Yeah, the Warriors' only loss to a playoff team so far was Dallas, when they were down Curry, Barnes, Ezeli and Barbosa. That's ridiculous. The Bucks loss came at the end of a 7 game road trip, second game of a back-to-back after an overtime win. Even the Denver loss was without Draymond Green. Only the Detroit loss was a straight-up let-down. The Warriors are so good that for them "let-down games" are basically the ones where they win by single-digits. For the Spurs and everyone else, they lose a number of their let-down games.
When people said "Jump shooting teams don't win in the playoffs" they forgot about another cliche, "Defense wins championship." The Warriors were one of the top defensive teams throughout last season and this. I guess people don't think a jump shooting team can play good defense. The conventional wisdom is that if you are a jump shooting team, you must be soft. (I can see Charles Barkley nodding his head. :grin This Warriors team is not in the mold of any of the great teams in the past.
The other thing people didn't understand about the Warriors is that they're not just a jump-shooting team. They also take it to the hoop a lot and get plenty of transition buckets. What they don't do is dump it into a post player all the time, which seems to bug people like Barkley. They also don't shoot tons of mid-range jumpers...they'd rather get 3 instead of 2 if they're going to hoist shots.
We can't hold that against a man who believes the concept of numbers and analytics have no perceivable effect on a game or team's chances of winning. ...a game, here,
I don't know why that's a hard concept for some purist to grasp, because Chicago didn't win that way. Nor did any of Pistons teams or the LeBron teams.
It's awesome that in a season when the Rockets tank in unmet expectations, we get to watch the Warriors head towards the best record in nba history. I love this team, how they play, how they don't stop going hard despite dominating the league. 48-4 is really silly. 24-6 to tie the Bulls record, which is an 80% clip the rest of the way. The bad part is the schedule gets a lot harder than the first 52 games. That road trip to start the second half is no joke, all playoff teams. 1. second half B2B games are underlined. 2. games I think they have a good chance of losing are in bold 53 @ Portland Trail Blazers 54 @ Los Angeles Clippers 55 @ Atlanta Hawks 56 @ Miami Heat -- 4th game in 5 nights 57 @ Orlando Magic -- 5th game in 6 nights 58 @ Oklahoma City Thunder 59 Atlanta Hawks 60 Oklahoma City Thunder 61 @ Los Angeles Lakers 62 Orlando Magic 63 Utah Jazz 64 Portland Trail Blazers 65 Phoenix Suns --- 5th game in 6 nights 66 New Orleans Pelicans 67 New York Knicks 68 @ Dallas Mavericks 69 @ San Antonio Spurs 70 @ Minnesota Timberwolves 71 Los Angeles Clippers --- 4th game in 5 nights 72 Dallas Mavericks 73 Philadelphia 76ers 74 Washington Wizards 75 @ Utah Jazz 76 Boston Celtics 77 Portland Trail Blazers 78 Minnesota Timberwolves 79 San Antonio Spurs 80 @ Memphis Grizzlies 81 @ San Antonio Spurs 82 Memphis Grizzlies
Basically if they can get through that opening road trip with 1 loss, they are well on their way.. but look at the teams. POR LAC ATL MIA ORL OKC All those games in like a week. then follow it up with ATL and OKC again at home.
Had to post this for comedic value. <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/NZf9NFaCQHQ" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/mF337mkxIGs" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Yeah, earlier I said that the two major obstacles to the Warriors breaking the record is this road trip and the end of the season, when they play home-and-homes with the Spurs and Grizzlies. Of course, I said that before the Grizzlies lost Gasol. If they can get through the road trip (they're already 1-0 after bearing the Suns last night) at 5-2 or 6-1, they'll be in pretty good shape. What plays in their favor is that they generally seem to get up for the good teams. Also playing in their favor is that after this road trip, they play the vast majority of their games at home. One hidden challenge for the Warriors is that they have the most travel miles of any team in the NBA (and far more that the Bulls had in 95-96)...but after this road trip, most of that will be behind them.
I'm too lazy to check, but I'm assuming these are typos? 5 games in 6 nights would require a back-to-back-to-back.
He's hit more often than not... some don't like his Rockets takes, but has he been that off? Said they were nowhere close to being a top 4 team going into this year. Said they weren't as good a defensive team as their stats may be suggesting.
He says that whether or not we're doing well. Remember how much he used to dog Yao? He also wouldn't let up last year during the playoffs even after we made the WCF. Even noted Rocket-hater Amin Elhassan had to admit that the 14-15 Rockets were pretty good.
Too much booze during the all star break... I'll give them this loss vs Blazers, it makes sense. Happy go lucky, right? But no way do I see them losing more then a total of 8 or 9 when they finish the season.
Interesting... Entering last night's game against the Blazers, the Warriors had a 37% chance of winning at least 73 games per ESPN's Basketball Power Index. After their 32-point loss, those odds have dipped to 17%.
More interesting... Between Ezeli's absence and last night's loss, 73 wins is looking unlikely. 13 of GSW's remaining 29 games are in back to backs.
