Category: Golden State Warriors Blog

Here’s the San Francisco Chronicle raving about the 27-5 Golden State Warriors, who have played better basketball than anybody so far this season and finally deserve to be taken seriously in championship-contender discussions:

These are the new Warriors. The ones who demand your attention and all the superlatives you can lavish upon them. The team that doesn’t miss a beat — even when it loses arguably its key player, Andrew Bogut.

“They’re the best team in basketball,” Oklahoma City head coach Scott Brooks said, while refusing to excuse his team for an off night. “They’re a great team. They outplayed us.”

Though their play and the record shows that’s true, it’s still hard to get used to hearing such words spoken about the Golden State Warriors.

This is becoming more than merely a special start. This is now, more than two months into the season, becoming mind-blowing. The Warriors are looking like a championship contender.

Here’s CSN Bay Area reporting on the Golden State Warriors, who are having a fantastic season, and seem to be sticking with David Lee as a reserve, not a starter:

Coach Steve Kerr on Tuesday made official what had been presumed for weeks. Draymond Green, who assumed the role when Lee strained his left hamstring in the Oct. 24 preseason finale, is the starting power forward until further notice.

“With David, I wasn’t planning on bringing him off the bench,” Kerr said. “But he got hurt. He had a great preseason. He was going to be the starting (power forward). He got hurt. I put Draymond out there. Draymond took the job.”

Lee missed the first three regular-season games, returned for the fourth and was re-injured after seven minutes. He missed the next 21 games, a period during which the Warriors put together the best start in franchise history (22-3) and reeled off a franchise-record 16-game win streak before Lee returned Dec. 22.

“At that stage,” Kerr said, “you’re going to stick with what got you to 22-3.”

Here’s CSN Bay Area reporting on the Warriors, who have the best winning percentage in the NBA and yesterday had the pleasure of facing the 76ers:

This one was, for the Warriors, a case of a game playing out on the court as it does on paper. It was, to be kind, the result of a grotesquely unfair matchup.

Their 126-86 pulverizing of the profoundly awful 76ers Tuesday night was a matter of simple superiority at work. What was particularly noteworthy, though, was the way the Warriors finished the game.

They punctuated it with an authoritative performance by a bench squad that typically has given back much of the lead the starters have built.

“I was really pleased with the ball movement,” coach Steve Kerr said. “What made me most happy was the way our reserves closed the game. We’ve had some blowout wins where we didn’t close it right and got lethargic. Our guys really played through the final 12 minutes.”

Santa Cruz Warriors forward Joe Alexander was today named NBA Development League Performer of the Week for games played Monday, Nov. 24 – Sunday, Nov. 30. The honor is the first of Alexander’s career.

Alexander (6-8, 220, West Virginia) averaged 26.7 points on 57 percent shooting from the floor (35-of-62) to go with 9.3 rebounds as the Warriors went 2-1 last week. He scored a season-high 35 points on Nov. 25 against the Bakersfield Jam in defeat before recording double-doubles in the team’s next two contests, both wins over the Rio Grande Valley Vipers.

The eighth overall selection in the 2008 NBA Draft, Alexander is in his second year with the Warriors. For the season, he is averaging a Warriors-best 21.4 points, good for 12th in the NBA D-League, to go with 8.6 rebounds and 29.7 minutes.

Other top performers considered include Austin’s Bryce Cotton, Bakersfield’s Elijah Millsap, Idaho’s Joel Wright, Maine’s Tim Frazier, and Texas’ Eric Griffin.

Stephen Curry scores 40 points vs Heat

The Golden State Warriors, playing on the road, beat the Miami Heat 114-97 Tuesday. They enjoyed an amazing performance from Stephen Curry, who so far in the 2014-15 NBA season is playing as well as anyone in the league. Golden State is now 11-2. Here’s CSN Bay Area reporting:

As good as he had been through 12 games, we knew Stephen Curry was capable of more. The Warriors point guard was going to demoralize some poor team, and soon. The only questions were when and which team.

It was Tuesday night against the Heat in Miami.

Curry went off for 40 points in a 114-97 win at American Airlines Arena. Of his 19 shots, 12 splashed through the net. He was even better on 3-pointers, drilling 8-of-11. Because he could, Curry added seven assists, six rebounds and three steals.

“I thought he played the perfect game,” coach Steve Kerr said, “so I’m pretty happy with everything he did.”

The Golden State Warriors have recalled guard Justin Holiday and center Ognjen Kuzmic from the Santa Cruz Warriors of the NBA Development League, the team announced today. The duo helped lead Santa Cruz to a 122-95 season-opening victory over the Los Angeles D-Fenders last night in Santa Cruz.

Holiday scored a team-high 26 points to go along with six rebounds, four assists, two blocks and one steal in 36 minutes. Kuzmic finished with six points, a team-high 14 rebounds, three assists, two blocks and one steal in 29 minutes.

Here’s the San Francisco Chronicle reporting on the Golden State Warriors, who at 5-0 heading into Sunday were the final team in the league that hadn’t lost a game yet this short NBA season. But after a battle with the Phoenix Suns, they’re now 5-1.

Throughout his team’s 5-0 start, head coach Steve Kerr had been harping on the Warriors’ unnecessary turnovers, imploring them to make the simple passes rather than dumb plays “that would make a sixth-grader blush.”

At long last, those miscues cost them a game.

The Warriors’ unbeaten record ended in a flurry of turnovers, on tired legs, as a Golden State team down two starters couldn’t hold on to a 13-point lead on the second night of a back-to-back set.

With Klay Thompson injured and Stephen Curry in foul trouble, the Warriors committed a season-high 27 turnovers — and scored a season-low 16 points in the fourth quarter — as the Suns rallied for a 107-95 win.

“It came back to haunt us,” Kerr said of the poor ball-handling. “You’re not going to win in the league turning it over 26 times. … We were our own worst enemy, and we got what we deserved.”

Curry finished with 28 points, 10 assists and 10 turnovers. Draymond Green added 22 points and tied a career high with four blocks.