Preseason Excitement: Warriors at Blazers

Preseason Excitement: Warriors at Blazers

Well, looks like someone's been reading my blog after all huh? After a few days of bloggers/reporters concerns regarding Brandan Wright after his 9 minute "performance" in the Warriors first preseason game of the year, he answered back with an inspiring (albeit still was a preseason game) 16 points on 6-10 shooting and 5 rebounds in their 110-95 victory over the Portland Trailblazers.

Although it was just a preseason game, there's alot that Warriors fans can take back from this game on a promising note for the rest of the season. Not only did the Warriors win a game against a Western Conference opponent that many people are already claiming to be a powerhouse for years to come, they also had a key turnover advantage and several excellent performances from some of their role players. Now, the former must certainly be taken lightly seeing as how Brandon Roy got a nice DNP and the two guards who started had a combined 11 TO's, but nonetheless this game was an accomplishment that the Warriors needed.

Here's some things that stood out
-When looking at a preseason game, the 1st quarter is always most important. It was a fast paced, good scoring quarter in which we went about even with a really good team. Applause. However, Portland was out their main man B. Roy and I felt they didn't give Andris nearly enough touches in that first quarter. I was looking forward to seeing whether Oden's size would bother Andris offensively, but he wasn't given the opportunity until later in the game. He finished 5-6 shooting with 13 points in 18 minutes. I'm really starting to look forward to giving this guy more touches as he's becoming more and more consistent. Maybe Nellie will someday get the 23 and 12 (or something like that) that Andris was getting in the Euroleague when he was the focus of the offense.
-The fast pace and turnover forcing Warriors are tough to beat. When we made our runs last year with Baron Davis, they came in large part as a result of swarming defense and quick hands that led to turnovers, fastbreaks, and momentum shifts. The more we play like that, the more encouraged I am that we'll be OK (just ok) without Davis
-And then ofcourse, the individual performances: Brandan Wright and Kelenna Azubuike. Since I've already spoken about Wright (I owed it to him to put it at the top of the blog), I'll dedicate this portion to Buike. He was more aggressive tonight than he was in their first Preseason Game, and you know what? I like it. When Buike decides to take the game into his own hands he can be rather scary. He can shoot, drive, and muscle his way with some rebounds and putbacks. He's much more valuable to the team on nights like these then when he's just floating around on the 3pt line. He had a great overall performance and also led the team with a +19 +/- which I thought was worth recognizing even though plenty of that came in the 4th quarter.

I'll end on one negative note. Since it's still preseason I can't just totally praise the wins without much questioning (in the regular season, I'll take a win any way I can get it). The one thing that's still a concern is the PG play. Watson didn't play tonight, and Williams started with Dickau spelling him. Neither was very effective. Dickau had the better numbers with 8 pts, 4 steals, and 5 boards, but it still wasn't encouraging enough to say that our PG play tonight was good. The PG's kept the tempo up which they need to every night, but I'd like to see them create more opportunities for their teammates down the stretch. A combined 3 assists is just not going to get it done.

That's for all Preseason Game 2. Please feel free to drop a comment if you agree disagree or just want to discuss. Thanks