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Warriors' small ball hurts half-court defense, rebounding; more from Game 3 win
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Allen Iverson scored 18 points to surpass the 24,000 mark for his career.
While the changes the Warriors made certainly helped on offense Wednesday, they also created a few problems on defense and rebounding.
The Warriors were outrebounded 55-43 by the Grizzlies in Wednesday's 113-105 win, the Warriors' first of the season in three games. They also allowed the Grizzlies to shoot 48.8 percent from the floor as the small lineup had particular problems in half-court defense.
"They had so many mismatches, they didn't know which one to go to at times," Warriors coach Don Nelson said of the Grizzlies, who came into the game leading the league in rebounding and rebounding margin, and got 57 points and 32 rebounds from their starting frontcourt of Rudy Gay, Zach Randolph and Marc Gasol.
But that was the tradeoff for the improved offense, which spread the floor and created its own mismatches that proved effective -- mostly because Anthony Morrow and the Warriors shot 54 percent from the field for the game.
In the first quarter, however, the Warriors weren't hitting their shots and the Grizzlies went on a 20-2 run during which the Warriors made just 1-of-11 from the field with two turnovers. For the quarter, the Warriors shot 8-for-25 and the worst stat of all was that on their 17 missed shots, the Warriors grabbed exactly zero offensive rebounds. The Grizzlies had a 21-9 edge on the glass and a 29-19 edge on the scoreboard despite the Warriors jumping out to an 11-4 lead.
"We're going to get outrebounded most of the time anyways," Nelson said. "So we have to be good in other areas."
The Warriors found their shot in the second quarter, hitting 16-of-24 to score 38 points in the frame and take a 57-56 lead at the half, and continued their impressive shooting throughout the second half.
More random observations from Wednesday's home victory:
-- Six minutes into the game, the Grizzlies brought Allen Iverson off the bench and he was matched up against Stephen Curry. That means Curry has now faced Steve Nash and Iverson, two future Hall of Famers, just three games into his NBA career. Welcome to the show.
-- Iverson finished with 18 points to give him 24,012 for his career, becoming just the 16th player in NBA history to reach 24,000 points.
-- Stephen Jackson, knowing what it's like to have the hot shooting hand and wanting the ball, actually passed up more than one open jumper of his own and made the extra pass to get the ball to Anthony Morrow, who was 10-of-12 for 24 points.
-- Kelenna Azubuike started but played only 16 minutes and finished with six points -- all on dunks -- after averaging 15 points per game off the bench the first two games. The Warriors were -20 on the scoreboard while he was in. On the positive side, he ran the court well and finished strong, showing no signs of the ankle injury that slowed him during training camp.
-- At the 9:30 mark of the first quarter, Monta Ellis drove the lane then kicked the ball out to Curry, who calmly drained the uncontested 3-pointer. It's a play the Warriors should see at least 500 times this year.
-- The fear of Jackson and Corey Maggette playing power forward: opposing 4s will be forced to sag off on defense for fear that their smaller, quicker opponents will drive past them. Jackson and Maggette have a tendency to fall in love with their jumpers, especially when given space, and will keep shooting from the outside rather than driving to the basket, no matter how many times they miss.
-- Andris Biedrins picked up his third foul at the 6:33 mark of the first quarter and instead of bringing in Anthony Randolph, the new backup center, Nelson turned to Mikki Moore, who had two points and four rebounds in 21 minutes. Randolph played just seven minutes, posting four points and three rebounds.
-- The Warriors didn't get their first offensive rebound until the 7:10 mark of the second quarter -- a put-back by Ellis on his own miss.
-- The second-quarter surge came with Ellis at the point, Morrow at the shooting guard and Jackson and Maggette at forward.
-- Defensively, the Warriors are not going to block a lot of shots and prevent opposing offenses from doing what they want. Effective defense for this team will be contesting jumpers and creating turnovers, which they did Wednesday. They took chances, swiping at balls from behind and overplaying passing lanes in hopes of getting steals. They finished with 10 steals and 32 fastbreak points.
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