping that's because Steph got bounced and not a thing of things to expect in tight playoff games.

I am surprised that Mixtape Curry is missing so much this year. Dude was one of the most exciting players of all time last season. Even in one of the podcasts, one of the ESPN journos mentioned that he would be a highlight reel after every game last year and this year.. nowhere near to be found. Now he is missing easier 3PA This team needs to build more chemistry, but Steph needs to get back to dropping 3s easily. He's already had more normal games this season than he had in 82 last year. I hope him getting kicked out will get him focused to start a run.


Boxscore
KD 49mins
Klay 47mins
Dray 46mins
Steph 38mins
Zaza 8mins



Zaza's minutes in the post season are going to be around half of Bogs' this year, aren't they?

[Sam Lowry Jr]

It seems like the Warriors have been moving the ball less these past 3 games for some reason. 25 assists against Atlanta and Minny. Yeah, they got 31 assists last night, but it took them double OT to get it.

Would like to see the actual total number of passes for these games to verify that this is the case.

[turk3d]

Although Dray had some nice numbers (9-15, 15 and 9) Anderson I believe is one of his tougher matches @ the 4. He makes it difficult for Dray to play his normal D, where he rotates to cover or help with the open man because if he strays too far from Anderson, Anderson will bury the triple most of the time (we saw this in the playoffs last year against the Pels).

[gold0259]

Steph and Klay need to eliminate the behind the back passes from their games!

[cpower]

Seriously, rockets should be the easiest team to beat in the west. They have no rim protection and only shoot threes. We should have destroyed them 20 points at home.....

[KevinMcreynolds]

It's not even behind the back passes, Steph just throws passes right into traffic or floats one cross court. I've never understood it.

[MightyReds2020]

If there is a thing as good lost, then this is one. Perhaps due to the winning streak and the ease they could put past opponents, in the past 3 games the Warriors have became too cocky with their passing and have started to force passes into insanely difficult angles, which last night resulted in at least 3-5 turnovers. They also showed a bit of frustrations when things didn't go their way, which was this team's achilles-heel from time to time.

They just gave Kerr enough material to put them back down to earth. I'm almost expecting to see a re-focused group tomorrow against the Suns, those poor Suns.

To the person who said Kerr started to play favorites, I don't see it that way. It is pretty obvious the coaches had an idea going into the season each player's role/minutes and are willing to spend the first 2-3 months of the season finding the right rhythms. Kerr even said so himself. This include having Zaza as starting C and West as backup C. As of now IMO Zaza has started to find his game but West still hasn't shown a C's mindset with the second-unit and has not fared well without being paired with another big, which should be to no one's surprised - it's what his role was for the past 10+ years. He needs to adjust though or else Kerr will be forced to find a new solution soon.

By the way, while McGee brought shot-blocking presence, his defensive positioning was pretty bad last night in general - I counted 2 missed assignments in his short stink mainly due to over-eagerness to block shots. Overall, he is just not a good defender. With all that said, I do agreed with one of the ideas floating around recently, that we might be better off starting McGee and let him run with starters for 4-5 minutes at the start of each half. This will make Zaza the second-unit C and move West down to 4 where he's most comfortable with. I like the look of a Zaza-West-Durant-Igoudala-Livingston with the young guns and Klay sprinkling in here and there.

[FNQ]

Houston played well, they deserved it. Harden's looking a lot better now that he's not anchored down with Big Puddin

16-3. Time to panic?

[KevinMcreynolds]

No panic, I think it's just annoying people that certain players keep repeating the same mistakes. This is the first game of the year where I was actually upset about anything. Steph's numbers make it appear like all cylinders are firing, but he looks just like he did in the finals last year. Draymond is a beast, but can also implode any minute. Klay gets too chucky at times. Etc etc. I'm not worried now, but if I still see the same **** come the 1st round of the playoffs I'll be concerned.