Category: Golden State Warriors

by David Zizmor

OAKLAND–The Golden State Warriors forward Draymond Green is having a fantastic season he finished second in the voting for defensive player of the year. He’s really blossomed and has come into his own in kind of surprising fashion. At the beginning of the season David Lee was slated as the starter at power forward and then Lee hurt his back and was out for a couple of months and Green took his place the rest as they say is history.

The first two games against Memphis Green has been everything as advertised he’s guarded both Mark Gasol and Zach Randolph the big Memphis forwards. These guys have been key in the front court for the Grizzlies. It’s not an easy job Green really has got to push his energy levels to there limits and Gasol and Randolph might have to see him for over 40 minutes a night in this series because the Warriors don’t have a ton a guys whose effective against either of those guys.

Green gets in there he’s willing to do the dirty work against two of the best front court players in the NBA. Your talking about Gasol a guy whose been the NBA Player of the year a year ago and your talking about Randolph whose probably the best if not the best low post scorer at the power forward spot besides Tim Duncan.

These guys are fantastic and it takes every ounce of energy to keep these guys from dominating so Green is critical in this game. He had a tough game two, he did okay and Randolph and Gasol didn’t dominate him in either of the first two match ups. The thing they got to watch out for is Green gets into foul trouble. You go against guys who are that good your going to get fouled.

You just have to try and space them out you don’t want to get the foul too quickly, one thing we saw in game two is Green got two pretty quick fouls and they sent him to the bench to early. When he’s on the bench the Warriors have a lot of trouble getting the right combination of players in to stop those guys. Festus Ezeli, Andre Iguodala, these guys come in and they all try to do something.

Their just not as good at guarding those guys as Green is and Ezeli might have a shot he’s a big guy he’s got length he can man up against someone like Gasol or Randolph but he’s not as quick. He still doesn’t have as big a basketball IQ as Green does. What the Warriors really need is effective minutes from Ezeli because Lee isn’t going to cut it, Iguodala is not going cut it either he might be able to stop some passes but he’s not big enough to stop them in all plays all game long.

David Zizmor is the Golden State Warriors analyst for http://www.sportsradioservice.com catch his podcast below

AP Photo/Ben Margot

By Jeff Hall

OAKLAND –

The Memphis Grizzlies proved to the Warriors that they have some bite as a team by beating the Warriors on their home floor to even the Western Conference Semi-finals with a 97-90win. With the win the Grizzlies snapped the Warriors undefeated play-off win streak. And they snapped the Warriors 21 home game-winning streak.

Everyone knew that Stephan Curry was the league’s MVP, but what everyone learned was that Mike Conley is one tough dude. Nobody was more valuable on this night than Conley. Conley was back in the starting line-up for the Grizzlies. After missing three games after undergoing facial surgery. Conley’s surgery occurred just eight-days prior to game 2. Conley who was wearing a full cover face mask after having a plate inserted into his face. He got off to a hot start scoring four of his first four field goal attempts and had 9 points and with just over six minutes into the first quarter. Memphis jumped out to a 14-9 lead half way through the first. The Grizzlies out-played the Warriors most of the first and jumped ahead to a 28-22 lead after the first quarter.

The Grizzlie’s Marc Gasol  struggled and did not score in the first quarter. Gasol played only six minutes after committing two early fouls.

Stephan Curry showed everyone why he deserved the MVP award he received from NBA Commissioner Adam Silver prior to the start of the game in front of the home crowd at Oracle Arena. At the end of the first, Curry led the Warriors in scoring with seven first quarter points.

The warriors started the second quarter going on a 9-2 run and pulled themselves within four points just two minutes into the second quarter.

The Grizzlies Zach Randolph received a large amount of playing time in the first half primarily because Gasol remained in foul trouble. Gasol picked up his third foul half way through the second quarter after making hard contact to Warriors defender Andrew Bogut.

Memphis would hold the lead through the first half 50-39. The Warriors pulled within four points with just over a minute remaining in the first half, but Memphis spread their scoring which was led by Zach Randolph with ten first half points. Conley had nine first half points.

Curry led the Warriors with nine first half points He was one of four from three-point shooting and Klay Thompson was one of five from three-point shooting range. Thompson had just five first half points. Overall The Warriors were held to less than forty-first half points for only the third time this season. Thompson did not score a basket in the third quarter.

Memphis was able to get to the fourth with a 73-63 lead, it seemed that each time the Warriors would pick away at a Memphis lead the Grizzlies would respond and find an answer to any run the Warriors would bring. The Warriors turned the ball over seven times in the third quarter.

The only part of Conley’s game that may have struggled due to the injury was his 3-point shooting. That was until Conley made a 3-point shot to increase the Grizzlies lead to 10 with 2:11 remaining in the game that shot was

Conley had to leave the game after suffering leg cramps, but came back into the game in the final minute. the damage of his offensive performance was already done as far as the Warriors were concerned. Conley led all scorers with 22 points.

“I’m happy the way the team performed. I felt like I played fifty minutes tonight. My teammates lifted me up. I felt like I was a liability defensively for a little bit.” Said Conley after the game.

After the game his coach expressed his thoughts of his players toughness, “Mike Conley had tremendous heart with his performance tonight.He gave us an extra element,” said Grizzlie’s Head Coach David Joerger.

Along with Conley, Zach Randolph had a strong game and received several minutes with Gasol in foul trouble. Randolph scored 20 points.

The Warriors did not have a good scoring night from the splash brothers, Curry led the Warriors with 19 points. Curry was just 2 of 11 from 3-point range. Klay Thompson scored 13 points and did not score a basket in he second half until 6:45 in the third quarter. Thompson was 6 of 15 from 3-point range.

Warriors Head Coach Steve Kerr reflected on the play of the Grizzlies, “They played a great game, Mike Conley had a great game. We didn’t play well enough to win.” said Kerr

Game Three heads to the Fed-Ex Forum in Memphis for game three on Saturday.

by Amaury Pi Gonzalez

ANAHIEM–It’s big huge day for the Golden State Warriors Stephen Curry who was awarded the NBA MVP for 2014-15, anybody who follows the NBA this was not a surprise he’s by far the most valuable player in the league or on the Warriors. There was no way they were going to win without him, these days you don’t have dominant teams in the NBA. I’m here in L.A. with the Angels and we talked the other day in the L.A. area in the beginning of the season you could buy tickets for the Lakers because they were always in the playoffs with Shaq and Kobe way back in the day.

The Warriors are living in their best days now, they could very well win it this year. If they win it one of the main reasons will be the MVP. I know that LeBron is the most popular guy in the NBA and there are some other stars. This season there is any doubt that Curry is the most valuable player in the NBA. This is very good news for the Warriors and Bay Area fans.

The chances of the Warriors going all the way with Curry that’s paramount with Curry’s talent, the team believes in him he’s a leader on the court and he’s the man. That means the Warriors are the favorite to win this thing and they might very well sweep the Memphis Grizzlies in this round of the playoffs. There the team that could go all the way.

They play Memphis for game two on Tuesday and San Antonio as you know are out but you never know in the playoffs weird things happen in the playoffs. If logic prevails Curry could be the first guy since the 1974-75 Warriors who beat the Washington Bullets to win a championship. Curry being the MVP makes the Warriors in the eyes of the national media the favorites to win it all.

Curry gets on the front page of the paper almost every other day and his night in and night out performance is the mark of what a superstar does. I would say it’s nice to see a guy on the field who hits his shots consistently, a guy on the court dunking or throwing for three point baskets. In the end you have to be a good ambassador for the game.

The fans in San Francisco saw one of those ambassador type guys Sunday at AT&T Park when the Giants were hosting the Angels. A little Giants fan got hit with a foul ball. First aid came over and wasn’t sure how good she was doing and what happened the Angels Mike Trout the A.L. MVP speaking about MVPs came out and gave her a baseball bat and gave her a ball this is what being a superstar is all about.

Amaury Pi Gonzalez is the TV Spanish voice for the Angels, the radio Spanish voice for the A’s, the former Warriors Spanish radio voice, and does News and Commentary each week at http://www.sportsradioservice.com listen to Amaury’s podcast below

by Amaury Pi Gonzalez and Jeff Hall

SAN FRANCISCO–Former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown’s short commitment with the Golden State Warriors anti arena group Mission Bay Alliance was short lived primarily because of his commitment at the San Francisco Chronicle as a weekly columnist. Brown made it clear that he was not against the Warriors new arena at Mission Bay but wanted the Warriors to make some adjustments regarding the two towers and the arena itself.

Brown wanted to keep peace with the Chronicle where he does his “Willie’s World” column each week in the Sunday paper. Sources have said that Brown only wanted to be involved in the Alliance so that he could be a face to the movement and maybe the Alliance can get the Warriors to pay to get the Alliance out of the way. No one will ever know now as Brown has withdrawn his support.

The Mission Bay Alliance are not ruling out trying to stop the two towers that the Warriors want to build with the new arena and they have been considering getting an initiative on the ballot that would be in front of the San Francisco voters about environmental and parking issues regarding the Warriors new arena. Plus how an arena event during a Giants game would impede traffic for emergency vehicles from getting to nearby UCSF Hospital.

The Warriors if an initiative comes to fruition if the measure gets on the ballot there might be that wild card chance that the voters could vote down the Warriors new arena. San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee says that the voters, the waterfront neighborhood, UCSF, and City Hall are on board to get a new arena started. The Alliance have said environmental legalities could stop ground breaking at Mission Bay and delay the project up to year.

The other concern is that the neighborhood which they were concerned with development in the past voting down the 8 Washington condos and nearly putting an initiative on the ballot to stop a Warriors arena at Piers 30-32 until the Warriors thought the better of it and withdrew and later and bought the Mission Bay site for the arena from Salesforce. The neighborhood after the Mission Bay idea came up was behind the effort but sources say that there has been a split about development issues concerning traffic and emergency vehicle access for UCSF during arena events amongst the waterfront neighborhood.

The neighborhood could be concerned about the view, when Amaury first moved to San Francisco along time ago you bought an apartment in the City and one side of the building was facing the street and was $500 a month and the other side looking onto the bay was $700 an extra $200 for the view. That’s the beauty of San Francisco it’s a beautiful place to live and nobody argues that but there will be opposition to the new arena.

Amaury Pi Gonzalez is the Spanish TV voice for the Angels and the Spanish radio voice for the A’s; Jeff Hall is a Sacramento Kings beat writer both doing a podcast (below) on That’s Amaury’s News and Commentary

AP Photo/Gerald Herbert

By Jeff Hall

NEW ORLEANS –

The Warriors displayed that they much deserved the number one seed ranking in the NBA playoffs with complete dominance on both sides of the court in Game 4 of this series with a series sweep with a 109-98 win over the Pelicans

Anthony Davis opened up the scoring in the game with a two point shot in the games first two minutes of action. Both teams came out firing offensively The Pelicans began the game with a small lead, but it was total offensive domination by the Warriors and the early hot hand in scoring of Draymond Green.

Green scored the first seven Warriors points before Stephen Curry put down a 3-point shot.

After the end of the first quarter the Warriors led the Pelicans 31-24, primarily because of the play of Curry and Green. Curry had 14 first quarter points Green had 13. Anthony Davis led the Pelicans with 11 first quarter points.

The first quarter lead allowed Warrior’s Head Coach Steve Kerr to give Curry a rest on the Bench to begin the second quarter.

Green made a lay-up to give the Warriors their largest lead of the first half of ten points with 7:10 remaining in the first half of play. The Pelicans called a much-needed time-out.

After the timeout Eric Gordon had the hot hand shooting for the Pelicans, but the Pelicans had no Answer for the many scoring weapons of the Warriors. Klay Thompson scored 13 points in the second quarter driving the Warriors to their biggest lead of the half and giving them a 13 point first half lead  Curry and Green led the team with 20 first half points to lead the Warriors who shot 57 percent in the first half. For Green the 20 first half points was a season high for first half scoring and leading the Warriors a 67-54 lead at the half.

The Warriors were 9 of 12 from beyond the arc in the first half.

The Warriors continued their strong play in the third quarter and increased their lead and jumped ahead by 23-points their largest lead of the game with 4 minutes remaining in the third quarter.

Nothing indicated that the Warriors would blow a 20-point lead

Things did get edgy for the Warriors In the fourth quarter. The Warriors started out sloppy and gave the Pelicans some life when they cut the Warrior’s lead to twelve points going on a 9-0 scoring run with 9 minutes remaining in the fourth.

Anthony Davis ended up with another outstanding performance for the Pelicans scoring 30 points and 11 rebounds. But the strength of Davis was simply not enough to over take the strength of the Warriors team.   Eric Gordon who had a one of his strongest games in the series Davis was the first player in NBA history to score 30 or more points in his first four playoff games he is the first player to do that in forty years.

Stephen Curry did what Stephen Curry does. Curry was 6 of 8 from 3-point range 11-20 from the field and led the game in scoring 39 points.

“We never quit and we have the firepower to make great runs” said Curry about his team’s over-all play in the series.

Curry also noted the play of his teammate Draymond Green. Curry spoke about the play of  Green. “It’s been everything, the way he defended Tyreke Evans, things he did that won’t show up on the stat sheet. He’s done so much, hopefully it continues.” Curry said.

With the win the Warriors clinch a series on the road for the first time since 1987 when the Warriors beat the Utah Jazz (3-0).

Notes:

Up next: The Warriors will wait to take on the winner of the Portland Trailblazer-Memphis Grizzly series.

Golden State’s last sweep in a best-of-seven series came in the 1975 NBA Finals, when they defeated Washington (4-0).