Portland:105 Golden State:95

Tonight was put it simply a game that got away as the Warriors looked tired and out of sorts against a Blazers team that have now won 5 straight and going by tonight are really not missing Oden that much.

Boxscore

It was a case where it showed just how important Monta is to this team. Out tonight with a strained left the the warriors offense became more stagnant wihtout his ball handling skills and as a result the ball rotation wasn't moving as much as it should. Yes Monta has poor court vision but he penetrates and breaks down a Defense much better then T-Hud could. He and Baron Davis are the only players on our Offense who can actually dish it to an open man which rsults in an open shot hence one of the reasons why we average 109 PPG because of the open looks. Hudson didn't play that bad he had 10 points but he's not the facilitator Nellieball needs and probably never will be


AP Photo/Don Ryan)


I also don't think Stephen Jackson won't have shooting nights like that again in his career. An horrendous 3-15 he looked tired but I made the point earlier about the one problem with Monta's career so far is he needs to adopt a better offensive reptoire. Tonight it was a case of the same old driving to the basket and get rejected and look at the Referee for a foul quarter. There were times in the 4th quarter where I wished he used the captains role and taken over the game but tonight was his worst perforrmance to date in a Golden State uniform. Half the time when the game was there for the taking he kept shooting 3's but missing badly and had 4 turnovers. He constantly loses the ball with his Dribble moves but hopfelly he'll have a comeback game against the Lakers.

Exactly how I feltAP Photo/Don Ryan


The main problem for this loss though was the worst Defensive effort of the year as to date. The whole game we were just getting abused by the guard play of Portland. GSW was in the penalty for most of the second half! Jax, MP, Baron, Kelenna were all guilty of bad defense tonight when Jarett Jack (22), Brandon Roy (21) and James Jones (21 combined for Portland 64 points. As much as i hate making the excuse it also doesn't help that the Dubs only shot 13 FT's from the line compared to Portlands 30. Every call went in Portlands' favour. Away from the negatives there were postives. Barnes posed a threat on the glass collecting 11 Rebounds and 15 points, Sideny Moncrief who's proving to be a big help from the FT line as the Warriors went 12-13 wiping away the memories of the Dallas game where they missed 12. Baron Davis was under the radar for most of last night but filled up the stat sheet Baron flew under the radar but still almost pulled off a triple double and an all around solid performance with 23 pts, 11 assistst, 8 boards, 2 steals on 50% 3pt and FG shooting). Oh yeah and Marco hit a 3 although Nellie proved his distaste for Rookies by giving Hudson more PT. Hudson as I mentioned had a nice night but Marco didn't do anything wrong he just wasn't given a chance to prove himself. he did show hustle when everyone else gave up.

Rejected

Beans came off a nice peformance off the bench but tonight he didn't do anything t sparkle our Offense. Three Rebounds in 23 minutes isn't going to endure you espeically against an average Front court. Harrington also played horrible perhaps the best thing to do is consider trading him his useful nature to this team is playing against Yao but thats it. Our fastbreak points was won 18 to 2 with 18 to 2 coming from t the fantastic cross court passes from Baron Davis and Matt Barnes. several picks of the Blazer guards out on the perimeter which led to some easy fast break buckets. DJ mbenga also had 6 minutes but had an assist and 4 points. Nellie should have given him more PT

I alo want to give some credit to Nate Mcmillan tonight coach of the Blazers. he simply outcoached Nellie by just implementing a zone and forcing the Warriors to hit from outside. Since our system is all about taking as many shots as you like it's dissapointing to see once again Nellie didn't improvise. Plenty of teams could do it against Golden State if they wished . The pick and roll was rendered ineffective and you could see Portland did their homework. This is a well coached team with or without Oden and I give plenty of credit to them for not folding when Oden went down. There oly two games behind Portland and it's becoming a worry that Travis Outlaw and Brandan Roy have found their game. This is the type of team Golden State has to beat to prove they are once again a playoff contender and last night they couldn't.

He shut us down