Golden State Warriors Play Tough, Lose Heartbreaker

The Golden State Warriors played the San Antonio Spurs tough on their home court. A place that they have not won since 1997, and again it was their nemesis, but to be honest the Warriors hung tough with the Spurs.

I was not able to watch the game at all except for the closing seconds of the game. It was a thrilling finish to the game. The Warriors were trailing by three with just under a minute and a half remaining.

I was able to watch as Kelenna Azubuike took a long two pointer to get the Warriors within one point at 105-104. As I was watching the shot go up I immediately shuddered a little bit because I felt like it wasn't the best shot the Warriors could have gotten, but the shot was money and Kelenna hit the clutch jumper.

Tony Parker brings the ball down the court and passed the ball to guess who? Tim Duncan who was being guarded by Ronny Turiaf. Was it another clutch basket by Duncan? Nope.

Turiaf held his ground and Stephen Jackson on a double was able to knock the ball away and got it to a streaking Azubuike who scored on a layup to give the Warriors the one point lead at 106-105.

The Spurs had an excellent but simple designed play. The Spurs got the ball to Roger Mason JR who's been clutch as of late and he didn't disappoint and made the shot easily over a slow reacting Ronny Turiaf. The score 107-106.

The Warriors had 23.6 seconds left in the game when they got the ball back after a timeout. The ball was inbounded to Monta Ellis of course.

Who took the ball up the court used a screen and at the time had a somewhat decent look at the basket, but Kurt Thomas made an excellent defensive play and made the shot a little difficult for Ellis because he got his hand up.

The problem I had with the shot that the Warriors still had about seven seconds remaining in the game and the actual shot by Ellis was taken a little bit outside of his range it was almost a three. The shot itself came up just short.

What I would have liked to see Ellis do in a situation like that when he knows there's a defender coming at him either don't pull up like he did, keep the dribble alive and step around the oncoming defender and get to the hoop.

If Ellis wasn't able to drive by Thomas then he should have at least tried to get contact from Thomas to get to the free throw line.

The Spurs of course got the rebound and Kurt Thomas was immediately fouled. He missed both free throws and the Warriors had a chance to go home victorious. Ellis tried a desperation three, but the shot wasn't even close to being made.

The Warriors were unable to advance the ball to half court due to using all of their timeouts, but I did have a problem with how they inbounded the ball. The ball was passed to about the free throw line of the Spurs basket where there was not many defenders around.

I believe the pass should have been more towards half court so Ellis could use his speed to get to a spot so that he could nail a mid range jumper or at least get fouled, but that didn't happen.

What I'm hoping for Ellis during the offseason he'll learn how to anticipate that kind of sequence and also use better time management as well. So, if the shot does go in there's less time remaining for the opposing to get a decent look.

From looking at the scoring by quarters the game was never out of hand for the Warriors they were in it throughout which is definitely a great sign for such a young team especially when playing a great team like the Spurs.

Onto some cons though, Corey Maggette is continuing to struggle he went 1-8 from the field and just 4-6 from the line and only scoring six points in just under 22 minutes.

What I would like to see from Don Nelson when Maggette is struggling like that is to put in Anthony Morrow because in just 15 minutes of action he went 2-4 from the field and scored six points. Both makes were threes and he continues to lead the league in three point percentage.

Onto the pros of the game. Monta Ellis continued his strong play with 27 points on 12-26 shooting, he also had five rebounds, three assists, and more importantly 0 turnovers.

The biggest bright spot for the Warriors was the play of Anthony Randolph. He went 5-12 from the field, 3-4 from the line scored 13 points, grabbed nine rebounds, had five blocked shots, and had just one foul in just over 25 minutes.

Overall the loss was heartbreaking, but the continued improvement of Randolph is something exciting for Warriors fans to be able to watch as he improves from game to game.

Another thing I would like to see change is for Nelson to start employing Monta at the point instead, so he can get a taste of what it is like because over the summer that's what Ellis will no doubtedly be working on and it would be nice to see the pressure eased of Jackson of being the dominant ball handler.

The reason being it will cut Jackson's turnovers down, in tonight's game he had five turnovers.