by Daivd Zimor

OAKLAND–What we saw with the Warriors in their last game on the road against Utah is a team that was playing without David Lee. His presence on offense has been a really big boost for this Warriors team he’s one of the best inside scorers around basketball and one of the best in the NBA.

There was a reason why he was named to the Olympic roster just a couple of weeks ago and it was because of that ability, losing him definitely changes how the Warriors approach these games because they simply don’t have the same inside scoring presence without him. What happened in Utah was very interesting with the Warriors bench being thin with injuries to Jermaine O’Neal, Festus Ezeli and Lee.

Andrew Bogut has had a great week and a half as it is against Utah he was scoring points he was typical on his impact on defense but it was the offense that was really surprising. With Bogut everyone knew he had some kind of offensive skill but the Warriors haven’t called on him all that much. The Warriors do like to call on him as a passer but when we saw him in the last game he was somthing else he would hit a 19 footer with his foot on the three point line and it would have been a three.

Lee was running, he was cutting he was making moves around the basket, he was playing that brand of basketball that made him one of the top picks in the NBA way back when he was with the Milwaukee Bucks if the Warriors can get a little bit more of that kind of play out of Bogut they would be tough to stop.

Granted Utah is not a great test case because Utah is a lousy team but Bogut was showing some offensive skills that we really haven’t seen from him this season but we haven’t seen this all in one game. If the Warriors can coach that out of him every now then that would be a weapon other teams would have to worry about.

It’s worth noting that Bogut had that big game and Stephen Curry has the highest scoring night of the year with 44 points. In the last few games Bogut has really been the key for this Warriors, Curry is doing his typical Curry stuff and their starting to come around the defense is starting to come into play and we’ll see how they do in this final stretch towards the All-Star break they have a game against Charlotte, Miami, and Phoenix so they have some winnable games.

Miami is not a sure thing but if they beat Miami and they seemed to match up pretty well against them and whenever they play Miami they get up for it, it’s one of those things they rise to the occasion. Going into the All-Star break their 29-19. They have four games until the break they can win three out of those four and their capable of winning all four. This is an important stretch to put the Warriors in solid footing.

David Zizmor covers the NBA for Sportstalk Radio