When the Warriors made a run at the Celtics Wednesday night, Ronny Turiaf was playing power forward and Andris Biedrins was at center. In other words, the Warriors were playing a traditional lineup with two big men. This kind of lineup must be uninteresting to Don Nelson who loves to put four midgets and a center out there, but it was effective.
So I want to propose something. I propose that Nelson should use this lineup more often:
Jamal Crawford
Stephen Jackson
Corey Maggette
Ronny Turiaf
Andris Biedrins
The two big guys give the Warriors good interior defense and solid rebounding. It's true Turiaf can't score but the Warriors don't need him to score as the other four are good scorers. I can't see anyone else on the team who should start at power forward over Turiaf. Until now Brandan Wright has been much too soft inside. He went for a dunk in traffic last night and almost got blasted out of the building. Then Nelson took him out.
When Monta Ellis gets back the Warriors can have a backcourt of Ellis and Crawford. It is a good scoring backcourt although neither is a defensive whiz. Maggette can become the sixth man. He would be good at that, instant offense and all that. He is not a good starter because he hogs the ball, almost never passes and throws crummy passes when he tries. He never makes anyone else better -- he's a free-lancer in a team sport. So he could be the sixth man.
On this Thanksgiving day that's what I think about the Warriors.
"Midgets" is derogatory. It is the equivalent of dropping an N-bomb. In the future, you might want to use "dwarfs" instead.
You nailed it. The only way they will have a chance. Maggette can lead the second group and give Jackson some rest.
Nellie will never do this. He wants to put corey at the number 4 spot to spread out the court. But yeah i do agree with Turiaf at the 4 spot more often. He does provide a lot of spark and defense the warriors desperately need.
The current version of small ball is not working, since the team cannot push the ball downcourt before the opposition can set the defense. I agree Nelson had better play bigger with Turiaf and Biedrens together. They also have too much duplication or roles (Wright/Randolph),(Maggette/Jackson/Buike),(Morrow/Marco). The one big bruiser they had was sent to "D" league (Hendrix), so I hope Nelson makes changes, or he is looking at plus 50 losses for the season.
Hey Mr. Cohn:
Your blog isn't working when I use Mozilla Firefox from home for some reason. It jumps to an AOL page. Can you please fix it ASAP? Thanks.
Thanks for your comment. I've forwarded your email to the people who know how to fix these things. And thanks for reading the Cohn Zohn
Here's what that big "bruiser" did tonight with Bakersfield.
http://www.nba.com/dleague/games/boxscore.jsp?gameId=2020800006
The problem is "Emperor" Nelson. The Warriors need a coach like Jerry Sloan or Mike D'Antoni, someone that can work with and develop the younger players. The Warriors are the youngest team in the NBA and they must have just about the oldest coach.
you can't put Crawford in with Maggette. they might be the 2 worst defenders in the history of basketball.