Game Details

• Tip Off: 4:00 PM PT
• Television: CSN-BA

Indiana Pacers Team Profile

• Offensive Efficiency: 107.5 (3^rd in NBA)
• Defensive Efficiency: 104.3 (tied for 21^st in NBA)

Leaders

• Points: James Harden, 26.4 PPG
• Rebounds: Omer Asik, 11.7 RPG
• Assists: Jeremy Lin, 6.1 APG
• Steals: Jeremy Lin, 1.8 SPG
• Blocks: Omer Asik, 1.1 BPG
• Field Goal Percentage: Greg Smith, 64.2% FG
• 3-Point Field Goal Percentage: Chandler Parson, 38.3% 3PT FG

Scope the Opposition: Red 94.

Preview: After getting drilled at home Friday night by the Chicago Bulls (36-29), the Golden State Warriors (37-30) will be looking to bounce back today in a contest on the road involving the Houston Rockets (36-30).

Today’s contest will be a challenge, and that’s putting it mildly.

Kevin McHale’s unit has dominated the battle this season. In the three head-to-head matchups versus Golden State, Houston has been victorious all three times.

The first meeting was a defensive monstrosity for a Golden State team that surrendered a staggering 140 points to the Rockets in a rout.

Quite simply, the Warriors have failed in providing any semblance of impediment for James Harden and company.

Houston’s offense has manufactured every shot desired against the Dubs.

Whether that’s an abundance of shots at the rim, clean 3-point looks or free throws, the Rockets have gotten them all in big doses.

This poses an interesting conundrum for Mark Jackson: toss all defensive strategy by the wayside and focus on outscoring his opponent; or place an added emphasis on defense.

A scheme favoring putting additional obstacles in the way of Houston’s offense means that Andrew Bogut, Festus Ezeli and Draymond Green need considerable court time. Whether it’s anchoring the paint or applying tight perimeter pressure, these three players can bring things to the table.

Mind you, only Bogut has given Golden State some good offensive production this season via his passing and offensive rebounding.

The other side of the coin is simply throwing out the Warriors’ best offensive players and hope a shootout favors them. The issue with this tactic is the possibility that Houston does more damage than what they’ve already done in previous encounters.

Consider these Houston numbers versus Golden State this season:

• The Rockets are attempting 27.3 shots per game at the rim versus the Warriors.
• Houston is manufacturing 31.3 free throws per game against Golden State.
• The Rockets are converting 44 percent of their 36.3 3-pointers attempted per game versus the Warriors.

No matter how we slice it, McHale lives in his own world and philosophy when paired against Jackson.

Can the Warriors finally adjust?

Tonight’s matchup certainly depends on it.

Questions or comments? Feel free to leave them in the comments section or you can contact me by email at [email protected].

Follow @ShyneIV

Game Details

• Tip Off: 7:30 p.m. (PT)
• Television: CSN-BA, NBA TV

Houston Rockets Team Profile

• Offensive Efficiency: 106.7 (5^th in NBA)
• Defensive Efficiency: 104.4 (21^st in NBA)

Leaders

• Points: James Harden, 26.1 PPG
• Rebounds: Omer Asik, 11.5 RPG
• Assists: Jeremy Lin, 6.1 APG
• Steals: Jeremy Lin, 1.9 SPG
• Blocks: Omer, 1.2 BPG
• Field Goal Percentage: Greg Smith, 63% FG
• 3-Point Field Goal Percentage: Carlos Delfino, 39.4% 3PT FG

Scope the Opposition: Red94.

Preview: The Golden State Warriors are currently in the midst of a four-game losing streak that has seen them get blown out in three of those four contests.

The first game of this tailspin was on February 5^th against the Houston Rockets on the road, where they were dismantled 140-109. Tonight the Dubs will try to bounce back against that very same Rockets team, but if they plan on doing so, they will have to learn from their mistakes and correct them.

Kevin McHale’s group owns the fifth best offense in the league because they do two things quite well: get to the rim and shoot 3-pointers.

Per Hoopdata, the Rockets attempt 30.5 shots at the rim per game (third most in the league) and also put up 28.2 treys per game (second most in the league).

Keep in mind, Houston converts 36.6 percent of their 3-point shots (10^th in the NBA), which complicates the life of their opponents.

Indeed, the Rockets’ forays to the hoop lead to high percentage shots as well as a lot of free throws, but when teams converge on the interior, they kick out the ball to their shooters.

On February 5^th, the Warriors were victims of this as their opponents just toyed with them and did whatever they wanted. Have a look at the advanced box score from that contest courtesy of NBA.com’s advanced stats tool:

*Above the Break 3s are all non-corner 3-pointers.

The box score tells us that Houston essentially got the shots they wanted in that contest, scoring both at the rim and from long-range. In addition, James Harden and company attempted 35 free throws to go along with their 40 shots attempted from downtown.

Talk about alarming figures.

Golden State’s defense was quite possibly at its worst in their first encounter against Houston, as players routinely broke down their initial defenders and got into the paint without facing much resistance.

The Rockets’ perimeter players were able to get to whatever spot on the court they desired without the use of screens (!). Everything seemingly came via straight dribble penetration.

In an effort to corroborate that observation, we looked up the game information and compiled it into a graphic. Here is the breakdown of all the plays that resulted in a shot attempt or turnover that involved any screen action by the Houston Rockets on February 5^th per MySynergySports:

For context, Houston attempted 91 shots in the first game against the Dubs, and only 15 of those came off of screens. Every other shot in that game came either through cuts, offensive rebounds, transition or simple dribble penetration and spot ups.

If the Warriors are going to reverse their fortunes, it’s going to have to come on the defensive end where they’ve struggled since entering the New Year.

According to NBA.com’s advanced stats tool, in January they allowed 105 points per 100 possessions, a figure that would put them in the league’s bottom third; and in February the defense has slipped considerably with opponents scoring 115.1 points per 100 possessions; a stat that would easily be the worst in the league if projected over the season.

It’s worth noting that the adjustment the Warriors have to make isn’t schematic but rather playing with a higher level of effort when they take on the Rockets tonight. It’s one thing for Houston to simply execute better, but the Warriors haven’t truly forced them to do so just yet.

Tonight is a great place to start.

Quick Houston Rockets note: In February, James Harden is averaging 28 points, 7.6 rebounds and 8.0 assists on 59.5 percent field goal shooting in five games.

Statistical support provided by NBA.com.

Questions or comments? Feel free to leave them in the comments section or you can contact me by email at [email protected].

Follow @ShyneIV

Sheed and myself are back in studio to talk another week of Warriors basketball, for better or worse. Since our last episode the Warriors have gone 2-2 but have looked embarrasing in their last two games vs. the Rockets and the Thunder. Cause for concern? We discuss.

In our second segment we have the audio version to my interview with Kent Bazemore that occured last Saturday. Bazemore — who’s been impressing lately in extended minutes — talks about his upbringing in Kelford, North Carolina, his expectations entering training camp, where they are now and Family Guy.

In our final segment, we discuss everything All-Star Saturday night as the participants for each contest were selected just before our recording. We give our picks for each contest and why Team Chuck will get annihilated.

Subscribe and rate us on iTunes!

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When I envisioned the Warriors with Andrew Bogut, he was added instantly, like a final, composition-changing ingredient. I’ve been cooking a lot with okra lately, thinking all the while that I hoped Bogut would be the transformative force on the Warriors that the vegetable is to stews. You don’t throw okra in at the beginning; You toss it in at the end. Upon arrival, the plant secretes mucilage, a thickening substance that gives a gumbo a greater cohesion. Okra makes a team out of disparate, floating ingredients, and it doesn’t waste a second.

Instead, GSW has elected a more gradual approach with the big man. To keep the stew metaphor going, Bogut has been added little by little to the dish, like a wine that reduces in the pot. The wine isn’t so much affixed to the stew as it it seeped into dish as the water evaporates. The process makes it difficult to get a read on what the finished product will be like, based on that first booze inclusion. The evaporation phenomenon also thickens your strew, but you singe through a thick layer of minutes to get there.

I’d feel a bit guilty over analogizing human beings to food, but National Signing Day coverage has made such characterizations feel humanizing by comparison. A little of Bogut here in the pot, a little of Bogut there in the pot. It’s 25 minutes one game, no Bogut the next game. If all goes according to plan, we will learn what this team is with a full complement of Andrew Bogut. But we’re not there yet. A few more reductions are needed. In the meantime, a lot can go wrong and right with the surrounding ingredients.

The Warriors have looked terrible these past two games against Houston and Oklahoma City, losing by a combined 52 points. The two games knocked them from a defensive ranking of 12th all the way down to 17th. Stephen Curry shot 25 percent in both blowouts. Houston tied a three-pointer record by hitting 23 long range heaves.

Scary truth: Golden State has not been good defensively in the new year. It’s a little difficult to explain why because it’s not as simple as, “They’re giving up threes.” Yes, the paint-packed Golden State Warriors are giving teams a lot of three-point attempts; Those teams aren’t necessarily hitting on those bombs at a high rate.

Since January 1st, the Dubs are 15th in opponent field goal percentage and 18th in opponent three-point percentage, even with that Houston Rockets game included. No cause for alarm, right?

Here’s the problem, and it’s one that says a lot about where the league is headed. The Warriors are leading basketball in attempted threes by opponents. Since January 1st, they’ve given up 25.3 threes a game, roughly two more than the second ranked Nuggets. When you’re giving up so many treys it isn’t good enough to hold opponents to a mediocre 34.7%. Though 34.7% from three sounds bad, it’s 52.05% shooting in two-point terms. The three point flood is drowning all the nice work Golden State does in walling opponents off from the rim.

The Houston Rockets scenario frightens because it demonstrates what can happen if teams starting hitting against this three-conceding squad. GSW simply can’t give up so many threes on a nightly basis and expect to live long in the playoffs.

The Warriors were smart to hedge less with David Lee early in the year, in favor of thwarting teams at the rim. Mark Jackson was dealing with a defensive talent dearth and this was the least bad option. GSW encountered some good luck early in the season as opponents shanked from long range. Now, we’re beginning to see the least bad option for what it is.

Andrew Bogut’s inclusion can solve this problem because the Warriors should help less often in the paint with him on the floor. The hope is that he becomes that transformative defensive force. We’re a few reductions from discovering the truth of this team. The big man is back, but not completely. And the Warriors are transformed, but not yet.

Follow @SherwoodStrauss

Game Details

• Tip Off: 5:00 p.m. (PT)
• Television: CSN-BA

Houston Rockets Team Profile

• Offensive Efficiency: 105.4 (8^th in NBA)
• Defensive Efficiency: 103.5 (18^th in NBA)

Leaders

• Points: James Harden, 25.8 PPG
• Rebounds: Omer Asik, 11.4 RPG
• Assists: Jeremy Lin, 6.1 APG
• Steals: Jeremy Lin, 2.0 SPG
• Blocks: Omer Asik, 1.1 BPG
• Field Goal Percentage: Greg Smith, 62.4% FG
• 3-Point Field Goal Percentage: Carlos Delfino, 40.0% 3PT FG

Scope the Opposition: Red94.

Preview: After an impressive rout of the Phoenix Suns on Saturday night, the Golden State Warriors will be in Houston tonight to take on a good Rockets team that loves to play fast and put up points on the board.

Kevin McHale’s group plays at the fastest pace in the NBA and produces 105.4 points per 100 possessions thanks to their drive and kick game.

James Harden, Jeremy Lin and even Chandler Parsons to some extent love to spot up from 3-point range or just put the ball on the floor when defenders close out on them to get into the paint to attempt to score or kick the ball out to an open shooter.

It’s worth noting that every now and then Houston will feed Omer Asik on the interior where he can score on the block against challenged interior defenders.

For the most part though, Houston will stick to their slash and shoot game, but will also get highly creative and put Harden in the pick-and-roll game where he is lethal.

MySynergySports tells us that the bearded one converts 48.7 percent of his field goals in the pick-and-roll, and that’s essentially because he is a terrific ball-handler that understands angles and how to shift through them.

The left-handed guard has a bit of Manu Ginobili and Dwyane Wade in his game given how he sets up defenders and weaves through them almost in slow motion at times because of his great body control.

Klay Thompson will have his hands full tonight when dealing with the Houston guard, but it’s quite possible that the Warriors’ guard might end up putting some pressure on Harden as well as he forces him to run around through screens and exert some energy.

The one area that is bound to play a huge role in deciding the outcome will be the interior play, where Andrew Bogut and David Lee have exhibited some good synergy since the Aussie rejoined the lineup.

Their cutting and passing puts a lot of pressure on opponents, which consequently opens up the floor for Golden State’s shooters.

If the Warriors get their fair share of scores in the paint, it may just spell doom for the Rockets.

Questions or comments? Feel free to leave them in the comments section or you can contact me by email at [email protected].

Follow @ShyneIV

The trade sending Oklahoma City guard and 2011 Sixth Man of the Year James Harden (along with Daequan Cook, Lazar Hayward and Cole Aldrich) to Houston for Kevin Martin, Jeremy Lamb, and draft considerations doesn’t mean much for the Warriors on the surface.  There don’t seem to be moving parts that could affect Golden State down the road here, and neither team plays in the Pacific division.  But playing in a conference with a middle class that’s never been deeper means this trade ripples throughout the West and could ultimately mean a lot for an organization like Golden State striving for relevancy in the form of a postseason birth.

As much as we’d like this to matter to the Warriors from a Thunder perspective, GS just isn’t in that class yet.  So while the likes of the Lakers, San Antonio, and Miami are smiling right now knowing one of the league’s best just lost one of its most important pieces, that matters little to the Warriors.  A Harden-less OKC team should be more beatable than one with him, obviously, but Golden State will be underdogs to the 2011 conference champions nonetheless.  Stealing an extra win or two would come in handy more than ever now, though, and that’s where Houston comes in.

The top of the West is all but set in stone.  Oklahoma City, the Lakers, and San Antonio are the conference’s clear elite, while Denver, the Clippers, and Memphis are in the class directly below them.  Assuming those teams make the playoffs – and that’s hardly a stretch; it’d be a safe play in Vegas – just two spots remain, leaving seven teams on the outside looking in.  Scratch Phoenix, Portland, and Sacramento off the list of potential playoff squads; the former two are clearly rebuilding while the latter’s mishmash of a roster (personnel and personality wise) is still too green to win.  The Hornets are a wildcard and clearly a team and organization on the rise, but expecting .500 basketball out of New Orleans would necessitate abnormal health for Eric Gordon and an All-Star rookie year from Anthony Davis.  NOH will be fun and competitive, no doubt, but barring a surprise is another year away.

Who’s left? Dallas, Utah, Minnesota, and our Warriors.  Oh, and the team that just acquired the league’s best young shooting guard, one that until a couple hours ago was firmly lottery bound along with the Suns, Blazers, and Kings: Houston.  Five teams for two spots, each dealing with injuries and questions of cohesion centering around youth and attrition.

Another team’s hat in the crowded ring of low-level playoff contenders is hardly what Golden State needed.  But the Rockets – with a primed-to-breakout Harden and Omer Asik, Jeremy Lin in a system perfectly suited to his strengths, and frontcourt replete with young if unproven talent – have yearned to emerge from the depths of the post Yao/T-Mac era for months, and today finally did so.

No, the Warriors weren’t directly involved in this blockbuster deal.  But the rippling effects of such a trade will be felt throughout the NBA, and perhaps no more than by the likes of Golden State, Dallas, Utah, and Minnesota, who saw their party to determine the West’s final playoff spots brashly crashed by an unwelcome and surprising visitor.

Follow Jack Winter on twitter @ArmstrongWinter

This past season, Jeremy Lin took over New York as well as the NBA by storm and became for a lack of a better comparison, the ultimate Disney movie. He reminded people that should they stick to their dreams, there is a good chance that they will come true.

And just like that, the dream was over…

In New York.

Lin famously signed an offer sheet with the Houston Rockets that Knicks owner James Dolan did not want matched, and thus Lin is now taking his story to Houston; while many Knicks fans are still perplexed by the move. The media sensation helped revive exciting basketball in New York and also helped the team reach the postseason and thus many obviously wanted to see him come back to NY and play a full season.

But just like that, he was allowed to leave, in a move that bothered several new Yorkers. But prior to Jeremy Lin’s departure from the Big Apple, there was another player that diehard fans in NYC wanted to see remain in orange and blue: David Lee.
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Whether one agrees with the moves of the Brooklyn Nets or not, their activity so far in the 2012 offseason has to be commended. Indeed, they have taken several steps to have their team dominate NBA headlines as we impatiently await for the season to resume once gain November. And let’s be honest here, they have made some substantial moves that could put potentially help them land a top four record in the Eastern Conference next season.

Billy King, the Nets general manager, has been able to secure the commitment of both Deron Williams and Gerald Wallace to long-term contracts, has an agreement in place to obtain Joe Johnson via trade with the Atlanta Hawks and also managed to get a verbal agreement with Reggie Evans to get him to join the team.

And just in case those moves failed to impress you, it seems as though they are still in the running to acquire Dwight Howard from the Orlando Magic . Granted, although ESPN.com’s John Hollinger pointed out that the signing of Mirza Teletovic makes it rather difficult for Brooklyn to land the superstar center (insider) because of this little thing called the salary cap, Brooklyn is still in the news. The end result is that prospective fans can already start discussing the team and get amped up to see them play.
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