Golden State Warriors (37 - 30) @ Houston Rockets (36 - 30)

Start time: 4:00 PM PST @ Toyota Center
Local TV: CSN Bay Area
Nat TV: None

Probable starters for the Golden State Warriors:

C - Andrew Bogut
PF - David Lee
SF - Harrison Barnes
SG - Klay Thompson
PG - Stephen Curry

Probable starters for the Houston Rockets:

C - Omer Asik
PF - Donatas Montlejunas
SF - Chandler Parsons
SG - James Harden
PG - Jeremy Lin

Team leaders:
PPG - S. Curry (22.2) | J. Harden (26.2)
RPG - D. Lee (11.2) | O. Asik (11.8)
APG - S. Curry (6.7) | J. Lin (6.1)
SPG - S. Curry (1.6) | J. Harden (1.9)
BPG - A. Bogut (1.6) | O. Asik (1.1)

I simply refuse to believe that the Rockets will sweep us this year. HOWEVER, there are several keys to the game that factor into the outcome. Please believe:

Houston will thrive if our starting wings can't get a hand in their face. Kent Bazemore, Draymond Green, Richard Jefferson... SOMEBODY off the bench is gonna need to play 15 specialist minutes on Parsons or Harden because, thus far, Thompson and Curry have surrendered huge nights to opposing wingmen EVERY game.

I don't want to see a zone played ONCE this game. Houston eats that sh*t up. This shouldn't be THAT difficult of an equation: put a specialist on Harden (Bazemore, Jefferson... for God's sake, not Thompson) - he'll still get his numbers but make him work, have Curry go under screens when playing Lin (the dude WILL NOT connect on most of them; he's shooting 33% on the year!), turn Parsons into a driver (CRASH the outside corner... hell, put him on the line - he's a 70% FT shooting wing!), and pay absolutely no attention to the Rockets' bigs. Hell, I'd invite them to beat us with Asik if they think they can. Have Bogut overhelp on EVERY play, give Lee the green light to thump the sh*t outta Asik inside, and put him on the line 12 times tomorrow.

This shouldn't be such a friggin culture shock to this club. THESE GUYS PLAY NELLIEBALL. That means, RUN them off the 3-point line, but leave Bogut and Lee in the key to prevent lay-ups! They don't practice mid-range jumpers! If you make them put it on the floor and take an 18-footer, that's LEAGUES better than letting them sit on their spots and bomb all night.

Pleeeeease, Steph/Klay. Play some damn defense on the perimeter. If Lin and Harden combine for 45 or more, this game is over. They LIVE on their perimeter scorers. You gotta overhelp on those fools and put the ball in Asik, Robinson, Motiejunas, and Smith's hands!

How do other teams handle Curry and Thompson? They overhelp on the 3-point line cause they KNOW these guys will still try to shoot through triple coverage. Give Houston a taste of that medicine!

I have trouble seeing how we can win tonight barred some miraculous shooting display, say 65 percent.
Houston has two offensive weapons that are exactly the kind of weapons that have beaten us in our downside the last 1.5 months - that is: dribble penetration and spreading the floor with 3 point shooters. We have no answer for that - Curry can't stop Lin from penetrating, Thompson can't do that to Harden either plus neither Lee, nor Landry can defend spread 4s. Bogut is worse than Asik. And, like last time during second quarter, Houston can combine these two weapons by putting Parsons 4 with Delfino at 3, Lin and Harden at 1 and 2 and either Asik or Motiejunas at 5, that is a killer line-up that destroyed our 10 point separation and took the game into Houston's hands.
If that is not enough, Houston can also run pick'n'roll against bogut to force him of the floor (though I don't know why they would do that). In other words Houston's offense can and will cut our defense to little pieces. Our offense...well, we don't seem to have one anymore.
Last time Houston shot very bad and played subpar game for their standarts, and we could not take advantage of that, at home.
Our chances are very very slim here.

Right, I don't see us winning this game either. It seems like we haven't brought the fire lately...A LOT lately. Especially against this Rockets team that seems to have our number on both D and O. Bogut still looks like a big dufus out there and is very slow come 2nd and 4th quarters. There doesn't seem to be any energy anywhere. Bad shot selection, no driving to the hoop, only trying to throw up mid-range jumpers. It's very demorilizing to watch really. But yeah, if ALL of our players show up to play tonight AND shoot about 50% we have a slight chance. I'm calling it at HOU 110 GS 97.

How many free throws will Harden get. We need to be at the perimeter and guard it like majority said. Great right ups

strange game, we are looking like miami molded with memphis on defense

did mark jackson steal a page from thibodeaux book?

wow. totally unexpected to me.
are we symbolically closing this hole we fell in when houston blew us out back in winter?
would be huge if could continue this defensive intensity and offense of this second quarter.
a defining warriors come back to being good game perchance

Killing them on both offense and defense! Loving it!

Holy crap. I really hope we don't blow this.

Horrible third. Thankfully Klay stepped up.

Hopefully this game will mark the arrival of Bogut.

32 wrote:I simply refuse to believe that the Rockets will sweep us this year. HOWEVER, there are several keys to the game that factor into the outcome. Please believe:

Houston will thrive if our starting wings can't get a hand in their face. Kent Bazemore, Draymond Green, Richard Jefferson... SOMEBODY off the bench is gonna need to play 15 specialist minutes on Parsons or Harden because, thus far, Thompson and Curry have surrendered huge nights to opposing wingmen EVERY game.

I don't want to see a zone played ONCE this game. Houston eats that sh*t up. This shouldn't be THAT difficult of an equation: put a specialist on Harden (Bazemore, Jefferson... for God's sake, not Thompson) - he'll still get his numbers but make him work, have Curry go under screens when playing Lin (the dude WILL NOT connect on most of them; he's shooting 33% on the year!), turn Parsons into a driver (CRASH the outside corner... hell, put him on the line - he's a 70% FT shooting wing!), and pay absolutely no attention to the Rockets' bigs. Hell, I'd invite them to beat us with Asik if they think they can. Have Bogut overhelp on EVERY play, give Lee the green light to thump the sh*t outta Asik inside, and put him on the line 12 times tomorrow.

This shouldn't be such a friggin culture shock to this club. THESE GUYS PLAY NELLIEBALL. That means, RUN them off the 3-point line, but leave Bogut and Lee in the key to prevent lay-ups! They don't practice mid-range jumpers! If you make them put it on the floor and take an 18-footer, that's LEAGUES better than letting them sit on their spots and bomb all night.

Pleeeeease, Steph/Klay. Play some damn defense on the perimeter. If Lin and Harden combine for 45 or more, this game is over. They LIVE on their perimeter scorers. You gotta overhelp on those fools and put the ball in Asik, Robinson, Motiejunas, and Smith's hands!

How do other teams handle Curry and Thompson? They overhelp on the 3-point line cause they KNOW these guys will still try to shoot through triple coverage. Give Houston a taste of that medicine!

Yehhhh none of that happened. Lol.

Great fourth, with a bit of improvement at the end of the third gave us a nice victory. Though, they got really close in the third, just 5 points lead for the Warriors.

We needed this one, now we are a bit more safe when it comes to Houston. I was gonna say that if we win this one, I could easily see us staying at the 6th.

A little bit of payback for Houston. Nice game by Bogut to silence the doubters.

Tonight was the Bogut we've been waiting to see.