Being a fan of the worst team in the NBA this season has made for plenty of rough nights, but tonight’s drubbing at the hand of the Los Angeles Clippers still stands out as one of the more thorough beat downs of the season.
As nice as it is to say “this is why you have to watch every game” after a big win, sometimes wire-to-wire losses like this one come along. Games best quickly forgotten.
The bad
All the usual problems reared their heads. The Warriors porous defense was extra permissive tonight, and the Clippers took advantage. They ended up shooting a gaudy 45.5% from behind the arc on 20 of 44 shooting. Los Angeles really pulled away on the strength of 41-22 second quarter, and the Warriors couldn’t muster up enough offense or defense to make any headway.
Stephen Curry didn’t play, which combined with the Coronavirus impact led to a somewhat empty and listless stadium.
It wouldn’t be a Warriors game without another injury, and tonight it was Juan Toscano-Anderson that went down. A fairly innocuous looking drive ended with him crumpled on the floor with a badly rolled ankle after less than a minute of game time. We’ll update tomorrow once the team releases additional information, for now the Warriors are simply calling it a “sprain,” which covers a wide range.
The good
As always, the team showed a couple of promising flashes. Dragan Bender tied his career high with 23 points, and Wiggins had this pretty sweet dunk:
Official statement from Warriors (man I wish we could embed tweets):
@Warriors:
Due to escalating concerns about the spread of the coronavirus, and in consultation with the City and County of San Francisco, tomorrow night’s game vs. the Nets at Chase Center will be played without fans. Fans with tickets to this game will receive a refund in the amount paid.
Great and probably overdue. I know that a lot of folks here had strong words for the Warriors when they declined the city supervisor's suggestion to cancel the Clips game, but in my view this is 100% the purview of the city and state officials. If they have evaluated the risk as high enough, it is their job and responsibility to implement and enforce those policies. I thought it was a weak move yesterday for city officials to make it voluntary whether to cancel gatherings or not, leaving it up to companies and private institutions. If the risk is high enough (and it seems to be), elected officials need to act and not expect private groups to reach the same assessments independently. Made no sense to me why the Warriors org was getting flak for their choice but the city officials were not for theirs.
I'm not sure, I think the Warriors had an opportunity to lead on the issue and they didn't take it. It's defintely true that it's on the city/county to declare a blanket ban, but it was only one game. Now it (rightfully) looks like Lacob only took action because he was forced to.
At least they didn't try to play at Oracle, I guess . . .
Sorry KD, looks like no fans will be at your Warriors return....
>>>>@wojespn:
The Golden State Warriors are planning to play foreseeable home games without fans in observance of the San Francisco Health Office's order prohibiting group of events of 1K or more from assembling, source tells ESPN.<<<<
"Next on ESPN: No Warriors fans applaud KD on his return to the Bay Area. How will this affect team chemistry, especially between Steph and Draymond? Steven A Smith discusses."
So, I was thinking of having a NCAA MBB Tournament Bracket contest for LGWers. I don't follow college hoops, but it could still be fun if enough of us do it.
"Arsenal's Premier League match against Manchester City on Wednesday has been postponed after a number of the squad made "close contact" with Olympiakos owner Evangelos Marinakis two weeks ago.
Marinakis, who is also the owner of Championship side Nottingham Forest, announced on Instagram on Tuesday that he had tested positive for the coronavirus -- 13 days after being present at the Emirates as his side eliminated Arsenal from the Europa League.
The London-based club confirmed in a statement on Tuesday night that the players' risk of contracting the coronavirus was "extremely low" but the Premier League decided the game should be postponed as a precautionary measure."
I love that MiB gif, you should use it everytime we . . .
Sorry, I forgot what I was going to type . . .
On a serious note, Dr Fauci has spoken:
"A top federal health official gave lawmakers a stark warning on Wednesday that the coronavirus would continue to spread in the United States, and said that fans should be barred from big gatherings like National Basketball Association games.
“The bottom line: It is going to get worse,” Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told the House Oversight Committee.
“We would recommend that there not be large crowds,” he added. “If that means not having any people in the audience as the N.B.A. plays, so be it.”
"[Wojnarowski] If the virus clusters and forces a team out of its city and arena for a period of time, there has been discussion about moving games to the away opponent's arena if that city hasn't suffered an outbreak -- or even moving games to neutral cities and sites"
At this point I think it is pretty safe to say it is everywhere around cities big enough to have an airport, but there are places that just don't know it yet.
So.....unless teams in affected areas have already quarantined all their staff and personnel, wouldn't this just be spreading potential carriers to non-affected areas?
I always wonder, are super spreaders just physiologically predisposed to spread the disease, or is it a habits-and-hygiene thing, like coughing into your hand or working when you know you're sick? (Probably a combination of both, though.)
Don't quote me on this, but I think I read somewhere that every carrier can spread to 2-3 people. That's definitely more than enough for exponential growth :/ But luckily, it seems like the whole country is starting to realize the potential for a pandemic. It's still not extremely likely, in my (unscientific) opinion, and the more people take strong action, the less likely it will be.
Also, there's window after the cases start to decline where there could be a comeback: China opened up some commerce again (in Shanghai I think?), and got some foreign transmission, so now they're making foreign travelers do the 14-day quarantine again.
I just feel bad for the hospitality, retail, and gig workers (and of course the people who've contracted it).
Not saying this is in any way comparable to COVID-19, but I think that's exactly what happened with the Black Death (the strain went extinct because it killed too many people).
Mar 11, 2020Liked by Eric Apricot, punk basketball
I prefer to accentuate the positive; I had the Nuggets and Sixers games chalked up as loses too. For the G-league Warriors (+Wiggins) to go 2-2 against those teams including a competitive loss to the Raptors exceeds expectations.
You have a good attitude. I think having Steph back for one day knocked me out of Tank Chess mode and I started having actual expectations for the team again. Need to regain my Zen.
props if you watched. I saw the injury God's make a cameo in the first :55 seconds and turned off in disgust. I knew it was gonna be a long night after that
I picked a good one to miss, that -18 next to Wiggins name is a bit worrisome but they got drubbed so badly, it’s hard to take anything away from this game.
I think we need a new defense coordinator right now. We have the worst 3pt defense in a 3pt shooting league. That's the problem. Jarron Collins doesn't appear to be doing a good job. We are always at the mercy of our opponent's shooting form.
Then add to all that a lack of a plus rim protecting and rebounding 7 footer, and things get uglier as the porous perimeter defense leads to bad help rotations inside, which means leads to our smaller, less athletic wings scrambling to close out on shooters on kickouts for not great effect.
Though, this issue was cropping up even before this year, but our long and athletic wings were better at attacking the passing lanes and closing out on kickouts.
It's definitely a big concern. I find it interesting how...different the top 3 defenses in the league are when it comes to defending the 3. The Bucks aren't good at it, they give up a ton of 3's and are a tick below average in 3pt% defense. The Raptors are excellent at it - they also give up a ton of 3's, but on the league's lowest 3pt%. The Lakers are a tick above average in preventing 3's, and give up the 3rd lowest 3pt%. If you expand it out to 5 to include the Celtics and Clippers, those are the other 2 best teams in opponent 3pt%, though they both give up a lot of 3's.
So seems like the Bucks are an exception, but given just how great they are defensively....a very interesting exception. All the other top 5 defenses lead the league in opponent 3pt%.
The bucks have 2 7 footers protecting their paint and are the best in paint protection. Their strategy is make any contested you can but you get nothing in the paint.we aren't great in the paint either..Draymond is like 6'6 and Chris is 6'9..there is always a size mismatch against us so it's better for us to be Damn good on the perimeter and be ok in the paint.. We can't really win the paint battle
Our first championship season we had the league's best defense during the regular season, including the league's best FG% allowed around the rim (0-3 feet range). Dray$ is pretty much as good as it gets at rim protection when he's playing PF, but yes, we don't have a capable C on the roster currently. We're currently third to last in FG% allowed around the rim. That's why I keep stressing how big of a deal remaking our D is this offseason and how Chriss isn't a good starting option for us. We need to get better at protecting the rim. Dray$ is an excellent piece for that, but he needs help at the C position. And yeah, we need more wing D, too for better perimeter D.
Agree. I don't know how someone is supposed to take a revolving bunch of rookies, cast offs and g-leaguers and create a functional defense. Building a good NBA defense is all about league experience, consistency in units, defensive talent and effort. They've had NONE of the first three and I think they've done as good a job extracting effort as you could hope for in a lost season.
How close are we to the tax limit? If we keep having injuries does that cause issues with needing to sign more players to make sure we have the minimum to play? Do I even really care?
This year the minimum contract was $1,620,564 for a 177-day season (which felt much longer for us), so a "daily" salary of $9,156.
So a 10 day contract costs $91,560 of salary cap.
According to spotrac.com, W's were $648,718 below luxury tax line before signing Mulder for the rest of the season, which takes roughly half that amount ($330,000ish for 37 remaining days).
So Warriors can still sign 3 10 day contracts before the end of the season (Simmons ?) without exceeding luxury tax, or another end-of-season contract (Bender ?) in a few days when amount of this contract gets below $300,000.
This should be enough to deal with injuries *insert it's something meme*
Thanks! (I do care...) I'm kind of torn on whether to ride out with Bender or take a look at Simmons. Bender has been a little frustrating and I have always like Simmons. So I would tend to go with looking at someone new...
New thread about the game being Players Only: https://www.letsgowarriors.com/p/players-only-golden-state-will-play
Official statement from Warriors (man I wish we could embed tweets):
@Warriors:
Due to escalating concerns about the spread of the coronavirus, and in consultation with the City and County of San Francisco, tomorrow night’s game vs. the Nets at Chase Center will be played without fans. Fans with tickets to this game will receive a refund in the amount paid.
Great and probably overdue. I know that a lot of folks here had strong words for the Warriors when they declined the city supervisor's suggestion to cancel the Clips game, but in my view this is 100% the purview of the city and state officials. If they have evaluated the risk as high enough, it is their job and responsibility to implement and enforce those policies. I thought it was a weak move yesterday for city officials to make it voluntary whether to cancel gatherings or not, leaving it up to companies and private institutions. If the risk is high enough (and it seems to be), elected officials need to act and not expect private groups to reach the same assessments independently. Made no sense to me why the Warriors org was getting flak for their choice but the city officials were not for theirs.
I'm not sure, I think the Warriors had an opportunity to lead on the issue and they didn't take it. It's defintely true that it's on the city/county to declare a blanket ban, but it was only one game. Now it (rightfully) looks like Lacob only took action because he was forced to.
At least they didn't try to play at Oracle, I guess . . .
Sorry KD, looks like no fans will be at your Warriors return....
>>>>@wojespn:
The Golden State Warriors are planning to play foreseeable home games without fans in observance of the San Francisco Health Office's order prohibiting group of events of 1K or more from assembling, source tells ESPN.<<<<
Better late than never, I guess, but it's good they're doing it.
Forgive me for making the tiniest quiet snicker deep in the folds of my brain.
Regarding the KD part, not the rest of it
"Next on ESPN: No Warriors fans applaud KD on his return to the Bay Area. How will this affect team chemistry, especially between Steph and Draymond? Steven A Smith discusses."
>>>>>@Con_Chron
San Francisco is banning gatherings of more than 1,000 people, including Warriors games.
I guess the Warriors don't have a choice on this anymore.
Is that official yet?
Been looking for official statement. Looks like this tweet from Warriors beat writer is all I can find right now....
SF Chronicle has an official statement by Mayor London Breed now. All public gatherings cancelled for next two weeks.
I deleted my other posts in this thread
Why? Why didn't the governor or the mayor just make them do this in the first place?
Mulder turned into Lee?
Signed his contract and proceeds to go 1-9 (0-7 3pt) from the field....
Part of it was the Clippers actually defending well. But it looked like he was rushing his shots, taking them off-balance.
Could be some kind of nerves thing of trying to live up to expectations after getting the contract.
So, I was thinking of having a NCAA MBB Tournament Bracket contest for LGWers. I don't follow college hoops, but it could still be fun if enough of us do it.
On the other hand, there’s a chance the whole thing will be cancelled so
OT but not really:
"Arsenal's Premier League match against Manchester City on Wednesday has been postponed after a number of the squad made "close contact" with Olympiakos owner Evangelos Marinakis two weeks ago.
Marinakis, who is also the owner of Championship side Nottingham Forest, announced on Instagram on Tuesday that he had tested positive for the coronavirus -- 13 days after being present at the Emirates as his side eliminated Arsenal from the Europa League.
The London-based club confirmed in a statement on Tuesday night that the players' risk of contracting the coronavirus was "extremely low" but the Premier League decided the game should be postponed as a precautionary measure."
https://www.espn.com/soccer/english-premier-league/story/4071980/arsenal-vs-manchester-city-postponed-after-players-exposed-to-olympiakos-owner-evangelos-marinakis
I love that MiB gif, you should use it everytime we . . .
Sorry, I forgot what I was going to type . . .
On a serious note, Dr Fauci has spoken:
"A top federal health official gave lawmakers a stark warning on Wednesday that the coronavirus would continue to spread in the United States, and said that fans should be barred from big gatherings like National Basketball Association games.
“The bottom line: It is going to get worse,” Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told the House Oversight Committee.
“We would recommend that there not be large crowds,” he added. “If that means not having any people in the audience as the N.B.A. plays, so be it.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/11/world/coronavirus-news.html
Also:
"[Wojnarowski] If the virus clusters and forces a team out of its city and arena for a period of time, there has been discussion about moving games to the away opponent's arena if that city hasn't suffered an outbreak -- or even moving games to neutral cities and sites"
At this point I think it is pretty safe to say it is everywhere around cities big enough to have an airport, but there are places that just don't know it yet.
So.....unless teams in affected areas have already quarantined all their staff and personnel, wouldn't this just be spreading potential carriers to non-affected areas?
I guess everyone would be tested, I hope anyway.
I always wonder, are super spreaders just physiologically predisposed to spread the disease, or is it a habits-and-hygiene thing, like coughing into your hand or working when you know you're sick? (Probably a combination of both, though.)
Don't quote me on this, but I think I read somewhere that every carrier can spread to 2-3 people. That's definitely more than enough for exponential growth :/ But luckily, it seems like the whole country is starting to realize the potential for a pandemic. It's still not extremely likely, in my (unscientific) opinion, and the more people take strong action, the less likely it will be.
Also, there's window after the cases start to decline where there could be a comeback: China opened up some commerce again (in Shanghai I think?), and got some foreign transmission, so now they're making foreign travelers do the 14-day quarantine again.
I just feel bad for the hospitality, retail, and gig workers (and of course the people who've contracted it).
Or it gets worse. Nobody knows yet.You can hope that it weakens because killing your host is a bad evolutionary strategy.
Not saying this is in any way comparable to COVID-19, but I think that's exactly what happened with the Black Death (the strain went extinct because it killed too many people).
I prefer to accentuate the positive; I had the Nuggets and Sixers games chalked up as loses too. For the G-league Warriors (+Wiggins) to go 2-2 against those teams including a competitive loss to the Raptors exceeds expectations.
You have a good attitude. I think having Steph back for one day knocked me out of Tank Chess mode and I started having actual expectations for the team again. Need to regain my Zen.
props if you watched. I saw the injury God's make a cameo in the first :55 seconds and turned off in disgust. I knew it was gonna be a long night after that
I picked a good one to miss, that -18 next to Wiggins name is a bit worrisome but they got drubbed so badly, it’s hard to take anything away from this game.
I think we need a new defense coordinator right now. We have the worst 3pt defense in a 3pt shooting league. That's the problem. Jarron Collins doesn't appear to be doing a good job. We are always at the mercy of our opponent's shooting form.
I'm not sure what a GOAT defensive coach could do with this roster of wings though.
There is literally not a single wing on the roster right now with above average defensive IQ and communication.
And outside of Wiggins, every single wing on the roster is also physically limited by length/size, athleticism, or both.
Then add to all that a lack of a plus rim protecting and rebounding 7 footer, and things get uglier as the porous perimeter defense leads to bad help rotations inside, which means leads to our smaller, less athletic wings scrambling to close out on shooters on kickouts for not great effect.
Though, this issue was cropping up even before this year, but our long and athletic wings were better at attacking the passing lanes and closing out on kickouts.
It's almost like you're me. :p
It's definitely a big concern. I find it interesting how...different the top 3 defenses in the league are when it comes to defending the 3. The Bucks aren't good at it, they give up a ton of 3's and are a tick below average in 3pt% defense. The Raptors are excellent at it - they also give up a ton of 3's, but on the league's lowest 3pt%. The Lakers are a tick above average in preventing 3's, and give up the 3rd lowest 3pt%. If you expand it out to 5 to include the Celtics and Clippers, those are the other 2 best teams in opponent 3pt%, though they both give up a lot of 3's.
So seems like the Bucks are an exception, but given just how great they are defensively....a very interesting exception. All the other top 5 defenses lead the league in opponent 3pt%.
The bucks have 2 7 footers protecting their paint and are the best in paint protection. Their strategy is make any contested you can but you get nothing in the paint.we aren't great in the paint either..Draymond is like 6'6 and Chris is 6'9..there is always a size mismatch against us so it's better for us to be Damn good on the perimeter and be ok in the paint.. We can't really win the paint battle
Our first championship season we had the league's best defense during the regular season, including the league's best FG% allowed around the rim (0-3 feet range). Dray$ is pretty much as good as it gets at rim protection when he's playing PF, but yes, we don't have a capable C on the roster currently. We're currently third to last in FG% allowed around the rim. That's why I keep stressing how big of a deal remaking our D is this offseason and how Chriss isn't a good starting option for us. We need to get better at protecting the rim. Dray$ is an excellent piece for that, but he needs help at the C position. And yeah, we need more wing D, too for better perimeter D.
Can't really help it. The rookies and gleague call ups haven't exactly been scouted for their defensive acumen.
Agree. I don't know how someone is supposed to take a revolving bunch of rookies, cast offs and g-leaguers and create a functional defense. Building a good NBA defense is all about league experience, consistency in units, defensive talent and effort. They've had NONE of the first three and I think they've done as good a job extracting effort as you could hope for in a lost season.
Our main issue is 3pt defense..We are always giving up 3s for 2s.. I'm not sure what type of math that is..
Top players:
Clippers:
Leonard: (+25)
23 points 9/14 FGs 2/5 three pointers 3/3 FTs
4 rebounds 5 assists 2 steals
Beverly: (+27, 2nd place)
15 points 5/10 FGs 4/5 three pointers 1/1 FT
3 rebounds 2 assists 2 turnovers
George: (+25, 2nd place)
15 points 5/13 3/7 three pointers 2/2 FTs
1 rebound 5 assists 1 steal
Jackson: (+6, 3rd place)
16 points 6/7 FGs 3/4 three pointers 1/1 FT
4 assists 3 turnovers 1 block
Harrell: (+14, 3rd place)
14 points 6/12 FGs 0/1 three pointer 2/2 FTs
4 rebounds (1 off.) 2 assists
Honorable mention:
Jeff Green: (-3)
13 points 5/8 FGs 3/6 three pointers
10 rebounds (2 off.) 2 assists 1 turnover
Warriors:
Wiggins: (-18)
21 points 8/16 FGs 3/8 three pointers 2/4 FTs
2 rebounds 3 assists 1 turnover
Bender: (-7)
23 points 8/12 FGs 2/5 three pointers 5/5 FTs
7 rebounds (1 off.) 3 assists 3 turnovers
Poole: (-3)
17 points 6/10 FGs 2/6 three pointers 3/4 FTs
1 rebound 3 assists 1 turnover 1 steal
Honorable mention:
Bowman: (-4)
11 points 5/6 FGs 1/2 three pointers
4 rebounds 1 turnover
Final stats:
Clippers:
50.0% shooting (46/92 FGs)
20/44 three pointers
19/19 FTs
47 rebounds (11 off.)
28 assists
11 turnovers
5 steals
2 blocks
Warriors:
46.8% shooting (37/79 FGs)
11/38 three pointers
22/27 FTs
35 rebounds (4 off.)
24 assists
10 turnovers
3 steals
Points in paint:
Clippers: 42
Warriors: 44
Fastbreak points:
Clippers: 15
Warriors: 12
Points off turnovers:
Clippers: 18
Warriors: 18
Bench points:
Clippers: 65
Warriors: 65
https://derpicdn.net/img/view/2019/3/27/1995794.gif
How close are we to the tax limit? If we keep having injuries does that cause issues with needing to sign more players to make sure we have the minimum to play? Do I even really care?
Taking the assumption that you actually care :
This year the minimum contract was $1,620,564 for a 177-day season (which felt much longer for us), so a "daily" salary of $9,156.
So a 10 day contract costs $91,560 of salary cap.
According to spotrac.com, W's were $648,718 below luxury tax line before signing Mulder for the rest of the season, which takes roughly half that amount ($330,000ish for 37 remaining days).
So Warriors can still sign 3 10 day contracts before the end of the season (Simmons ?) without exceeding luxury tax, or another end-of-season contract (Bender ?) in a few days when amount of this contract gets below $300,000.
This should be enough to deal with injuries *insert it's something meme*
Thanks! (I do care...) I'm kind of torn on whether to ride out with Bender or take a look at Simmons. Bender has been a little frustrating and I have always like Simmons. So I would tend to go with looking at someone new...
I'll look it up for us tomorrow. But no, there's plenty of room. Those 10 days are crazy cheap.
...err... New Jersey Nets? Isn't it the Brooklyn Nets?
... and we lost to the Buffalo Braves last night, now beat that old man quirk
"The Philadelphia Warriors lose to the Buffalo Braves 131-107"
This is apparently my old man quirk. I make that mistake all too often. Editing now, thanks.
Hahah, I still do sometimes. And under real stress I might say Washington Bullets...