THE OFFICIAL SAN JOSE SHARKS SEASON THREAD!! PLAYOFFS VS CHICAGO WCF series 0-1

[daprescription]

I can't believe I forgot to start Bosh 3 times last week

. I forgot Odom a couple times too

.

 

[paul is on tilt]

Originally Posted by acidicality

seriously, if we're gonna catch up to the knicks thread, we gotta do this %$+*.

 

[paul is on tilt]

Originally Posted by JapanAir21

I haven't noticed, have you not been updating? Or do you just suck?

Shut up! You suck!

It's a combination of things. I had hella injuries, I tend to draft some of the same players in my leagues i.e. Al Jefferson, Blake Griffin, Derrick Roseand two of those guys sucked in the beginning of the year and Blake is still injured, and work actually interfered with my scouting. I missed picking up TyrekeEvans because of work. I'm doing bad this year.

 

[japanair21]

Yeah I don't update my rosters NEARRRRLY as much as I used to. I used to go through and check EVERY single players stats, keep up with averages, but now Ihave made like 5 total moves in all my leagues.

And I do the same thing, draft the same damn players.

Doesn't help that I don't have any superstars like Bron, or Kobe in ANY of my leagues. I think the highest pick I got this year was like 10.

 

[daprescription]

[h2]Warriors TO or no TO? Ellis and Don Nelson on the last-play mix-up[/h2]
Posted by Tim Kawakami on January 11th, 2010 at 11:00 pm | Categorized as NBA, Warriors

* Don Nelson presser transcript is now there, at the bottom of this post. Thought I'd put up Ellis first.

Setting the scene:

-Warriors trailed Cleveland by three, after a big rally from 11 down with 2:20 left.

-During the timeout (CLARIFICATION: the last Warriors' timeout came with 57.9 left)TWO possessions before the Cavs' final possession, Don Nelson apparently told the huddle that whether Cleveland made or missed, he did NOT want the Warriors to call timeout.

Instead he wanted them to head up the floor in a scramble situation.

-Ellis did not hear Nelson say that. (And if Nelson said it with 57.9 left, a ton of things happened in between that and the time Ellis got the ball in the final scramble with 4.3 left. Easy to see why Ellis thought it a TO situation.)

So after LeBron James missed a three-point shot with the shot-clock expiring, Ellis got the rebound with 4.3 seconds left… and looked to the bench, presuming they'd want him to call timeout.

Nope. That burned a few seconds.

Ellis then raced downcourt, got into some trouble with Cleveland's perimeter defense playing the three-point line, and shoveled a pass to Stephen Curry barely across the half-court line.

Result: Curry heaved one from 34 feet as the buzzer sounded. It fell several feet short, end of ballgame.

Final: Cleveland 117, Warriors 114.

James, on the end of a back-to-back, was incredible: 37 points, 12-for-23 shooting, 11 assists, 8 rebounds, 4 blocked shots, including a breath-taking chase-down, block from behind swat of Ellis' transition lay-up.

At one point, Ellis missed 11 straight shots from the end of the 2nd quarter through the 3rd quarter-he had 5 of his shots blocked, many by James.

He was sick in the morning, yet still played 45 minutes.

To the transcripts…

--MONTA ELLIS, post-game gaggle/

-Q: Nelson said he told you guys before the possession that make or miss, he didn't want a timeout. Was that your understanding? Looked like you were confused…

-ELLIS: Naw, I didn't hear it. That's why I looked over to the bench. But we still came down, had a chance to win.

I didn't really want to take that off-balance shot. But… I mean… hey, we left it all out there.

-Q: Did you expect a timeout?

-ELLIS: Yeah, I did expect to call a timeout. If he said it, I didn't hear it. I don't remember.

But we fought back. We gave ourselves chances to win. You know, we made mistakes, but we stuck with it. We were down, what, 12 or 14 with 3 minutes, 2 minutes, 2:50 or something to go and we still managed to come back and only lose by three.

We had a chance to win or to tie it up, go to overtime. It was a tough game.

-Q: When you're going to the rim, do you know when LeBron is coming to block the shot?

-ELLIS: He does that all the time. I know that. I mean, hopefully I don't get fined for saying it, but that was a goaltend. I clearly let the ball go out of my hand. They can look at it and see it again.

Like I said, he always does that. I knew he was back there.

-Q: Can you see him or hear him-looks like he's running so fast…

-ELLIS: You can tell when somebody's trying to come up behind you and try to block your shot. He's trying to set his feet. I saw him the whole time.

-Q: At one time you had 11 straight misses. Was that just a matter of you being determined to keep shooting, to keep taking it to the basket?

-ELLIS: Coach told me to just keep going. Just go with it. I mean, tonight was a bad night for me. But hey, you know I am human.

Just put this one behind and move on.

-Q: They said you were ill this morning. Are you OK? Was that a factor?

-ELLIS: Umm… I don't like to make excuses. I was out there and I played and I gave it my all and I did all I could.

I felt good. I don't know what's going on, but I gave it my all, left it all out on the court.

-Q: Do you know Larry Ellison? Did you know he was there?

-ELLIS: I don't know him.

-Q: How good was LeBron out there? Was that just normal LeBron or was that something special?

-ELLIS: That was normal LeBron. Nothing spectacular. Nothing special. That's what he does.

--DON NELSON, post-game transcript/
-Opening: We hung in there pretty well tonight. You know, we were playing a really good team. I thought if we just would've shot a little bit better percentage, we would've really had a good shot at this one.

We did a lot of good things, but we just didn't make enough shots, especially in traffic. You've got to make sure that you make the shots around the basket when you have those opportunities.

They did a great job of defending our shots around the basket. We made our 3, made our free throw, scrapped, but we just didn't shoot a high enough percentage against a good team. But give their defense credit for that. They're very good.

They matched up small with us. I thought that was a good thing for us. Enabled us to kind of hang around, I think, since I didn't have many big guys left anyway. So I liked that.

And it gave us a chance. The last-second play, you may want to ask me about.

We said in the huddle in both situations that we were going to need to make a three somewhere along the line.

The half-court defense, where they're switching everything and going small, I'm not smart enough to get or run a play that can get a three against a team like that when they're switching everything.

You've got to get open on somebody. Their small team is very good defensively. So I thought the open court was the best way and I thought the couple seconds that Monta lost in looking at me maybe cost us a better look at a three. But you always get a better look in the open court.

We said in the huddle that we wanted to push the ball and I'll inform the team tomorrow that I can always call the timeout. I can go to the referee. Coaches now can call a timeout. What they need to do is think in terms of getting the ball, pushing it up. I really like the open court with 6, 7 seconds left, even 5, better than the half court when you need a three.

So we lost a couple seconds there that probably would've got a better shot.

-Q: Does the lack of success you've had in getting a good shot in half-court in-bounds set, end-game situations affect your thinking there-make you not want a timeout?

-NELSON: We haven't been that successful, anyway. But when they match up with our small team and I can't get one of my shooters open off a center, off a big guy, it's very difficult to get a three when a team knows that you need one. So I thought the open court was better. I still do. I always do. But we didn't get a good look at it.

-Q: What do you want Monta to do there?

-NELSON: Well, they had a small team, so push up. And if he has the three, fine. If he doesn't, someone else in the open court will be more open than against a half-court set. That's my philosophy.

-Q: He looked unsure. Should Monta have known what to do there?

-NELSON: It wasn't a play. It was an open-court situation. So you just push up and your shooters are spotting up at the three and you make a three. I thought the hesitation of a couple seconds hurt us.

-Q: At one point Monta missed 11 straight shots, most of them seemed to come when he was going into the lane and LeBron or somebody else came and blocked or changed his shot. Did he get too stubborn just going into the lane every time?

-NELSON: They were playing up on his jumpshot. I thought the play was there. Maybe we could've found the shooters a little easier. He had five turnovers the first half, so that was kind of… hard for him, I guess.

You have to kind of accept what he sees as my best player.

-Q: Is there ever a point where you might tell Monta to not shoot so much?

-NELSON: No, he can shoot. He's my guy. So we want him to get shots up. But we show him on film quite often where shooters are when help comes. The short pass was hard for him tonight. The turnovers were mostly on the short pass. They do a great job of covering the paint. I thought the outside shooters were open some, but we were unable to get it to them.

When we got the three, we shot it pretty well today.

-Q: What was the gameplan vs. LeBron?

-NELSON: The gameplan was even though there were mismatches there, they would hurt you more with the pass and the three. They're the leading three-point shooting team. That's what they're looking for you to do.

They dribble, they dribble, they dribble… So as a coach, when he makes making all his shots, it puts you in a bind. What are you going to do? But we stayed close, even though he was scoring. The game slowed down. And when we did double team, it was pretty effective a couple of times.

Our gameplan was not to get spread out against either he or Shaq and take the beating, as long as we were around. If they would've forced us to make a change, we would have. But I thought we were close enough at the time that we just played him.

-Q: You got Cartier Martin for 19 minutes…

-NELSON: I liked him. I think he's going to help us. He's got a body like Corey's that really helps us in guarding the post-up guys. I thought he really did a good job for his first game. Looks very comfortable, a professional player. He's got some games under his belt…

We know him and he's going to help us with that 3 spot. I have really nobody. I've been playing a point guard there, a two-guard there at the 3 spot. So he'll help us a little bit. Thought he helped us tonight.

-Q: That cut into Morrow's time tonight. Could that continue to happen-Martin plays more than Morrow?

-NELSON: They have to understand that when we get bigger at the 3, then we have four guards. And there's not a lot of minutes there when Monta's playing 40-something… leading the league. There will be some time cut there.

There will be match-up times when I can get away with that. But the bigger 3s are hard for us to guard. We don't defend the low post that well. Morrow has trouble down there. All of our small guys, you wouldn't expect they could guard the big 3s.

He'll be a nice addition to our team.

-Q: Andris Biedrins didn't give you much again tonight. Do you have concerns about him right now?

-NELSON: He hasn't felt comfortable since he's been back, for whatever reason. We've got to play him through it. Sometimes it takes a while after an injury to get your confidence and your timing and he's in that scenario right now.

 

[daprescription]

[h2]Warriors TO or no TO? Ellis and Don Nelson on the last-play mix-up[/h2]
Posted by Tim Kawakami on January 11th, 2010 at 11:00 pm | Categorized as NBA, Warriors

* Don Nelson presser transcript is now there, at the bottom of this post. Thought I'd put up Ellis first.

Setting the scene:

-Warriors trailed Cleveland by three, after a big rally from 11 down with 2:20 left.

-During the timeout (CLARIFICATION: the last Warriors' timeout came with 57.9 left)TWO possessions before the Cavs' final possession, Don Nelson apparently told the huddle that whether Cleveland made or missed, he did NOT want the Warriors to call timeout.

Instead he wanted them to head up the floor in a scramble situation.

-Ellis did not hear Nelson say that. (And if Nelson said it with 57.9 left, a ton of things happened in between that and the time Ellis got the ball in the final scramble with 4.3 left. Easy to see why Ellis thought it a TO situation.)

So after LeBron James missed a three-point shot with the shot-clock expiring, Ellis got the rebound with 4.3 seconds left… and looked to the bench, presuming they'd want him to call timeout.

Nope. That burned a few seconds.

Ellis then raced downcourt, got into some trouble with Cleveland's perimeter defense playing the three-point line, and shoveled a pass to Stephen Curry barely across the half-court line.

Result: Curry heaved one from 34 feet as the buzzer sounded. It fell several feet short, end of ballgame.

Final: Cleveland 117, Warriors 114.

James, on the end of a back-to-back, was incredible: 37 points, 12-for-23 shooting, 11 assists, 8 rebounds, 4 blocked shots, including a breath-taking chase-down, block from behind swat of Ellis' transition lay-up.

At one point, Ellis missed 11 straight shots from the end of the 2nd quarter through the 3rd quarter-he had 5 of his shots blocked, many by James.

He was sick in the morning, yet still played 45 minutes.

To the transcripts…

--MONTA ELLIS, post-game gaggle/

-Q: Nelson said he told you guys before the possession that make or miss, he didn't want a timeout. Was that your understanding? Looked like you were confused…

-ELLIS: Naw, I didn't hear it. That's why I looked over to the bench. But we still came down, had a chance to win.

I didn't really want to take that off-balance shot. But… I mean… hey, we left it all out there.

-Q: Did you expect a timeout?

-ELLIS: Yeah, I did expect to call a timeout. If he said it, I didn't hear it. I don't remember.

But we fought back. We gave ourselves chances to win. You know, we made mistakes, but we stuck with it. We were down, what, 12 or 14 with 3 minutes, 2 minutes, 2:50 or something to go and we still managed to come back and only lose by three.

We had a chance to win or to tie it up, go to overtime. It was a tough game.

-Q: When you're going to the rim, do you know when LeBron is coming to block the shot?

-ELLIS: He does that all the time. I know that. I mean, hopefully I don't get fined for saying it, but that was a goaltend. I clearly let the ball go out of my hand. They can look at it and see it again.

Like I said, he always does that. I knew he was back there.

-Q: Can you see him or hear him-looks like he's running so fast…

-ELLIS: You can tell when somebody's trying to come up behind you and try to block your shot. He's trying to set his feet. I saw him the whole time.

-Q: At one time you had 11 straight misses. Was that just a matter of you being determined to keep shooting, to keep taking it to the basket?

-ELLIS: Coach told me to just keep going. Just go with it. I mean, tonight was a bad night for me. But hey, you know I am human.

Just put this one behind and move on.

-Q: They said you were ill this morning. Are you OK? Was that a factor?

-ELLIS: Umm… I don't like to make excuses. I was out there and I played and I gave it my all and I did all I could.

I felt good. I don't know what's going on, but I gave it my all, left it all out on the court.

-Q: Do you know Larry Ellison? Did you know he was there?

-ELLIS: I don't know him.

-Q: How good was LeBron out there? Was that just normal LeBron or was that something special?

-ELLIS: That was normal LeBron. Nothing spectacular. Nothing special. That's what he does.

--DON NELSON, post-game transcript/
-Opening: We hung in there pretty well tonight. You know, we were playing a really good team. I thought if we just would've shot a little bit better percentage, we would've really had a good shot at this one.

We did a lot of good things, but we just didn't make enough shots, especially in traffic. You've got to make sure that you make the shots around the basket when you have those opportunities.

They did a great job of defending our shots around the basket. We made our 3, made our free throw, scrapped, but we just didn't shoot a high enough percentage against a good team. But give their defense credit for that. They're very good.

They matched up small with us. I thought that was a good thing for us. Enabled us to kind of hang around, I think, since I didn't have many big guys left anyway. So I liked that.

And it gave us a chance. The last-second play, you may want to ask me about.

We said in the huddle in both situations that we were going to need to make a three somewhere along the line.

The half-court defense, where they're switching everything and going small, I'm not smart enough to get or run a play that can get a three against a team like that when they're switching everything.

You've got to get open on somebody. Their small team is very good defensively. So I thought the open court was the best way and I thought the couple seconds that Monta lost in looking at me maybe cost us a better look at a three. But you always get a better look in the open court.

We said in the huddle that we wanted to push the ball and I'll inform the team tomorrow that I can always call the timeout. I can go to the referee. Coaches now can call a timeout. What they need to do is think in terms of getting the ball, pushing it up. I really like the open court with 6, 7 seconds left, even 5, better than the half court when you need a three.

So we lost a couple seconds there that probably would've got a better shot.

-Q: Does the lack of success you've had in getting a good shot in half-court in-bounds set, end-game situations affect your thinking there-make you not want a timeout?

-NELSON: We haven't been that successful, anyway. But when they match up with our small team and I can't get one of my shooters open off a center, off a big guy, it's very difficult to get a three when a team knows that you need one. So I thought the open court was better. I still do. I always do. But we didn't get a good look at it.

-Q: What do you want Monta to do there?

-NELSON: Well, they had a small team, so push up. And if he has the three, fine. If he doesn't, someone else in the open court will be more open than against a half-court set. That's my philosophy.

-Q: He looked unsure. Should Monta have known what to do there?

-NELSON: It wasn't a play. It was an open-court situation. So you just push up and your shooters are spotting up at the three and you make a three. I thought the hesitation of a couple seconds hurt us.

-Q: At one point Monta missed 11 straight shots, most of them seemed to come when he was going into the lane and LeBron or somebody else came and blocked or changed his shot. Did he get too stubborn just going into the lane every time?

-NELSON: They were playing up on his jumpshot. I thought the play was there. Maybe we could've found the shooters a little easier. He had five turnovers the first half, so that was kind of… hard for him, I guess.

You have to kind of accept what he sees as my best player.

-Q: Is there ever a point where you might tell Monta to not shoot so much?

-NELSON: No, he can shoot. He's my guy. So we want him to get shots up. But we show him on film quite often where shooters are when help comes. The short pass was hard for him tonight. The turnovers were mostly on the short pass. They do a great job of covering the paint. I thought the outside shooters were open some, but we were unable to get it to them.

When we got the three, we shot it pretty well today.

-Q: What was the gameplan vs. LeBron?

-NELSON: The gameplan was even though there were mismatches there, they would hurt you more with the pass and the three. They're the leading three-point shooting team. That's what they're looking for you to do.

They dribble, they dribble, they dribble… So as a coach, when he makes making all his shots, it puts you in a bind. What are you going to do? But we stayed close, even though he was scoring. The game slowed down. And when we did double team, it was pretty effective a couple of times.

Our gameplan was not to get spread out against either he or Shaq and take the beating, as long as we were around. If they would've forced us to make a change, we would have. But I thought we were close enough at the time that we just played him.

-Q: You got Cartier Martin for 19 minutes…

-NELSON: I liked him. I think he's going to help us. He's got a body like Corey's that really helps us in guarding the post-up guys. I thought he really did a good job for his first game. Looks very comfortable, a professional player. He's got some games under his belt…

We know him and he's going to help us with that 3 spot. I have really nobody. I've been playing a point guard there, a two-guard there at the 3 spot. So he'll help us a little bit. Thought he helped us tonight.

-Q: That cut into Morrow's time tonight. Could that continue to happen-Martin plays more than Morrow?

-NELSON: They have to understand that when we get bigger at the 3, then we have four guards. And there's not a lot of minutes there when Monta's playing 40-something… leading the league. There will be some time cut there.

There will be match-up times when I can get away with that. But the bigger 3s are hard for us to guard. We don't defend the low post that well. Morrow has trouble down there. All of our small guys, you wouldn't expect they could guard the big 3s.

He'll be a nice addition to our team.

-Q: Andris Biedrins didn't give you much again tonight. Do you have concerns about him right now?

-NELSON: He hasn't felt comfortable since he's been back, for whatever reason. We've got to play him through it. Sometimes it takes a while after an injury to get your confidence and your timing and he's in that scenario right now.

 

[daprescription]

[h2]Warriors TO or no TO? Ellis and Don Nelson on the last-play mix-up[/h2]
Posted by Tim Kawakami on January 11th, 2010 at 11:00 pm | Categorized as NBA, Warriors

* Don Nelson presser transcript is now there, at the bottom of this post. Thought I'd put up Ellis first.

Setting the scene:

-Warriors trailed Cleveland by three, after a big rally from 11 down with 2:20 left.

-During the timeout (CLARIFICATION: the last Warriors' timeout came with 57.9 left)TWO possessions before the Cavs' final possession, Don Nelson apparently told the huddle that whether Cleveland made or missed, he did NOT want the Warriors to call timeout.

Instead he wanted them to head up the floor in a scramble situation.

-Ellis did not hear Nelson say that. (And if Nelson said it with 57.9 left, a ton of things happened in between that and the time Ellis got the ball in the final scramble with 4.3 left. Easy to see why Ellis thought it a TO situation.)

So after LeBron James missed a three-point shot with the shot-clock expiring, Ellis got the rebound with 4.3 seconds left… and looked to the bench, presuming they'd want him to call timeout.

Nope. That burned a few seconds.

Ellis then raced downcourt, got into some trouble with Cleveland's perimeter defense playing the three-point line, and shoveled a pass to Stephen Curry barely across the half-court line.

Result: Curry heaved one from 34 feet as the buzzer sounded. It fell several feet short, end of ballgame.

Final: Cleveland 117, Warriors 114.

James, on the end of a back-to-back, was incredible: 37 points, 12-for-23 shooting, 11 assists, 8 rebounds, 4 blocked shots, including a breath-taking chase-down, block from behind swat of Ellis' transition lay-up.

At one point, Ellis missed 11 straight shots from the end of the 2nd quarter through the 3rd quarter-he had 5 of his shots blocked, many by James.

He was sick in the morning, yet still played 45 minutes.

To the transcripts…

--MONTA ELLIS, post-game gaggle/

-Q: Nelson said he told you guys before the possession that make or miss, he didn't want a timeout. Was that your understanding? Looked like you were confused…

-ELLIS: Naw, I didn't hear it. That's why I looked over to the bench. But we still came down, had a chance to win.

I didn't really want to take that off-balance shot. But… I mean… hey, we left it all out there.

-Q: Did you expect a timeout?

-ELLIS: Yeah, I did expect to call a timeout. If he said it, I didn't hear it. I don't remember.

But we fought back. We gave ourselves chances to win. You know, we made mistakes, but we stuck with it. We were down, what, 12 or 14 with 3 minutes, 2 minutes, 2:50 or something to go and we still managed to come back and only lose by three.

We had a chance to win or to tie it up, go to overtime. It was a tough game.

-Q: When you're going to the rim, do you know when LeBron is coming to block the shot?

-ELLIS: He does that all the time. I know that. I mean, hopefully I don't get fined for saying it, but that was a goaltend. I clearly let the ball go out of my hand. They can look at it and see it again.

Like I said, he always does that. I knew he was back there.

-Q: Can you see him or hear him-looks like he's running so fast…

-ELLIS: You can tell when somebody's trying to come up behind you and try to block your shot. He's trying to set his feet. I saw him the whole time.

-Q: At one time you had 11 straight misses. Was that just a matter of you being determined to keep shooting, to keep taking it to the basket?

-ELLIS: Coach told me to just keep going. Just go with it. I mean, tonight was a bad night for me. But hey, you know I am human.

Just put this one behind and move on.

-Q: They said you were ill this morning. Are you OK? Was that a factor?

-ELLIS: Umm… I don't like to make excuses. I was out there and I played and I gave it my all and I did all I could.

I felt good. I don't know what's going on, but I gave it my all, left it all out on the court.

-Q: Do you know Larry Ellison? Did you know he was there?

-ELLIS: I don't know him.

-Q: How good was LeBron out there? Was that just normal LeBron or was that something special?

-ELLIS: That was normal LeBron. Nothing spectacular. Nothing special. That's what he does.

--DON NELSON, post-game transcript/
-Opening: We hung in there pretty well tonight. You know, we were playing a really good team. I thought if we just would've shot a little bit better percentage, we would've really had a good shot at this one.

We did a lot of good things, but we just didn't make enough shots, especially in traffic. You've got to make sure that you make the shots around the basket when you have those opportunities.

They did a great job of defending our shots around the basket. We made our 3, made our free throw, scrapped, but we just didn't shoot a high enough percentage against a good team. But give their defense credit for that. They're very good.

They matched up small with us. I thought that was a good thing for us. Enabled us to kind of hang around, I think, since I didn't have many big guys left anyway. So I liked that.

And it gave us a chance. The last-second play, you may want to ask me about.

We said in the huddle in both situations that we were going to need to make a three somewhere along the line.

The half-court defense, where they're switching everything and going small, I'm not smart enough to get or run a play that can get a three against a team like that when they're switching everything.

You've got to get open on somebody. Their small team is very good defensively. So I thought the open court was the best way and I thought the couple seconds that Monta lost in looking at me maybe cost us a better look at a three. But you always get a better look in the open court.

We said in the huddle that we wanted to push the ball and I'll inform the team tomorrow that I can always call the timeout. I can go to the referee. Coaches now can call a timeout. What they need to do is think in terms of getting the ball, pushing it up. I really like the open court with 6, 7 seconds left, even 5, better than the half court when you need a three.

So we lost a couple seconds there that probably would've got a better shot.

-Q: Does the lack of success you've had in getting a good shot in half-court in-bounds set, end-game situations affect your thinking there-make you not want a timeout?

-NELSON: We haven't been that successful, anyway. But when they match up with our small team and I can't get one of my shooters open off a center, off a big guy, it's very difficult to get a three when a team knows that you need one. So I thought the open court was better. I still do. I always do. But we didn't get a good look at it.

-Q: What do you want Monta to do there?

-NELSON: Well, they had a small team, so push up. And if he has the three, fine. If he doesn't, someone else in the open court will be more open than against a half-court set. That's my philosophy.

-Q: He looked unsure. Should Monta have known what to do there?

-NELSON: It wasn't a play. It was an open-court situation. So you just push up and your shooters are spotting up at the three and you make a three. I thought the hesitation of a couple seconds hurt us.

-Q: At one point Monta missed 11 straight shots, most of them seemed to come when he was going into the lane and LeBron or somebody else came and blocked or changed his shot. Did he get too stubborn just going into the lane every time?

-NELSON: They were playing up on his jumpshot. I thought the play was there. Maybe we could've found the shooters a little easier. He had five turnovers the first half, so that was kind of… hard for him, I guess.

You have to kind of accept what he sees as my best player.

-Q: Is there ever a point where you might tell Monta to not shoot so much?

-NELSON: No, he can shoot. He's my guy. So we want him to get shots up. But we show him on film quite often where shooters are when help comes. The short pass was hard for him tonight. The turnovers were mostly on the short pass. They do a great job of covering the paint. I thought the outside shooters were open some, but we were unable to get it to them.

When we got the three, we shot it pretty well today.

-Q: What was the gameplan vs. LeBron?

-NELSON: The gameplan was even though there were mismatches there, they would hurt you more with the pass and the three. They're the leading three-point shooting team. That's what they're looking for you to do.

They dribble, they dribble, they dribble… So as a coach, when he makes making all his shots, it puts you in a bind. What are you going to do? But we stayed close, even though he was scoring. The game slowed down. And when we did double team, it was pretty effective a couple of times.

Our gameplan was not to get spread out against either he or Shaq and take the beating, as long as we were around. If they would've forced us to make a change, we would have. But I thought we were close enough at the time that we just played him.

-Q: You got Cartier Martin for 19 minutes…

-NELSON: I liked him. I think he's going to help us. He's got a body like Corey's that really helps us in guarding the post-up guys. I thought he really did a good job for his first game. Looks very comfortable, a professional player. He's got some games under his belt…

We know him and he's going to help us with that 3 spot. I have really nobody. I've been playing a point guard there, a two-guard there at the 3 spot. So he'll help us a little bit. Thought he helped us tonight.

-Q: That cut into Morrow's time tonight. Could that continue to happen-Martin plays more than Morrow?

-NELSON: They have to understand that when we get bigger at the 3, then we have four guards. And there's not a lot of minutes there when Monta's playing 40-something… leading the league. There will be some time cut there.

There will be match-up times when I can get away with that. But the bigger 3s are hard for us to guard. We don't defend the low post that well. Morrow has trouble down there. All of our small guys, you wouldn't expect they could guard the big 3s.

He'll be a nice addition to our team.

-Q: Andris Biedrins didn't give you much again tonight. Do you have concerns about him right now?

-NELSON: He hasn't felt comfortable since he's been back, for whatever reason. We've got to play him through it. Sometimes it takes a while after an injury to get your confidence and your timing and he's in that scenario right now.

 

[daprescription]

[h2]Warriors TO or no TO? Ellis and Don Nelson on the last-play mix-up[/h2]
Posted by Tim Kawakami on January 11th, 2010 at 11:00 pm | Categorized as NBA, Warriors

* Don Nelson presser transcript is now there, at the bottom of this post. Thought I'd put up Ellis first.

Setting the scene:

-Warriors trailed Cleveland by three, after a big rally from 11 down with 2:20 left.

-During the timeout (CLARIFICATION: the last Warriors' timeout came with 57.9 left)TWO possessions before the Cavs' final possession, Don Nelson apparently told the huddle that whether Cleveland made or missed, he did NOT want the Warriors to call timeout.

Instead he wanted them to head up the floor in a scramble situation.

-Ellis did not hear Nelson say that. (And if Nelson said it with 57.9 left, a ton of things happened in between that and the time Ellis got the ball in the final scramble with 4.3 left. Easy to see why Ellis thought it a TO situation.)

So after LeBron James missed a three-point shot with the shot-clock expiring, Ellis got the rebound with 4.3 seconds left… and looked to the bench, presuming they'd want him to call timeout.

Nope. That burned a few seconds.

Ellis then raced downcourt, got into some trouble with Cleveland's perimeter defense playing the three-point line, and shoveled a pass to Stephen Curry barely across the half-court line.

Result: Curry heaved one from 34 feet as the buzzer sounded. It fell several feet short, end of ballgame.

Final: Cleveland 117, Warriors 114.

James, on the end of a back-to-back, was incredible: 37 points, 12-for-23 shooting, 11 assists, 8 rebounds, 4 blocked shots, including a breath-taking chase-down, block from behind swat of Ellis' transition lay-up.

At one point, Ellis missed 11 straight shots from the end of the 2nd quarter through the 3rd quarter-he had 5 of his shots blocked, many by James.

He was sick in the morning, yet still played 45 minutes.

To the transcripts…

--MONTA ELLIS, post-game gaggle/

-Q: Nelson said he told you guys before the possession that make or miss, he didn't want a timeout. Was that your understanding? Looked like you were confused…

-ELLIS: Naw, I didn't hear it. That's why I looked over to the bench. But we still came down, had a chance to win.

I didn't really want to take that off-balance shot. But… I mean… hey, we left it all out there.

-Q: Did you expect a timeout?

-ELLIS: Yeah, I did expect to call a timeout. If he said it, I didn't hear it. I don't remember.

But we fought back. We gave ourselves chances to win. You know, we made mistakes, but we stuck with it. We were down, what, 12 or 14 with 3 minutes, 2 minutes, 2:50 or something to go and we still managed to come back and only lose by three.

We had a chance to win or to tie it up, go to overtime. It was a tough game.

-Q: When you're going to the rim, do you know when LeBron is coming to block the shot?

-ELLIS: He does that all the time. I know that. I mean, hopefully I don't get fined for saying it, but that was a goaltend. I clearly let the ball go out of my hand. They can look at it and see it again.

Like I said, he always does that. I knew he was back there.

-Q: Can you see him or hear him-looks like he's running so fast…

-ELLIS: You can tell when somebody's trying to come up behind you and try to block your shot. He's trying to set his feet. I saw him the whole time.

-Q: At one time you had 11 straight misses. Was that just a matter of you being determined to keep shooting, to keep taking it to the basket?

-ELLIS: Coach told me to just keep going. Just go with it. I mean, tonight was a bad night for me. But hey, you know I am human.

Just put this one behind and move on.

-Q: They said you were ill this morning. Are you OK? Was that a factor?

-ELLIS: Umm… I don't like to make excuses. I was out there and I played and I gave it my all and I did all I could.

I felt good. I don't know what's going on, but I gave it my all, left it all out on the court.

-Q: Do you know Larry Ellison? Did you know he was there?

-ELLIS: I don't know him.

-Q: How good was LeBron out there? Was that just normal LeBron or was that something special?

-ELLIS: That was normal LeBron. Nothing spectacular. Nothing special. That's what he does.

--DON NELSON, post-game transcript/
-Opening: We hung in there pretty well tonight. You know, we were playing a really good team. I thought if we just would've shot a little bit better percentage, we would've really had a good shot at this one.

We did a lot of good things, but we just didn't make enough shots, especially in traffic. You've got to make sure that you make the shots around the basket when you have those opportunities.

They did a great job of defending our shots around the basket. We made our 3, made our free throw, scrapped, but we just didn't shoot a high enough percentage against a good team. But give their defense credit for that. They're very good.

They matched up small with us. I thought that was a good thing for us. Enabled us to kind of hang around, I think, since I didn't have many big guys left anyway. So I liked that.

And it gave us a chance. The last-second play, you may want to ask me about.

We said in the huddle in both situations that we were going to need to make a three somewhere along the line.

The half-court defense, where they're switching everything and going small, I'm not smart enough to get or run a play that can get a three against a team like that when they're switching everything.

You've got to get open on somebody. Their small team is very good defensively. So I thought the open court was the best way and I thought the couple seconds that Monta lost in looking at me maybe cost us a better look at a three. But you always get a better look in the open court.

We said in the huddle that we wanted to push the ball and I'll inform the team tomorrow that I can always call the timeout. I can go to the referee. Coaches now can call a timeout. What they need to do is think in terms of getting the ball, pushing it up. I really like the open court with 6, 7 seconds left, even 5, better than the half court when you need a three.

So we lost a couple seconds there that probably would've got a better shot.

-Q: Does the lack of success you've had in getting a good shot in half-court in-bounds set, end-game situations affect your thinking there-make you not want a timeout?

-NELSON: We haven't been that successful, anyway. But when they match up with our small team and I can't get one of my shooters open off a center, off a big guy, it's very difficult to get a three when a team knows that you need one. So I thought the open court was better. I still do. I always do. But we didn't get a good look at it.

-Q: What do you want Monta to do there?

-NELSON: Well, they had a small team, so push up. And if he has the three, fine. If he doesn't, someone else in the open court will be more open than against a half-court set. That's my philosophy.

-Q: He looked unsure. Should Monta have known what to do there?

-NELSON: It wasn't a play. It was an open-court situation. So you just push up and your shooters are spotting up at the three and you make a three. I thought the hesitation of a couple seconds hurt us.

-Q: At one point Monta missed 11 straight shots, most of them seemed to come when he was going into the lane and LeBron or somebody else came and blocked or changed his shot. Did he get too stubborn just going into the lane every time?

-NELSON: They were playing up on his jumpshot. I thought the play was there. Maybe we could've found the shooters a little easier. He had five turnovers the first half, so that was kind of… hard for him, I guess.

You have to kind of accept what he sees as my best player.

-Q: Is there ever a point where you might tell Monta to not shoot so much?

-NELSON: No, he can shoot. He's my guy. So we want him to get shots up. But we show him on film quite often where shooters are when help comes. The short pass was hard for him tonight. The turnovers were mostly on the short pass. They do a great job of covering the paint. I thought the outside shooters were open some, but we were unable to get it to them.

When we got the three, we shot it pretty well today.

-Q: What was the gameplan vs. LeBron?

-NELSON: The gameplan was even though there were mismatches there, they would hurt you more with the pass and the three. They're the leading three-point shooting team. That's what they're looking for you to do.

They dribble, they dribble, they dribble… So as a coach, when he makes making all his shots, it puts you in a bind. What are you going to do? But we stayed close, even though he was scoring. The game slowed down. And when we did double team, it was pretty effective a couple of times.

Our gameplan was not to get spread out against either he or Shaq and take the beating, as long as we were around. If they would've forced us to make a change, we would have. But I thought we were close enough at the time that we just played him.

-Q: You got Cartier Martin for 19 minutes…

-NELSON: I liked him. I think he's going to help us. He's got a body like Corey's that really helps us in guarding the post-up guys. I thought he really did a good job for his first game. Looks very comfortable, a professional player. He's got some games under his belt…

We know him and he's going to help us with that 3 spot. I have really nobody. I've been playing a point guard there, a two-guard there at the 3 spot. So he'll help us a little bit. Thought he helped us tonight.

-Q: That cut into Morrow's time tonight. Could that continue to happen-Martin plays more than Morrow?

-NELSON: They have to understand that when we get bigger at the 3, then we have four guards. And there's not a lot of minutes there when Monta's playing 40-something… leading the league. There will be some time cut there.

There will be match-up times when I can get away with that. But the bigger 3s are hard for us to guard. We don't defend the low post that well. Morrow has trouble down there. All of our small guys, you wouldn't expect they could guard the big 3s.

He'll be a nice addition to our team.

-Q: Andris Biedrins didn't give you much again tonight. Do you have concerns about him right now?

-NELSON: He hasn't felt comfortable since he's been back, for whatever reason. We've got to play him through it. Sometimes it takes a while after an injury to get your confidence and your timing and he's in that scenario right now.

 

[daprescription]

[h2]Warriors TO or no TO? Ellis and Don Nelson on the last-play mix-up[/h2]
Posted by Tim Kawakami on January 11th, 2010 at 11:00 pm | Categorized as NBA, Warriors

* Don Nelson presser transcript is now there, at the bottom of this post. Thought I'd put up Ellis first.

Setting the scene:

-Warriors trailed Cleveland by three, after a big rally from 11 down with 2:20 left.

-During the timeout (CLARIFICATION: the last Warriors' timeout came with 57.9 left)TWO possessions before the Cavs' final possession, Don Nelson apparently told the huddle that whether Cleveland made or missed, he did NOT want the Warriors to call timeout.

Instead he wanted them to head up the floor in a scramble situation.

-Ellis did not hear Nelson say that. (And if Nelson said it with 57.9 left, a ton of things happened in between that and the time Ellis got the ball in the final scramble with 4.3 left. Easy to see why Ellis thought it a TO situation.)

So after LeBron James missed a three-point shot with the shot-clock expiring, Ellis got the rebound with 4.3 seconds left… and looked to the bench, presuming they'd want him to call timeout.

Nope. That burned a few seconds.

Ellis then raced downcourt, got into some trouble with Cleveland's perimeter defense playing the three-point line, and shoveled a pass to Stephen Curry barely across the half-court line.

Result: Curry heaved one from 34 feet as the buzzer sounded. It fell several feet short, end of ballgame.

Final: Cleveland 117, Warriors 114.

James, on the end of a back-to-back, was incredible: 37 points, 12-for-23 shooting, 11 assists, 8 rebounds, 4 blocked shots, including a breath-taking chase-down, block from behind swat of Ellis' transition lay-up.

At one point, Ellis missed 11 straight shots from the end of the 2nd quarter through the 3rd quarter-he had 5 of his shots blocked, many by James.

He was sick in the morning, yet still played 45 minutes.

To the transcripts…

--MONTA ELLIS, post-game gaggle/

-Q: Nelson said he told you guys before the possession that make or miss, he didn't want a timeout. Was that your understanding? Looked like you were confused…

-ELLIS: Naw, I didn't hear it. That's why I looked over to the bench. But we still came down, had a chance to win.

I didn't really want to take that off-balance shot. But… I mean… hey, we left it all out there.

-Q: Did you expect a timeout?

-ELLIS: Yeah, I did expect to call a timeout. If he said it, I didn't hear it. I don't remember.

But we fought back. We gave ourselves chances to win. You know, we made mistakes, but we stuck with it. We were down, what, 12 or 14 with 3 minutes, 2 minutes, 2:50 or something to go and we still managed to come back and only lose by three.

We had a chance to win or to tie it up, go to overtime. It was a tough game.

-Q: When you're going to the rim, do you know when LeBron is coming to block the shot?

-ELLIS: He does that all the time. I know that. I mean, hopefully I don't get fined for saying it, but that was a goaltend. I clearly let the ball go out of my hand. They can look at it and see it again.

Like I said, he always does that. I knew he was back there.

-Q: Can you see him or hear him-looks like he's running so fast…

-ELLIS: You can tell when somebody's trying to come up behind you and try to block your shot. He's trying to set his feet. I saw him the whole time.

-Q: At one time you had 11 straight misses. Was that just a matter of you being determined to keep shooting, to keep taking it to the basket?

-ELLIS: Coach told me to just keep going. Just go with it. I mean, tonight was a bad night for me. But hey, you know I am human.

Just put this one behind and move on.

-Q: They said you were ill this morning. Are you OK? Was that a factor?

-ELLIS: Umm… I don't like to make excuses. I was out there and I played and I gave it my all and I did all I could.

I felt good. I don't know what's going on, but I gave it my all, left it all out on the court.

-Q: Do you know Larry Ellison? Did you know he was there?

-ELLIS: I don't know him.

-Q: How good was LeBron out there? Was that just normal LeBron or was that something special?

-ELLIS: That was normal LeBron. Nothing spectacular. Nothing special. That's what he does.

--DON NELSON, post-game transcript/
-Opening: We hung in there pretty well tonight. You know, we were playing a really good team. I thought if we just would've shot a little bit better percentage, we would've really had a good shot at this one.

We did a lot of good things, but we just didn't make enough shots, especially in traffic. You've got to make sure that you make the shots around the basket when you have those opportunities.

They did a great job of defending our shots around the basket. We made our 3, made our free throw, scrapped, but we just didn't shoot a high enough percentage against a good team. But give their defense credit for that. They're very good.

They matched up small with us. I thought that was a good thing for us. Enabled us to kind of hang around, I think, since I didn't have many big guys left anyway. So I liked that.

And it gave us a chance. The last-second play, you may want to ask me about.

We said in the huddle in both situations that we were going to need to make a three somewhere along the line.

The half-court defense, where they're switching everything and going small, I'm not smart enough to get or run a play that can get a three against a team like that when they're switching everything.

You've got to get open on somebody. Their small team is very good defensively. So I thought the open court was the best way and I thought the couple seconds that Monta lost in looking at me maybe cost us a better look at a three. But you always get a better look in the open court.

We said in the huddle that we wanted to push the ball and I'll inform the team tomorrow that I can always call the timeout. I can go to the referee. Coaches now can call a timeout. What they need to do is think in terms of getting the ball, pushing it up. I really like the open court with 6, 7 seconds left, even 5, better than the half court when you need a three.

So we lost a couple seconds there that probably would've got a better shot.

-Q: Does the lack of success you've had in getting a good shot in half-court in-bounds set, end-game situations affect your thinking there-make you not want a timeout?

-NELSON: We haven't been that successful, anyway. But when they match up with our small team and I can't get one of my shooters open off a center, off a big guy, it's very difficult to get a three when a team knows that you need one. So I thought the open court was better. I still do. I always do. But we didn't get a good look at it.

-Q: What do you want Monta to do there?

-NELSON: Well, they had a small team, so push up. And if he has the three, fine. If he doesn't, someone else in the open court will be more open than against a half-court set. That's my philosophy.

-Q: He looked unsure. Should Monta have known what to do there?

-NELSON: It wasn't a play. It was an open-court situation. So you just push up and your shooters are spotting up at the three and you make a three. I thought the hesitation of a couple seconds hurt us.

-Q: At one point Monta missed 11 straight shots, most of them seemed to come when he was going into the lane and LeBron or somebody else came and blocked or changed his shot. Did he get too stubborn just going into the lane every time?

-NELSON: They were playing up on his jumpshot. I thought the play was there. Maybe we could've found the shooters a little easier. He had five turnovers the first half, so that was kind of… hard for him, I guess.

You have to kind of accept what he sees as my best player.

-Q: Is there ever a point where you might tell Monta to not shoot so much?

-NELSON: No, he can shoot. He's my guy. So we want him to get shots up. But we show him on film quite often where shooters are when help comes. The short pass was hard for him tonight. The turnovers were mostly on the short pass. They do a great job of covering the paint. I thought the outside shooters were open some, but we were unable to get it to them.

When we got the three, we shot it pretty well today.

-Q: What was the gameplan vs. LeBron?

-NELSON: The gameplan was even though there were mismatches there, they would hurt you more with the pass and the three. They're the leading three-point shooting team. That's what they're looking for you to do.

They dribble, they dribble, they dribble… So as a coach, when he makes making all his shots, it puts you in a bind. What are you going to do? But we stayed close, even though he was scoring. The game slowed down. And when we did double team, it was pretty effective a couple of times.

Our gameplan was not to get spread out against either he or Shaq and take the beating, as long as we were around. If they would've forced us to make a change, we would have. But I thought we were close enough at the time that we just played him.

-Q: You got Cartier Martin for 19 minutes…

-NELSON: I liked him. I think he's going to help us. He's got a body like Corey's that really helps us in guarding the post-up guys. I thought he really did a good job for his first game. Looks very comfortable, a professional player. He's got some games under his belt…

We know him and he's going to help us with that 3 spot. I have really nobody. I've been playing a point guard there, a two-guard there at the 3 spot. So he'll help us a little bit. Thought he helped us tonight.

-Q: That cut into Morrow's time tonight. Could that continue to happen-Martin plays more than Morrow?

-NELSON: They have to understand that when we get bigger at the 3, then we have four guards. And there's not a lot of minutes there when Monta's playing 40-something… leading the league. There will be some time cut there.

There will be match-up times when I can get away with that. But the bigger 3s are hard for us to guard. We don't defend the low post that well. Morrow has trouble down there. All of our small guys, you wouldn't expect they could guard the big 3s.

He'll be a nice addition to our team.

-Q: Andris Biedrins didn't give you much again tonight. Do you have concerns about him right now?

-NELSON: He hasn't felt comfortable since he's been back, for whatever reason. We've got to play him through it. Sometimes it takes a while after an injury to get your confidence and your timing and he's in that scenario right now.

 

[daprescription]

[h2]Warriors TO or no TO? Ellis and Don Nelson on the last-play mix-up[/h2]
Posted by Tim Kawakami on January 11th, 2010 at 11:00 pm | Categorized as NBA, Warriors

* Don Nelson presser transcript is now there, at the bottom of this post. Thought I'd put up Ellis first.

Setting the scene:

-Warriors trailed Cleveland by three, after a big rally from 11 down with 2:20 left.

-During the timeout (CLARIFICATION: the last Warriors' timeout came with 57.9 left)TWO possessions before the Cavs' final possession, Don Nelson apparently told the huddle that whether Cleveland made or missed, he did NOT want the Warriors to call timeout.

Instead he wanted them to head up the floor in a scramble situation.

-Ellis did not hear Nelson say that. (And if Nelson said it with 57.9 left, a ton of things happened in between that and the time Ellis got the ball in the final scramble with 4.3 left. Easy to see why Ellis thought it a TO situation.)

So after LeBron James missed a three-point shot with the shot-clock expiring, Ellis got the rebound with 4.3 seconds left… and looked to the bench, presuming they'd want him to call timeout.

Nope. That burned a few seconds.

Ellis then raced downcourt, got into some trouble with Cleveland's perimeter defense playing the three-point line, and shoveled a pass to Stephen Curry barely across the half-court line.

Result: Curry heaved one from 34 feet as the buzzer sounded. It fell several feet short, end of ballgame.

Final: Cleveland 117, Warriors 114.

James, on the end of a back-to-back, was incredible: 37 points, 12-for-23 shooting, 11 assists, 8 rebounds, 4 blocked shots, including a breath-taking chase-down, block from behind swat of Ellis' transition lay-up.

At one point, Ellis missed 11 straight shots from the end of the 2nd quarter through the 3rd quarter-he had 5 of his shots blocked, many by James.

He was sick in the morning, yet still played 45 minutes.

To the transcripts…

--MONTA ELLIS, post-game gaggle/

-Q: Nelson said he told you guys before the possession that make or miss, he didn't want a timeout. Was that your understanding? Looked like you were confused…

-ELLIS: Naw, I didn't hear it. That's why I looked over to the bench. But we still came down, had a chance to win.

I didn't really want to take that off-balance shot. But… I mean… hey, we left it all out there.

-Q: Did you expect a timeout?

-ELLIS: Yeah, I did expect to call a timeout. If he said it, I didn't hear it. I don't remember.

But we fought back. We gave ourselves chances to win. You know, we made mistakes, but we stuck with it. We were down, what, 12 or 14 with 3 minutes, 2 minutes, 2:50 or something to go and we still managed to come back and only lose by three.

We had a chance to win or to tie it up, go to overtime. It was a tough game.

-Q: When you're going to the rim, do you know when LeBron is coming to block the shot?

-ELLIS: He does that all the time. I know that. I mean, hopefully I don't get fined for saying it, but that was a goaltend. I clearly let the ball go out of my hand. They can look at it and see it again.

Like I said, he always does that. I knew he was back there.

-Q: Can you see him or hear him-looks like he's running so fast…

-ELLIS: You can tell when somebody's trying to come up behind you and try to block your shot. He's trying to set his feet. I saw him the whole time.

-Q: At one time you had 11 straight misses. Was that just a matter of you being determined to keep shooting, to keep taking it to the basket?

-ELLIS: Coach told me to just keep going. Just go with it. I mean, tonight was a bad night for me. But hey, you know I am human.

Just put this one behind and move on.

-Q: They said you were ill this morning. Are you OK? Was that a factor?

-ELLIS: Umm… I don't like to make excuses. I was out there and I played and I gave it my all and I did all I could.

I felt good. I don't know what's going on, but I gave it my all, left it all out on the court.

-Q: Do you know Larry Ellison? Did you know he was there?

-ELLIS: I don't know him.

-Q: How good was LeBron out there? Was that just normal LeBron or was that something special?

-ELLIS: That was normal LeBron. Nothing spectacular. Nothing special. That's what he does.

--DON NELSON, post-game transcript/
-Opening: We hung in there pretty well tonight. You know, we were playing a really good team. I thought if we just would've shot a little bit better percentage, we would've really had a good shot at this one.

We did a lot of good things, but we just didn't make enough shots, especially in traffic. You've got to make sure that you make the shots around the basket when you have those opportunities.

They did a great job of defending our shots around the basket. We made our 3, made our free throw, scrapped, but we just didn't shoot a high enough percentage against a good team. But give their defense credit for that. They're very good.

They matched up small with us. I thought that was a good thing for us. Enabled us to kind of hang around, I think, since I didn't have many big guys left anyway. So I liked that.

And it gave us a chance. The last-second play, you may want to ask me about.

We said in the huddle in both situations that we were going to need to make a three somewhere along the line.

The half-court defense, where they're switching everything and going small, I'm not smart enough to get or run a play that can get a three against a team like that when they're switching everything.

You've got to get open on somebody. Their small team is very good defensively. So I thought the open court was the best way and I thought the couple seconds that Monta lost in looking at me maybe cost us a better look at a three. But you always get a better look in the open court.

We said in the huddle that we wanted to push the ball and I'll inform the team tomorrow that I can always call the timeout. I can go to the referee. Coaches now can call a timeout. What they need to do is think in terms of getting the ball, pushing it up. I really like the open court with 6, 7 seconds left, even 5, better than the half court when you need a three.

So we lost a couple seconds there that probably would've got a better shot.

-Q: Does the lack of success you've had in getting a good shot in half-court in-bounds set, end-game situations affect your thinking there-make you not want a timeout?

-NELSON: We haven't been that successful, anyway. But when they match up with our small team and I can't get one of my shooters open off a center, off a big guy, it's very difficult to get a three when a team knows that you need one. So I thought the open court was better. I still do. I always do. But we didn't get a good look at it.

-Q: What do you want Monta to do there?

-NELSON: Well, they had a small team, so push up. And if he has the three, fine. If he doesn't, someone else in the open court will be more open than against a half-court set. That's my philosophy.

-Q: He looked unsure. Should Monta have known what to do there?

-NELSON: It wasn't a play. It was an open-court situation. So you just push up and your shooters are spotting up at the three and you make a three. I thought the hesitation of a couple seconds hurt us.

-Q: At one point Monta missed 11 straight shots, most of them seemed to come when he was going into the lane and LeBron or somebody else came and blocked or changed his shot. Did he get too stubborn just going into the lane every time?

-NELSON: They were playing up on his jumpshot. I thought the play was there. Maybe we could've found the shooters a little easier. He had five turnovers the first half, so that was kind of… hard for him, I guess.

You have to kind of accept what he sees as my best player.

-Q: Is there ever a point where you might tell Monta to not shoot so much?

-NELSON: No, he can shoot. He's my guy. So we want him to get shots up. But we show him on film quite often where shooters are when help comes. The short pass was hard for him tonight. The turnovers were mostly on the short pass. They do a great job of covering the paint. I thought the outside shooters were open some, but we were unable to get it to them.

When we got the three, we shot it pretty well today.

-Q: What was the gameplan vs. LeBron?

-NELSON: The gameplan was even though there were mismatches there, they would hurt you more with the pass and the three. They're the leading three-point shooting team. That's what they're looking for you to do.

They dribble, they dribble, they dribble… So as a coach, when he makes making all his shots, it puts you in a bind. What are you going to do? But we stayed close, even though he was scoring. The game slowed down. And when we did double team, it was pretty effective a couple of times.

Our gameplan was not to get spread out against either he or Shaq and take the beating, as long as we were around. If they would've forced us to make a change, we would have. But I thought we were close enough at the time that we just played him.

-Q: You got Cartier Martin for 19 minutes…

-NELSON: I liked him. I think he's going to help us. He's got a body like Corey's that really helps us in guarding the post-up guys. I thought he really did a good job for his first game. Looks very comfortable, a professional player. He's got some games under his belt…

We know him and he's going to help us with that 3 spot. I have really nobody. I've been playing a point guard there, a two-guard there at the 3 spot. So he'll help us a little bit. Thought he helped us tonight.

-Q: That cut into Morrow's time tonight. Could that continue to happen-Martin plays more than Morrow?

-NELSON: They have to understand that when we get bigger at the 3, then we have four guards. And there's not a lot of minutes there when Monta's playing 40-something… leading the league. There will be some time cut there.

There will be match-up times when I can get away with that. But the bigger 3s are hard for us to guard. We don't defend the low post that well. Morrow has trouble down there. All of our small guys, you wouldn't expect they could guard the big 3s.

He'll be a nice addition to our team.

-Q: Andris Biedrins didn't give you much again tonight. Do you have concerns about him right now?

-NELSON: He hasn't felt comfortable since he's been back, for whatever reason. We've got to play him through it. Sometimes it takes a while after an injury to get your confidence and your timing and he's in that scenario right now.

 

[daprescription]

[h2]Warriors TO or no TO? Ellis and Don Nelson on the last-play mix-up[/h2]
Posted by Tim Kawakami on January 11th, 2010 at 11:00 pm | Categorized as NBA, Warriors

* Don Nelson presser transcript is now there, at the bottom of this post. Thought I'd put up Ellis first.

Setting the scene:

-Warriors trailed Cleveland by three, after a big rally from 11 down with 2:20 left.

-During the timeout (CLARIFICATION: the last Warriors' timeout came with 57.9 left)TWO possessions before the Cavs' final possession, Don Nelson apparently told the huddle that whether Cleveland made or missed, he did NOT want the Warriors to call timeout.

Instead he wanted them to head up the floor in a scramble situation.

-Ellis did not hear Nelson say that. (And if Nelson said it with 57.9 left, a ton of things happened in between that and the time Ellis got the ball in the final scramble with 4.3 left. Easy to see why Ellis thought it a TO situation.)

So after LeBron James missed a three-point shot with the shot-clock expiring, Ellis got the rebound with 4.3 seconds left… and looked to the bench, presuming they'd want him to call timeout.

Nope. That burned a few seconds.

Ellis then raced downcourt, got into some trouble with Cleveland's perimeter defense playing the three-point line, and shoveled a pass to Stephen Curry barely across the half-court line.

Result: Curry heaved one from 34 feet as the buzzer sounded. It fell several feet short, end of ballgame.

Final: Cleveland 117, Warriors 114.

James, on the end of a back-to-back, was incredible: 37 points, 12-for-23 shooting, 11 assists, 8 rebounds, 4 blocked shots, including a breath-taking chase-down, block from behind swat of Ellis' transition lay-up.

At one point, Ellis missed 11 straight shots from the end of the 2nd quarter through the 3rd quarter-he had 5 of his shots blocked, many by James.

He was sick in the morning, yet still played 45 minutes.

To the transcripts…

--MONTA ELLIS, post-game gaggle/

-Q: Nelson said he told you guys before the possession that make or miss, he didn't want a timeout. Was that your understanding? Looked like you were confused…

-ELLIS: Naw, I didn't hear it. That's why I looked over to the bench. But we still came down, had a chance to win.

I didn't really want to take that off-balance shot. But… I mean… hey, we left it all out there.

-Q: Did you expect a timeout?

-ELLIS: Yeah, I did expect to call a timeout. If he said it, I didn't hear it. I don't remember.

But we fought back. We gave ourselves chances to win. You know, we made mistakes, but we stuck with it. We were down, what, 12 or 14 with 3 minutes, 2 minutes, 2:50 or something to go and we still managed to come back and only lose by three.

We had a chance to win or to tie it up, go to overtime. It was a tough game.

-Q: When you're going to the rim, do you know when LeBron is coming to block the shot?

-ELLIS: He does that all the time. I know that. I mean, hopefully I don't get fined for saying it, but that was a goaltend. I clearly let the ball go out of my hand. They can look at it and see it again.

Like I said, he always does that. I knew he was back there.

-Q: Can you see him or hear him-looks like he's running so fast…

-ELLIS: You can tell when somebody's trying to come up behind you and try to block your shot. He's trying to set his feet. I saw him the whole time.

-Q: At one time you had 11 straight misses. Was that just a matter of you being determined to keep shooting, to keep taking it to the basket?

-ELLIS: Coach told me to just keep going. Just go with it. I mean, tonight was a bad night for me. But hey, you know I am human.

Just put this one behind and move on.

-Q: They said you were ill this morning. Are you OK? Was that a factor?

-ELLIS: Umm… I don't like to make excuses. I was out there and I played and I gave it my all and I did all I could.

I felt good. I don't know what's going on, but I gave it my all, left it all out on the court.

-Q: Do you know Larry Ellison? Did you know he was there?

-ELLIS: I don't know him.

-Q: How good was LeBron out there? Was that just normal LeBron or was that something special?

-ELLIS: That was normal LeBron. Nothing spectacular. Nothing special. That's what he does.

--DON NELSON, post-game transcript/
-Opening: We hung in there pretty well tonight. You know, we were playing a really good team. I thought if we just would've shot a little bit better percentage, we would've really had a good shot at this one.

We did a lot of good things, but we just didn't make enough shots, especially in traffic. You've got to make sure that you make the shots around the basket when you have those opportunities.

They did a great job of defending our shots around the basket. We made our 3, made our free throw, scrapped, but we just didn't shoot a high enough percentage against a good team. But give their defense credit for that. They're very good.

They matched up small with us. I thought that was a good thing for us. Enabled us to kind of hang around, I think, since I didn't have many big guys left anyway. So I liked that.

And it gave us a chance. The last-second play, you may want to ask me about.

We said in the huddle in both situations that we were going to need to make a three somewhere along the line.

The half-court defense, where they're switching everything and going small, I'm not smart enough to get or run a play that can get a three against a team like that when they're switching everything.

You've got to get open on somebody. Their small team is very good defensively. So I thought the open court was the best way and I thought the couple seconds that Monta lost in looking at me maybe cost us a better look at a three. But you always get a better look in the open court.

We said in the huddle that we wanted to push the ball and I'll inform the team tomorrow that I can always call the timeout. I can go to the referee. Coaches now can call a timeout. What they need to do is think in terms of getting the ball, pushing it up. I really like the open court with 6, 7 seconds left, even 5, better than the half court when you need a three.

So we lost a couple seconds there that probably would've got a better shot.

-Q: Does the lack of success you've had in getting a good shot in half-court in-bounds set, end-game situations affect your thinking there-make you not want a timeout?

-NELSON: We haven't been that successful, anyway. But when they match up with our small team and I can't get one of my shooters open off a center, off a big guy, it's very difficult to get a three when a team knows that you need one. So I thought the open court was better. I still do. I always do. But we didn't get a good look at it.

-Q: What do you want Monta to do there?

-NELSON: Well, they had a small team, so push up. And if he has the three, fine. If he doesn't, someone else in the open court will be more open than against a half-court set. That's my philosophy.

-Q: He looked unsure. Should Monta have known what to do there?

-NELSON: It wasn't a play. It was an open-court situation. So you just push up and your shooters are spotting up at the three and you make a three. I thought the hesitation of a couple seconds hurt us.

-Q: At one point Monta missed 11 straight shots, most of them seemed to come when he was going into the lane and LeBron or somebody else came and blocked or changed his shot. Did he get too stubborn just going into the lane every time?

-NELSON: They were playing up on his jumpshot. I thought the play was there. Maybe we could've found the shooters a little easier. He had five turnovers the first half, so that was kind of… hard for him, I guess.

You have to kind of accept what he sees as my best player.

-Q: Is there ever a point where you might tell Monta to not shoot so much?

-NELSON: No, he can shoot. He's my guy. So we want him to get shots up. But we show him on film quite often where shooters are when help comes. The short pass was hard for him tonight. The turnovers were mostly on the short pass. They do a great job of covering the paint. I thought the outside shooters were open some, but we were unable to get it to them.

When we got the three, we shot it pretty well today.

-Q: What was the gameplan vs. LeBron?

-NELSON: The gameplan was even though there were mismatches there, they would hurt you more with the pass and the three. They're the leading three-point shooting team. That's what they're looking for you to do.

They dribble, they dribble, they dribble… So as a coach, when he makes making all his shots, it puts you in a bind. What are you going to do? But we stayed close, even though he was scoring. The game slowed down. And when we did double team, it was pretty effective a couple of times.

Our gameplan was not to get spread out against either he or Shaq and take the beating, as long as we were around. If they would've forced us to make a change, we would have. But I thought we were close enough at the time that we just played him.

-Q: You got Cartier Martin for 19 minutes…

-NELSON: I liked him. I think he's going to help us. He's got a body like Corey's that really helps us in guarding the post-up guys. I thought he really did a good job for his first game. Looks very comfortable, a professional player. He's got some games under his belt…

We know him and he's going to help us with that 3 spot. I have really nobody. I've been playing a point guard there, a two-guard there at the 3 spot. So he'll help us a little bit. Thought he helped us tonight.

-Q: That cut into Morrow's time tonight. Could that continue to happen-Martin plays more than Morrow?

-NELSON: They have to understand that when we get bigger at the 3, then we have four guards. And there's not a lot of minutes there when Monta's playing 40-something… leading the league. There will be some time cut there.

There will be match-up times when I can get away with that. But the bigger 3s are hard for us to guard. We don't defend the low post that well. Morrow has trouble down there. All of our small guys, you wouldn't expect they could guard the big 3s.

He'll be a nice addition to our team.

-Q: Andris Biedrins didn't give you much again tonight. Do you have concerns about him right now?

-NELSON: He hasn't felt comfortable since he's been back, for whatever reason. We've got to play him through it. Sometimes it takes a while after an injury to get your confidence and your timing and he's in that scenario right now.

 

[daprescription]

[h2]Warriors TO or no TO? Ellis and Don Nelson on the last-play mix-up[/h2]
Posted by Tim Kawakami on January 11th, 2010 at 11:00 pm | Categorized as NBA, Warriors

* Don Nelson presser transcript is now there, at the bottom of this post. Thought I'd put up Ellis first.

Setting the scene:

-Warriors trailed Cleveland by three, after a big rally from 11 down with 2:20 left.

-During the timeout (CLARIFICATION: the last Warriors' timeout came with 57.9 left)TWO possessions before the Cavs' final possession, Don Nelson apparently told the huddle that whether Cleveland made or missed, he did NOT want the Warriors to call timeout.

Instead he wanted them to head up the floor in a scramble situation.

-Ellis did not hear Nelson say that. (And if Nelson said it with 57.9 left, a ton of things happened in between that and the time Ellis got the ball in the final scramble with 4.3 left. Easy to see why Ellis thought it a TO situation.)

So after LeBron James missed a three-point shot with the shot-clock expiring, Ellis got the rebound with 4.3 seconds left… and looked to the bench, presuming they'd want him to call timeout.

Nope. That burned a few seconds.

Ellis then raced downcourt, got into some trouble with Cleveland's perimeter defense playing the three-point line, and shoveled a pass to Stephen Curry barely across the half-court line.

Result: Curry heaved one from 34 feet as the buzzer sounded. It fell several feet short, end of ballgame.

Final: Cleveland 117, Warriors 114.

James, on the end of a back-to-back, was incredible: 37 points, 12-for-23 shooting, 11 assists, 8 rebounds, 4 blocked shots, including a breath-taking chase-down, block from behind swat of Ellis' transition lay-up.

At one point, Ellis missed 11 straight shots from the end of the 2nd quarter through the 3rd quarter-he had 5 of his shots blocked, many by James.

He was sick in the morning, yet still played 45 minutes.

To the transcripts…

--MONTA ELLIS, post-game gaggle/

-Q: Nelson said he told you guys before the possession that make or miss, he didn't want a timeout. Was that your understanding? Looked like you were confused…

-ELLIS: Naw, I didn't hear it. That's why I looked over to the bench. But we still came down, had a chance to win.

I didn't really want to take that off-balance shot. But… I mean… hey, we left it all out there.

-Q: Did you expect a timeout?

-ELLIS: Yeah, I did expect to call a timeout. If he said it, I didn't hear it. I don't remember.

But we fought back. We gave ourselves chances to win. You know, we made mistakes, but we stuck with it. We were down, what, 12 or 14 with 3 minutes, 2 minutes, 2:50 or something to go and we still managed to come back and only lose by three.

We had a chance to win or to tie it up, go to overtime. It was a tough game.

-Q: When you're going to the rim, do you know when LeBron is coming to block the shot?

-ELLIS: He does that all the time. I know that. I mean, hopefully I don't get fined for saying it, but that was a goaltend. I clearly let the ball go out of my hand. They can look at it and see it again.

Like I said, he always does that. I knew he was back there.

-Q: Can you see him or hear him-looks like he's running so fast…

-ELLIS: You can tell when somebody's trying to come up behind you and try to block your shot. He's trying to set his feet. I saw him the whole time.

-Q: At one time you had 11 straight misses. Was that just a matter of you being determined to keep shooting, to keep taking it to the basket?

-ELLIS: Coach told me to just keep going. Just go with it. I mean, tonight was a bad night for me. But hey, you know I am human.

Just put this one behind and move on.

-Q: They said you were ill this morning. Are you OK? Was that a factor?

-ELLIS: Umm… I don't like to make excuses. I was out there and I played and I gave it my all and I did all I could.

I felt good. I don't know what's going on, but I gave it my all, left it all out on the court.

-Q: Do you know Larry Ellison? Did you know he was there?

-ELLIS: I don't know him.

-Q: How good was LeBron out there? Was that just normal LeBron or was that something special?

-ELLIS: That was normal LeBron. Nothing spectacular. Nothing special. That's what he does.

--DON NELSON, post-game transcript/
-Opening: We hung in there pretty well tonight. You know, we were playing a really good team. I thought if we just would've shot a little bit better percentage, we would've really had a good shot at this one.

We did a lot of good things, but we just didn't make enough shots, especially in traffic. You've got to make sure that you make the shots around the basket when you have those opportunities.

They did a great job of defending our shots around the basket. We made our 3, made our free throw, scrapped, but we just didn't shoot a high enough percentage against a good team. But give their defense credit for that. They're very good.

They matched up small with us. I thought that was a good thing for us. Enabled us to kind of hang around, I think, since I didn't have many big guys left anyway. So I liked that.

And it gave us a chance. The last-second play, you may want to ask me about.

We said in the huddle in both situations that we were going to need to make a three somewhere along the line.

The half-court defense, where they're switching everything and going small, I'm not smart enough to get or run a play that can get a three against a team like that when they're switching everything.

You've got to get open on somebody. Their small team is very good defensively. So I thought the open court was the best way and I thought the couple seconds that Monta lost in looking at me maybe cost us a better look at a three. But you always get a better look in the open court.

We said in the huddle that we wanted to push the ball and I'll inform the team tomorrow that I can always call the timeout. I can go to the referee. Coaches now can call a timeout. What they need to do is think in terms of getting the ball, pushing it up. I really like the open court with 6, 7 seconds left, even 5, better than the half court when you need a three.

So we lost a couple seconds there that probably would've got a better shot.

-Q: Does the lack of success you've had in getting a good shot in half-court in-bounds set, end-game situations affect your thinking there-make you not want a timeout?

-NELSON: We haven't been that successful, anyway. But when they match up with our small team and I can't get one of my shooters open off a center, off a big guy, it's very difficult to get a three when a team knows that you need one. So I thought the open court was better. I still do. I always do. But we didn't get a good look at it.

-Q: What do you want Monta to do there?

-NELSON: Well, they had a small team, so push up. And if he has the three, fine. If he doesn't, someone else in the open court will be more open than against a half-court set. That's my philosophy.

-Q: He looked unsure. Should Monta have known what to do there?

-NELSON: It wasn't a play. It was an open-court situation. So you just push up and your shooters are spotting up at the three and you make a three. I thought the hesitation of a couple seconds hurt us.

-Q: At one point Monta missed 11 straight shots, most of them seemed to come when he was going into the lane and LeBron or somebody else came and blocked or changed his shot. Did he get too stubborn just going into the lane every time?

-NELSON: They were playing up on his jumpshot. I thought the play was there. Maybe we could've found the shooters a little easier. He had five turnovers the first half, so that was kind of… hard for him, I guess.

You have to kind of accept what he sees as my best player.

-Q: Is there ever a point where you might tell Monta to not shoot so much?

-NELSON: No, he can shoot. He's my guy. So we want him to get shots up. But we show him on film quite often where shooters are when help comes. The short pass was hard for him tonight. The turnovers were mostly on the short pass. They do a great job of covering the paint. I thought the outside shooters were open some, but we were unable to get it to them.

When we got the three, we shot it pretty well today.

-Q: What was the gameplan vs. LeBron?

-NELSON: The gameplan was even though there were mismatches there, they would hurt you more with the pass and the three. They're the leading three-point shooting team. That's what they're looking for you to do.

They dribble, they dribble, they dribble… So as a coach, when he makes making all his shots, it puts you in a bind. What are you going to do? But we stayed close, even though he was scoring. The game slowed down. And when we did double team, it was pretty effective a couple of times.

Our gameplan was not to get spread out against either he or Shaq and take the beating, as long as we were around. If they would've forced us to make a change, we would have. But I thought we were close enough at the time that we just played him.

-Q: You got Cartier Martin for 19 minutes…

-NELSON: I liked him. I think he's going to help us. He's got a body like Corey's that really helps us in guarding the post-up guys. I thought he really did a good job for his first game. Looks very comfortable, a professional player. He's got some games under his belt…

We know him and he's going to help us with that 3 spot. I have really nobody. I've been playing a point guard there, a two-guard there at the 3 spot. So he'll help us a little bit. Thought he helped us tonight.

-Q: That cut into Morrow's time tonight. Could that continue to happen-Martin plays more than Morrow?

-NELSON: They have to understand that when we get bigger at the 3, then we have four guards. And there's not a lot of minutes there when Monta's playing 40-something… leading the league. There will be some time cut there.

There will be match-up times when I can get away with that. But the bigger 3s are hard for us to guard. We don't defend the low post that well. Morrow has trouble down there. All of our small guys, you wouldn't expect they could guard the big 3s.

He'll be a nice addition to our team.

-Q: Andris Biedrins didn't give you much again tonight. Do you have concerns about him right now?

-NELSON: He hasn't felt comfortable since he's been back, for whatever reason. We've got to play him through it. Sometimes it takes a while after an injury to get your confidence and your timing and he's in that scenario right now.

 

[acidicality]

%*#@ Don Nelson!

 

[japanair21]

DP you tool.

 

[acidicality]

JapanAir21

 

[daprescription]

I think I shut down the site for a second

.

 

[acidicality]

nice job

 

[paul is on tilt]

-Q: Does the lack of success you've had in getting a good shot in half-court in-bounds set, end-game situations affect your thinking there-make you not want a timeout?

-NELSON: We haven't been that successful, anyway. But when they match up with our small team and I can't get one of my shooters open off a center, off a big guy, it's very difficult to get a three when a team knows that you need one. So I thought the open court was better. I still do. I always do. But we didn't get a good look at it.
If you're a "coaching genius" and you don't have any out of bounds plays in your repertoire for when the game is on the line,what are you doing as coach? Don't you practice end of game plays? What the hell do you do at practice? Call out players and drink scotch?

-Q: What do you want Monta to do there?

-NELSON: Well, they had a small team, so push up. And if he has the three, fine. If he doesn't, someone else in the open court will be more open than against a half-court set. That's my philosophy.

Nelson's philosophy is a losing philosophy. If you can't coach in the half court, then you are a joke. Get the hell out of here, Nelson!

 

[paul is on tilt]

Oh, and dp going to work!

 

[dont be a menace]

fell asleep in the beginning of the 4th quarter, just caught the finish right now. it was a good game, horrible way to end it though. Monta's hesitationmight have led to a bad shot but calling a TO for a final play is what's needed.

btw status on Turiaf? I don't wanna have to live with small ball for the upcoming games.

 

[lazyj10]

Pietrus was there. lol. Had to get security near him cuz of fans.

 

[eagle 0n]

Have we ever beat LeBron @ home?

I know Dun Jr. shutdown LBJ a few times

Maybe his rookie year?

 

[offbad]

Originally Posted by Paul Is On Tilt

Originally Posted by JapanAir21

I haven't noticed, have you not been updating? Or do you just suck?

Shut up! You suck!

It's a combination of things. I had hella injuries, I tend to draft some of the same players in my leagues i.e. Al Jefferson, Blake Griffin, Derrick Rose and two of those guys sucked in the beginning of the year and Blake is still injured, and work actually interfered with my scouting. I missed picking up Tyreke Evans because of work. I'm doing bad this year.

my friend and I were talking about your team

Rose, Blake, Jefferson, Gallo are 4 way solid keepers. imagine if you add an awesome rookie in the draft next year

you should think about doing a deal involving either andre miller and/or diaw. deal them for picks or something. or for a solid 5th keeper.
or at the end of the year pick up oden?

dunno man but your team when healthy is gonna be scary.

 

[paul is on tilt]

Originally Posted by offbad

Originally Posted by Paul Is On Tilt

Originally Posted by JapanAir21

I haven't noticed, have you not been updating? Or do you just suck?

Shut up! You suck!

It's a combination of things. I had hella injuries, I tend to draft some of the same players in my leagues i.e. Al Jefferson, Blake Griffin, Derrick Rose and two of those guys sucked in the beginning of the year and Blake is still injured, and work actually interfered with my scouting. I missed picking up Tyreke Evans because of work. I'm doing bad this year.

my friend and I were talking about your team

Rose, Blake, Jefferson, Gallo are 4 way solid keepers. imagine if you add an awesome rookie in the draft next year

you should think about doing a deal involving either andre miller and/or diaw. deal them for picks or something. or for a solid 5th keeper.
or at the end of the year pick up oden?

dunno man but your team when healthy is gonna be scary.

That's what I was thinking when I was drafting. I wanted to go young and talented so I'd be set for the future. But I guess I draftedDerrick Rose a year too early. Dude is starting to pick it up though. There's still time for me to make improvements. How many years is this keeper league?

 

[offbad]

Originally Posted by Paul Is On Tilt

Originally Posted by offbad

Originally Posted by Paul Is On Tilt

Originally Posted by JapanAir21

I haven't noticed, have you not been updating? Or do you just suck?

Shut up! You suck!

It's a combination of things. I had hella injuries, I tend to draft some of the same players in my leagues i.e. Al Jefferson, Blake Griffin, Derrick Rose and two of those guys sucked in the beginning of the year and Blake is still injured, and work actually interfered with my scouting. I missed picking up Tyreke Evans because of work. I'm doing bad this year.

my friend and I were talking about your team

Rose, Blake, Jefferson, Gallo are 4 way solid keepers. imagine if you add an awesome rookie in the draft next year

you should think about doing a deal involving either andre miller and/or diaw. deal them for picks or something. or for a solid 5th keeper.
or at the end of the year pick up oden?

dunno man but your team when healthy is gonna be scary.

That's what I was thinking when I was drafting. I wanted to go young and talented so I'd be set for the future. But I guess I drafted Derrick Rose a year too early. Dude is starting to pick it up though. There's still time for me to make improvements. How many years is this keeper league?

until you want to quit. i've been in this other keeper league for 6 years. back then i traded juwan howard for josh smith straight. and tookkobe with my #1 pick.

also derrick rose is a stud. not many game changing PGs like him in the league. you drafted him correctly.