GoldenSTWarriors

[krome]

Brooklyn Nets (6 - 5) @ Golden State Warriors (6 - 5)

Start time: 7:30 PM PST @ Oracle Arena
Local TV: CSN Bay Area
Nat TV: None

Probable starters for the Golden State Warriors:

C - Festus Ezeli
PF - David Lee
SF - Harrison Barnes
SG - Klay Thompson
PG - Stephen Curry

Probable starters for the Brooklyn Nets:

C - Brook Lopez
PF - Kris Humphries
SF - Gerald Wallace
SG - Joe Johnson
PG - Deron Williams

[migya]

Looks like good matchups allround. Ezeli could be a big factor defensively.

[martin]

looking for for this one.
i hope lakers new uptempo game wears them down and we grab threads into our hands from get go (if thompson klanks and doesn't defend, quick sub, enough of baby love) and keep pushing it to them, throwing different players on them, greening them, barnesing them, currying them, jarreding them, leeing them, well you get the drift.

we somehow seem to have been better on the road. time to show whose ground is Oracle.

i saw some mean demeanor in curry yesterday, keep it up, young fella.

I'd like to see them gassed in LA, too, martin... But the other way the cookie crumbles would be LA blows them out so badly, they save their starters for the tail end of the back to back (ala us against OKC). I'll be very interested to see how many minutes their horses log tonight. On paper, they look like the better team. But you never know with Barnes playing like Pierce and Curry suddenly turning into one of the league's stone cold closers.

I say it's a nail-biter and whoever leads going into the 4th is taking it.

[martin]

I think of it like this - even if LA gets the big lead their starters will be sat for rest and i don't think there's worse bench than the lakers' one, so every team will tend to get back at Lakers during bench stretches, which to me looks like there are not many blow-outs lakers will produce, more like comfortable 10-11 points wins around 110-100 score.
i don't like nets one bit, maybe because they are sporting black-white so reminiscent of spurs. i don't think they are much better than warriors, even on paper. and they struggle to score.

Well, certainly, without Bogut, Rush, and Jefferson, you must admit they look superior on paper? Look at their starting 5 compared to ours:

Robin's bro > Festus
Kim's ex < DLee
Crash > Barnes
The $125 million man > Klay
DWill > Curry

And their bench is no slouch either. You say Landry, Jack, and a rolling Draymond Green... They'll give you a rejuvenated Andre Blache, along with Marshon Brooks, Reggie Evans, CJ Watson, Josh Childress, Keith Bogans, the Russian stud MTV... It's a deep roster.

This is no easy win, dude. Especially if Klay stays cold, cause you gotta believe Crash is gonna upset Barnes' rhythm a liiiiittle bit, and if Williams knocks Curry early, we've seen how shaken Steph gets with physical defense. And while Lee has been decent so far, he hasn't looked sharp when teams have turned him into a volume shooter this year. If Reggie Evans and Humphries are allowed to thump Lee without whistles, this game is as good as over. We need free throws to beat this team.

[Blackfoot]

The thing about the Nets is that they don't play defense.

[martin]

Well, certainly, without Bogut, Rush, and Jefferson, you must admit they look superior on paper? Look at their starting 5 compared to ours:

Robin's bro > Festus
Kim's ex < DLee
Crash > Barnes
The $125 million man > Klay
DWill > Curry

And their bench is no slouch either. You say Landry, Jack, and a rolling Draymond Green... They'll give you a rejuvenated Andre Blache, along with Marshon Brooks, Reggie Evans, CJ Watson, Josh Childress, Keith Bogans, the Russian stud MTV... It's a deep roster.

This is no easy win, dude. Especially if Klay stays cold, cause you gotta believe Crash is gonna upset Barnes' rhythm a liiiiittle bit, and if Williams knocks Curry early, we've seen how shaken Steph gets with physical defense. And while Lee has been decent so far, he hasn't looked sharp when teams have turned him into a volume shooter this year. If Reggie Evans and Humphries are allowed to thump Lee without whistles, this game is as good as over. We need free throws to beat this team.

i'm not a fan of robin lopez, i think festus can neutralize him and make him shoot jumpers, he's definition of soft and can't rebound. so, while he's better offensively, it hink in game situation it could be a wash with ezeli outrebounding him and forcing him to bad shooting night, like the one he just had at sacramento.

i remember lee having trouble with humphreys last year, it's like the center position (above) except the reverse. i see him giving fits to lee and outrebounding him. except i suppose lee will score much, so slight advantage here.

crash is seven hundred years old and is returning after injury, i'm sure a back to back will be tough for him. he was -11 vs kings and couldn't produce against salmons. at this point i will take barnes. he was good against kirilenko who is much better than wallace. matchup - barnes.

joe johnson. not much discussion here. with klay being in this major slump, this scares me some.though, i would put barnes on joe and green on wallace to equalize the double matchup.

deron williams is only player that i see no chance of neutralizing. but i see curry coming out strong with newly gained confidence (if that ankle he strained yesterday keeps tight) and jackson maybe finally letting him run the show like last 5 mins and overtime of dallas game.

so, while i say their starting five looks better if only by having deron williams, it does not look so much better to me.
bench: besides andrey blatche all their players either can't defend or can't score. jackson will post up cj with anyone whom he guards, for example, jack and jack should eat him alive.

i take landry over evans.

bogans, childress doesn't play that much. and who is russian mtv i don't know.

so, yeah, i don't think we should expect to lose. go, push the tempo, defend and give yourself a chance to win this one. i see us as 45-55 underdog against them, just because of williams. take him out of the lineup, i see us as 60-40 favourite.

[Blackfoot]

Joe Johnson is shooting really bad so far, almost as bad as Klay. They will be fine, hopefully he stays in his slump.

Deron Williams has become pretty overrated. He hasn't been the same player for the last two years honestly. I think Curry on Williams is closer than you guys think.

[martin]

also, nets have yet to beat one good team, their only win against a bit better opponent being win against the celtics, which in their own right have yet to beat a good team (3 out of six wins coming (2) against washington, barely, and (1) toronto without lowry).

while we can't boast much either, we won at clippers, gave fits to denver (which were coming out of a slump and getting on a roll) and lost to other three power house teams with a stinker at kings.

i say we have a real chance.

[Blackfoot]

Watching the Nets vs. Lakers is fun as hell because neither are playing good defense right now while both are playing good offense.

Close game tonight; demoralizing loss that slipped away in the second half. That's all good news for us.

Williams and Curry are definitely close. In fact, the only current players that put up more assists AND points than Curry are LeBron James, Russell Westbrook, and Damian Lillard... But Williams is less than 1 point behind him and putting up 2 extra dimes.

David Lee's 11 RPG average doesn't look to hold up vs Brooklyn. Hope I'm wrong.

[Blackfoot]

They are a good rebounding team with a bad rebounding center. Doesn't happen often.

A constant tandem of Humphries and Evans will do that. The good thing is those guys will pick up as many fouls as boards.

I dunno if I'd say they don't play defense, BF. Individually, Wallace, Humphries, Evans, and Watson are all plus defenders and Avery Johnson is definitely a defensive coach. I understand, their big 3 (Lopez, Johnson, Williams) are matadors, but a lot of their role players pick up the slack.

[Blackfoot]

Yeah, they do, you are right.