Golden State Warriors: The Return

David Lee put in a rare good game against the New Orleans Pelicans in Andre Iguodala’s return to the line-up last night.

Guess who’s back!?!? Andre Iguodala defies all hamstring-injury odds and returns well before I expected him too.  I can’t imagine the Warriors would rush him back so early in the season, which means that the injury was not as bad as most anticipated.  These are all good things because he looked excellent last night.  He started the game for the Warriors alongside Steph, Klay, Lee and Bogut.  He wasn’t very active on offense to start, standing in the corner on most possessions and letting Steph do most of the ball handling.  It didn’t matter because the Warriors ball-movement was the best I had seen it since early in the season.  Iggy may have only finished with two assists, but if this was hockey he would have surpassed Steph’s 12.  So often when the ball hits Klay or Steph’s hands it stops so they can either shoot or dribble.  With Iggy back it would hit his hands and immediately fly into Klay or Steph who would continue to work it around because someone was wide open.  Iggy’s style of play is infectious.  He played more in the third quarter where he was given the point/forward responsibilities once again.  This is when the Warriors blew the game wide open.  When Iggy handles and allows Steph to catch and shoot or catch and create off the dribble it does wonders for the offense.  Their +22 and +20 were the highest differentials in the game and for good reason.  They increased their lead to 26 and Iggy was then done for the night.

In my opinon, Steph had his best game of the season, keeping his turnovers to a minimum and recording a season-high 12 assists.  Klay, who has been struggling the last few games, still struggled in the first half, but looked much better in the second.  Klay is not capable of being the first banana on defense and I feel like it affects his offensive game.  With Iggy back, Klay was able to focus on his offensive game and looked much better in the second half, hitting some jumpers and getting to the basket.  This is a hard thing for me to say, but I have to give David Lee the recognition he deserves after last night’s game.  He played extremely well on both sides of the ball.  He hustled to get offensive rebounds and made strong moves to the basket that didn’t end with him throwing the ball at the hoop.  Due to Iggy’s defensive responsibility on Ryan Andrson, David Lee guarded Al-Farouq Aminu for most of the night.  If David Lee can guard poor offensive players, the Warriors are nearly unbeatable.

Matt’s Home Improvements

1. What is going to happen with Harrison Barnes coming off the bench?  Barnes, who has been playing well in Iggy’s absence, looked out of sorts last night with the second group.  It seems that Mark Jackson refuses to reduce David Lee to a sixth man role which means Barnes will have to be the featured scorer.  I just don’t know if Barnes is the type of player David Lee is.  David Lee feasts on back-up and below-average power forwards.  He makes more sense in that role than Barnes does.  I may just have to start a committee that focuses on getting D-Lee into the sixth man role.  David Lee, sixth man of the year!! It does have a nice ring to it.
2. The Warriors bench is in desperate need of Jermaine O’Neal (whoever thought that would ever get said).  That is not a good thing to be in need of.  Without his rim protection, the second group can’t really guard anyone and struggles to maintain the leads that the starters get them. Festus Ezeli may not be coming back this season, so the team is counting on Jermaine to be the second groups rim protection.  This is something that will continue to cause the Warriors problems as he remains injured.

When Iggy is back in the line-up this team returns to its championship form.  Hopefully with him healthy and the slew of home games the Warriors have in front of them, they can make a push at one of the top-4 seeds.  They are poised to make a little run with the schedule ahead of them, but when you are in the West you have to beat good teams.  Let’s see if the Warriors can win a big one tomorrow against the Spurs at home.  This will be a great measuring stick game as Iggy returns to form.