[Chaser's Warriors 07-08] RETIRED INDEFINITELY...........

[Andy92_man]

47-9??? You're doing doing great. Keep it up!!!

[Chaser7]

Warriors 1st Half Review

San Francisco, CA (AP) -- Just a week after the league's All-Star break, it is now time for us to look back at the Golden State Warriors' success and troubles, and see how this will affect their playoff run.

Holding the best record in the NBA for 16 consecutive weeks, it is safe to say that they will probably hold onto this title. They have yet to lose 2 games in a week so far, much less 2 in row. Some fans have wondered can they match the 1995-1996 Chicago Bulls? Well we doubt it for 2 reasons.

First, they have already lost 9 times. This is a little worse than the Bulls were 56 games in. At that points the Bulls had still lost only 5 games. More importantly though, this edition of the Warriors have been very lucky at times. They have had more than a few 20+ point rallies and while this is partly due to their amazing chemistry, it also slightly due to a call here, a bounce there, etc.

Make no doubt about it, the Warriors are a very strong team and have very little weaknesses. Obviously their primary weakness is there rebounding ability, but they know how to score at will, so they can negate other team's second chance points. Don Nelson has really figured out to play to the Warriors' strengths this year, so we expect them to advance even further into the playoffs this year.


Baron Davis l Gilbert Arenas

So far the gamble to trade for former Warrior and current superstar Gilbert Arenas has paid incredible dividends. He is averaging a team hight 29.5 points, 3.1 rebounds, and 4.0 assists per game and along with Baron Davis form one of the most potent backcourts in the NBA. Davis is averaging 20.6 points, 2.8 rebounds and 6.5 assists per game. Teams are usually confused as to how to match up with them, as both are great at getting to the basket and can both knock down the 3.

Another key reason for the Warriors' excellence this year is due to their lack of injuries so far. In the 2006-2007 season, Warrior players combined for over 200 games missed, including Davis who missed 19 by himself. When Davis came back, the Warriors seemed unbeatable, but when he was re-injured in the 1st around against the Dallas Mavericks, and then they had to match up against the Utah Jazz the Warriors came apart. Many fans blame his injury as the primary reason for Golden State's defeat.

So what does this add up to? How far can the "Dubs" go this year? We're going to make 2 different predictions right now. The only team the Warriors have yet to beat so far are the Phoenix Suns. Losing in the 5th week of the season 105-91, and then just a week and a half ago 130-127 in overtime. Both losses were at home too. Golden State plays Phoenix 2 more times though in the season. One is in the middle in March and the other is the last game of the regular season. Both teams will probably rest their starters for this game after they have clinched playoff spots. Therefore, if the Warriors are able to beat Phoenix in the playoffs or don't have to face them, then we expect them to go all the way. If not, then it could be another tough playoff defeat for the Warriors and their fans.

[Phantom18]

Chaser7, this looks good
but ehhhhh this forum is dead it seems noone besides me now has posted since 5:53, thats not good haha

[Lamrock]

I wonder if I'm the only one who actually reads the recaps.

Very well-written recap. I just know you will even that season series against Phoenix. 70 games is a stretch, but it can be done. It would redeem the decade-long playoff drought.

[TheMC5]

Nice looking article. Could Phoenix be to your Warriors as last year's Warriors were to the Mavs? Here's to hoping you either beat them at least once in the season, or don't have to play them in the playoffs.

[Lamrock]

I wouldn't mind seeing the Suns being like you were to the Mavs. Would make an excellent season all for naught, but hey, its poetic justice.

I was mostly pissed at the Warriors for winning because after that, the rest of the playoffs were absolute dogshit because of it, with no excitement outside of the Pistons/Cavs series whatsoever.

Looking forward to see how you fare over the final third of the season and the playoffs!

[Chaser7]

Andr_92 thanks glad that you keep checking in commenting...
Gotti chill its a saturday night, i would be out too if i werent grounded
lamrock #1 thanks man for spending the time to read my recaps/articles and stuff/ I hope your not the only one haha
MC5thanks for checking my dynasty out man, and I hope not
lamrock #2 wow. The warriors RUINED the playoffs for you? Are you serious? That series was incredible, even if I didnt live in San Francisco, the Warriors would have msde it more interesting. Also, did you miss the Suns/SPurs series, that was amazing. Although Jazz/Spurs was a snoozefest & Spurs/Cavs too...

[Clutch]

man i wish this was the Dubs real life record! but at least we're winning again and slowly crawling back to .500

anyway, nice so far; GL w/the playoff run or more so, GL maintaining the top seed than anything else

[looser]

I think u have the most incredible team ever!!!!

Maybe not so good center but...damn...Arenas, Davis, Beli, Jackson.... wuawuawiwi

Great Article too!!!!

[Chaser7]

Week #18
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l 2-0 @ home l 0-0 on road l 2-0 overall l No Injuries l
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@
(13-42)--------------------------(47-9)

Box Score
Warriors: 110
Seattle: 87

Warriors Rout Durant, Sonics


The Warriors "7" watched another final quarter from the bench
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Salt Lake City, UT. (AP Press) -- Golden State Coach Don Nelson told his players before the game if they limited star rookie Kevin Durant they would easily defeat the visiting Seattle Supersonics. Well the Warriors are listening- they limited Durant to a rough shooting night, as he shot 5-14 and finished with a tough 15 points.

Meanwhile the Warriors were playing as carefree as ever, racing up and down the floor and taking a commanding lead before the game was barely a quarter over. After the 1st period Golden State led 33-16, and by half time stretch the lead to 63-37.

"Its tough man, seeing a team like that having so much fun," said Durant. "You see them all relaxed and loose, but at the same time getting the job done. Obviously this is a tough year for Seattle and its fans, and we're not playing with any heart. I forced too many shots tonight, and the Warriors took advantage."

Indeed they did, with the usual suspects leading the way. Gilbert Arenas scored a game high 23 points and had 4 assists, 3 rebounds and 2 steals. Baron Davis had 19 points and 7 assists and the 18th pick in the draft, Marco Belinelli had 18 points in just 14 minutes. Stephen Jackson had 12 points on 4-7 shooting and Al Harrington had 7 points, 5 assists, and 3 rebounds.

"You know, its just fun when we get to a point like this. Running up and down the court ain't hard no more, Coach has done a great job getting us ready. We all feel great, this is how basketball is supposed to be played," said Davis.

The Sonics could not be more different. After losing star players Ray Allen and Rashard Lewis to trades, Seattle is now struggling mightily. The Sonics did manage to put 5 players in double figures, but as a team only scored 87 points against a team not exactly known for the defensive power. Luke Ridnour had an excellent game scoring 19 points, dishing out 5 assists and grabbing 3 rebounds, but most of his damage was done during the 4th quarter, when the game had long been decided. Wally Szczerbiak had 17 points on 6-9 shooting, but also had an unimpressive 6 turnovers.

The Warriors now play their last game of the month against the Andre Iguadola and the visiting Philadelphia 76ers.



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@
(32-27)--------------------------(48-9)

Box Score
Warriors: 110
Philadelphia: 105

Warriors hold off 76ers


Davis knows how to score
----------------------------------

Oakland, CA. (AP Press) -- One more to go.

One more victory before the Don Nelson and his Golden State Warriors reach their preseason goal. Yet, this game was not as it easy as it should had been because the Philadelphia 76ers would not go away. Trailing by 10 entering the final period, many Warrior fans had already made up their minds that victory 49 was in the bag.

Yet, Kyle Korver and Andre Miller led a decisive rally to tie the game up at 96 with 2:32 to go. Korver was MVP-like in the final period scoring 18 of his game high 29 points then. Trailing by 12 with 4:12 to go, Korver hit back to back to back 3-pointers to slice the Warrior lead to 3 with 3:02 to go. Then after a Warrior miss, Andre Miller drove in and drew the foul to tie the game at 96.

Andre Iguadola was jumping up and down and one could hear some excited 76er fans up in top sections of the Oracle Arena. Nelson called timeout, and the Warrior players regrouped. Baron Davis nailed his 8th 3-pointer of the game right after the timeout to give the Warriors the lead for good, 99-96. Davis finished with 26 points on 8-11 shooting, missing his only 2 point field goal, and tied his career high of 3-pointers in a game with 8.

However, the real hero of the game was Stephen Jackson who finished with 13 points, 5 assists and 3 rebounds. While his statistics don't jump out at you, if you had watched the game you would have known. Jackson hit 4 jumpers in the last 2 minutes, almost all off of feeds from Davis, putting the game's outcome to rest.

"Andre, kept leaving me open for looks to help on BD, and he kept finding me. Those mid-range jumpers are easy dawg," said Jackson.

Other key Warriors included, Gilbert Arenas who had 29 points on 11-18 shooting, and Marco Belinelli who had 22 points, also on 8-11 shooting in 18 productive minutes. Al Harrington flirted with a triple double, but ended with 9 points, 9 rebounds and 7 assists.

Unfortunately, Golden State played poor defense, allowing the 76ers to rack up some impressive stats. Miller had 23 points and an amazing 14 assists, Iguadola had 19 points. Recently signed Eddie Griffin had 12 points, on 4-4 3-point shooting. Samuel Dalembert had 9 points and 7 rebounds.



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Current Playoff Matchupsl

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Power Rankings

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Season Standings
Pacific
Northwest
Southwest
Atlantic
Central
Southeast

Award Winners

West Rookie of the Month
East Rookie of the Month


West Player of the Month
East Player of the Month

MVP Candidates


Rookie Watch
Marco Belinelli: 15.2 ppg l 2.9 rpg l 2.5 apg l 18.67 mpg l
Brandan Wright: 6.0 ppg l 4.7 rpg l 1.3 apg l 19.84 mpg l
-----------------------------------------

Monthly Transactions
Lakers trade M. Evans to Trailblazers for D. Jones
Lakers trade C. Mihm to Nets for D. Fisher (Fisher traded back.. but at least not for Jaron Collins... wow)
-----------------------------------------

League Leaders
D. Nowitzki 43.1 ppg
C. Bosh 39.8 ppg
K. Bryant 39.1 ppg
------------------------
T. Duncan 7.7 rpg
S. O'Neal 6.7 rpg
Y. Ming 6.6 ppg
------------------------
B. Davis 1.71 spg
G. Arenas 0.88 spg
K. Bryant 0.86 spg
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A. Miller 7.0 apg
T. Duncan 7.0 apg
B. Davis 6.5 apg
---------------------------------------------

Injuries
l Shane Battier l unplayable l strained calf muscle l 10 days l
l Rashard Lewis l unplayable l strained achilles tendon l 10 days l
l Tyson Chandler l playable l sprained wrist l 4 days l

[Chaser7]

Clutch Thanks for checking back in, and yea wouldn't it be nice if we were doing this good?? haha, and yea thank god we're climbing back, at least we're not Chicago haha

looser haha thanks, It is a pretty deadly combo, and Harrington is pretty strong, my favorite lineup is to play Davis + Arenas + Belinelli + Jackson + Harrington. Biedrens isn't awful, but he gets fatigued too easily....

Keep checking in everyone!

[Lamrock]

Still on fire. 70 wins is looking like reality! You just need to go 21-3!

[homicide1550]

Man! you could beat the Bulls’ all-time record for season wins. They did 70-12 in a season right? Or was that 72-10? Kinda confused here. hehe...

[Chaser7]

Lamrock yea it'd be tough, and I don't know if I can do it. Once I began 8-1, I thought I might even be able to catch the 72-10 Bulls, but now I doubt I can. BTW, I'm surprised this was never brought up, but you know how everyone thought the Mavs might have been able to win 70 last year in the regular season, well they never even won 70 games total, winning just 69 including the post-season. haha!

homicide I doubt it, and to clarify, the Bulls went 72-10 in 1995-1996. Thanks for checking in and keep commenting!

[Lamrock]

Can't wait for the next update. Looking forward to seeing your Warriors break the 50 win mark in the first time in __ years (Don't know the number because I'm not a Warriors expert), even though I hate Golden State.

[Chaser7]

Thanks Lamrock, glad to see you continually checking in. Really appreciate it.

Here are my next few future updates:

a) Plan to start a bi-weekly Gilbert Arenas blog, like the one he does on NBA.com
example here: http://www.nba.com/blog/gilbert_arenas.html

b) Also on a much more minor scale, I'm going to compile of list of everyone who has checking in at least twice

[Clutch]

An 'AgentZero' blog sounds cool man; hope that works out

[Chaser7]

Yea he's a funny writer, I actually look for updates on his blog when I'm really bored. He is really cocky, he had like a whole post about him being on the cover [of live], when usually he splits up each post into multiple sections.. haha

[homicide1550]

Agent Zero is probably the cockiest player in the NBA, but I really like the guy... He is really funny.. Its a shame he wont be at the All Star game because of his injury. I was voting for him everyday and the injury ruined it.

[Chaser7]

March Madness Baby!
Posted by Gilbert Arenas on March 1st 2008, 4:30 ET, PERMALINK


We're Rolling baby
Ned Dishman/NBAE/Getty Images

No All-Star Festivities
Maaan, I don't get it. I'm on the best team in the league, and I'm more or less playing my best basketball of my career. I'm exciting- I'm on the cover of NBA Live 08, but I didn't get invited to the All-Star game. What is going on? Obviously I knew it would be tough to start in the West with guys like Kobe, T-Mac and Nash out here, but still at least I should had been a reserve. No love for my main man B-Diddy either. Although he got to participate and win the Dunk contest, (That dunk was SIIICK).

C'mon what is up with that? I'm averaging a career high in points (29.5 compared to in '06 when I had 29.3) and my assists and rebounds are just about the same. I know there are a lot of deserving players but me and Baron definitely deserved it. I didn't even get to be in the 3-point shootout, I'm the back to back 2nd place finisher. 3rd times a charm, but I didn't get the chance. That was so whack man. C'mon, Commish, show the Warriors some love here.

At least our boy Marco got to ball it up. Man did you see the game, kid can play ball. 50 points! Thats woulda been a record for the rookie game if Brandon Roy hadn't dropped 57 too. At least Marco led his team to victory and took home the MVP Trophy so take that ROY!

50 wins
We're closing in on our first 50-win seasons since 1993-1994. I remember when I was first with the Warriors, we were really bad. Now we're the best, tops in the league. 49 & 9- and we all still think we have a decent shot at 70, maybe even 72, but thats going to be pretty tough. We're also rebounding nicely from the loss against Phoenix, 5 in a row now, currently, and 18 of the last 19. Thats damn impressive. This is easily the best season I've ever had. The team is loose, the chemistry is great and Nelli is coaching us well. We're running down the floor, confusing teams with our multiple shooters, and forcing defensive plays.

One More Thing
Last thing before I go, I guarantee one 60 point game before the season is over. I haven't had one yet, I want to make sure I record one by the playoffs. I'll try and get it against Phoenix in a couple weeks, since we haven't beaten them yet, but that part isn't guaranteed. We usually all score a lot against the Suns, so its hard to get big numbers, we'll see though.

[Lamrock]

Nice idea, although the hard thing about making something like this is the player's writing style and personality is hard to capture in it, but an excellent effort and twist to the story.

Just be sure to change the date posted (You wrote March 2007, rather than March 2008.)

Its a shame Arenas won't be in the All-Star festivities, as he is my favorite player in the league, and now he can't win the 3 trophies he could have won. (Skills, 3PT and ASG MVP)

However, considering his popularity, him being voted into the All-Star game, and him returning from injury early (He should be cleared to play a few days before the All Star break if I'm not mistaken) could lead to this being possible though...

[Chaser7]

Yeah thanks for the feedback, it was really hard to do. I tried to capture his style by re-reading some of his posts, but maybe I should making up story lines for him rather than just NBA talk, since those are only usually part of his posts.

And thanks for the notice, 2008 just looks so weird right now, haha. Although I didn't realize that I "just had to change it" haha. But thanks for noticing.

[Chaser7]

Ok any followers out there, I would like some input.

Lately, I've been extremely busy with basketball and the end of the semester coming. With a daunting week for the Warriors ahead of me (5 games this week), I keep putting off playing them. I've been a little lazy I guess. I want to finish this regular season in 2 weeks or so.

I want to start a new dynasty around christmas time (on my Xbox 360, better sim stats, and gameplay), but I don't want to just abandon this one. Obviously I've come very far with this one, having recaped 18 weeks already. For either of the 2 chocies, I will do game by game, espn.com style recaps for the playoffs. So here are my 2 suggestions:

1) Continue doing this the way I'm doing, (AKA full week by week stuff) this is the slower option, and will make it near impossible I think to finish this one by the holidays. But if the majority really want this option then I will comply.

2) Do two Month by Month recaps (for March and April), which will be very detailed, and I will sim all the games.

If anyone else has an alternative method, please post it here! And if you've been following and not commenting, now would be a great time to show your support and give your feedback.


Thanks!

[Lamrock]

I would go with choice 1. The 360 dynasty can be delayed (I would want a break after finishing a huge dynasty!), but you must finish this. -km- quit his dynasty with 7 games to go, ruining any climax, and cursing him in his next 2 dynasties. Finish this, and it will be looked at as a masterpiece when it is done.

[Chaser7]

Well I wouldn't do it his (-Km-) way.

More like looser's way in his Warriors one. He simmed the last 2 months, and then did game by game playoff recaps, which If you noticed I said I would do. Hope this clarifies what I meant earlier. So either way, I'd do full game by game recaps for the playoffs, I'd just sim the rest of the regular season and do month by month recaps for March and April. Does that sound better?

But if you along with anyone else really prefer that I completely finish this with full week by week recaps I'll definitely do that.