The Warriors came into the game with a 15-2 record, the NBA’s best defense, the 8th best offense, and what was undoubtedly a better team than the Pelicans.  A lot of people were calling for various players’ heads or Monty’s head.  I don’t buy it.  The Warriors were so much better and I thought that was glaringly obvious.

• The Rivers-Salmons-Cunningham-Ryno-Asik unit reared its horrifically ugly head in the 2nd quarter, and the results were awful.
• Speaking of the bench, I don’t know what options we have. Monty tried Horns, he tried Rivers P/Rs, he tried Ryno in isolation.  It’s ugly regardless, and without a capable backup guard to be lead ball-handler on the 2nd unit, I don’t know what he can do.  Rivers has improved his passing and had a couple nice dump offs to Asik, but he is a scoring guard, not a point guard.  And it’s not like he has many people to pass to anyway.
• The Pelicans lost Warriors shooters in transition many times and got burned many times.  There are two ways to address this: limit the TOs (which we usually do) or do a better job of getting back in transition.
• This offense has very defined weaknesses. Tyreke can’t shoot. Asik can’t catch/finish in traffic. Jrue isn’t great at getting to the rim.  Babbitt is a set shooter and not much else.  You cannot be surprised when the offense has lulls- blame Monty all you want, but it’s teams knowing our weaknesses/strengths and playing us that way.  AD doesn’t get the ball because other teams aren’t scared of anyone else, so they overplay everything with him.
• Tyreke Evans was really bad tonight and he has the ball in his hands so often.  Tonight was beyond rough.
• I thought Jrue did a good job chasing Curry around the floor, but when he couldn’t fight through a screen, he wasn’t getting much help from his teammates, who were generally unaware of what was going on.
• Jrue is also great defending switches and had Harrison Barnes in the post, yet Babbitt decided to leave Klay Thompson to help Jrue on Barnes. MISTAKE!!
• Conversely, Jrue was not so great at finding Davis in transition or not telegraphing his passes.  Several turnovers from that.

Finally, would like to address the magnificent game that Davis had.  It’s a shame it had to come in a blowout loss.  He showed a bit of everything- the spot up jumper, the dribble drive game, and the highlight-reel dunks as well.  He was visibly frustrated at the end of the game.  He needs help in a bad way.

16 Comments