Game 3: Warriors 105 Nets 97

On the back end of a back-to-back where 4 players played 43+ minutes, the Golden State Warriors flew into New Jersey to knock off the Nets 105-97 in their first win of the season, led by a much better game plan from Don Nelson and Co. This game was huge in my opinion because Nelson fixed many of the problems I had with the previous two games, and as a result I'll get right into them:

The PG Problem

The previous two games the Warriors collapsed late as a result of a lack of ball movement, a lack of penetration in the key to get open shots for others, and a lack of ball control (18 turnovers in Toronto). These are seemingly things the PG of the team usually handles, but in the first game we saw Nelson experiment with his bigger lineup where Stephen Jackson handled the ball for most of the game. This resulted in an offense I wasn't a fan of, particularly in the 4th quarter, because there were just way too many iso plays. This game in New Jersey however, featured a PG at play I believe all game long. And it's a good thing Nelson picked this game to play his PG's, because as I alluded to in a previous post, teams might start pressing full court... What did we see tonight? About 5-7 presses, all of which we weren't really bothered by because either Watson or Nelson was out there. I really like the way we looked tonight because the ball seemed to move around alot better. Particularly I loved watching D. Nelson drive the lane and either kick it out for a better shot or actually attack the rim. He looked really aggressive tonight and I enjoyed it.

The Offensive Scheme
The PG problem kind of ties into this one but I think this deserves its own paragraph because it's incredibly important. Stephen Jackson wasn't the PG tonight, but man-o-man did I love his unselfish play, particularly in the 1st half. He actually finished the game with 8 assists while still playing his normal SG position. This was key because rather than him iso-ing every other play, he was running the pick and roll with Andris, and looking to get other guys open as well. Sure, in the second half he tried establishing himself a bit, and it worked. I would not mind at all if he attacked the game like this every night. I don't think we can be more effective than when we have Jackson and Biedrins working together like they did most of tonight, and portions of the previous 2 games. Every night Biedrins impresses me more with his ability to finish around the basket, and yet every night I ask myself why he doesn't get the ball more. Well Jackson was looking for him today and it was a huge problem for New Jersey to deal with.

Valuing Possessions
Yes, another offensive post, but that's been our problem lately. Another thing I really liked today was our ability to take guys to the rim. This is a statistic the Warriors probably havent achieved in years (I could easily be wrong but i certainly can't remember when): The Warriors shot 52 free throws tonight!!! Regardless of the probable fact that half were a result of poor defense, any time you get to the line that often you are valuing possessions because you typically come away with some amount of points. Forget that we only shot 65% from the line. The fact that we have the mindset to drive down the lane, particularly when we're only shooting 30% from behind the arc, shows that we can be very versatile with our offense. The nights we're hot we can light it up from 3, and when we're not feeling it we can take it to the rack and get fouled. If the Warriors can do this consistently we can be a very scary team to stop.

Forget any negatives... We won our first game of the season. I understand we let them come back a bit again late in the 4th quarter, but I'll pass that off as being tired from the last night and just wanting the game to end. This won't pass in future contests, but tonight, like I said, I'll let it slide.

Top 3 Performances

1. Andris Biedrins- 23 points 11 rebounds and 2 blocks. I've said it before and I'll say it again: The more we use Biedrins, the more efficient our offense is, and the scarier a team we can be. Enough Said.

2.Stephen Jackson- Loved his game tonight, particularly the way he looked to set up Biedrins most of the game. He finished with 23 points 8 assists and 5 rebounds. That's a mighty stat line.

3. Corey Maggette- I thought about giving this to D. Nelson since I thought he was pretty solid, I gotta give it to Maggette simply because he got to the line a ridiculous 15 times, and made 13 of them. That's just nuts. Forget that he went 3-13 fg's.