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Letdown (Warriors 91, Blazers 109)

Baron Davis, Matt Barnes, Stephen Jackson, Brandan Wright, Marco Belinelli, Austin Croshere, CJ Watson.

The Warriors were crushed by a superior team Wednesday night. There’s no tasty way to sugar coat this bitter pill. Nate McMillan has a frightening deep Blazers squad playing with discipline and energy. The Warriors? It looks like they left both skills in Oakland. If you’re going to get blown out by anyone, it might as well be a team now 17-1 over its last 18. Portland reminded me of the Warriors at the end of last season: immediately putting the game out of reach and never letting the opponent close enough to get hopes up. Although any chance for momentum following the Ws’ victory over the Spurs just disappeared, Wednesday’s game was far from a total loss.

Before we get to the good stuff, we’ll hold our noses and make a quick swing through the bad. Baron Davis and Stephen Jackson nearly lost this game for the Warriors on their own. Their unfocused, frustrated, and forced play at the start of the first and third quarters dug the Warriors a hole in a matter of minutes that the reserves simply couldn’t escape. Collectively, it was by far BD’s and Jax’s worst game of the year, maybe as Warriors period. As has happened many times before this season, an opponent packed the middle. The Warriors drove a few times without success, got frustrated, and gave up. Cue bad three upon bad three, followed shortly after by the curtain dropping on the Warriors’ hopes for the evening. An excellent game plan by the Blazers, but the Warriors made it far too easy for them.

Despite how ugly this game was, I caught myself getting irrationally excited in the second and fourth quarters. Here’s why:

CJ Watson - Where have you been all my life (or at least all season). We’ve only seen 30 minutes (which led the team Wednesday night, incidentally), but the kid looks like a classic Nelson player. To paraphrase Nellie, he knows how to run, how to shoot, how to pass, and how to guard. Nothing else really matters. The first - and most important - skill is his awareness of pushing the ball. He gets up the court in a hurry and doesn’t give the defense time to set up. The inability of Sarunas, Hudson, and (to a lesser degree) Ellis to do this had short-circuited their attempts to back up Baron. CJ has only been around a day, but he gets it and had the ball moving. Beyond the pressure, he also understands the drive and kick. He kept penetrating and swinging to find Pietrus in the corner and Croshere up top. If they could have found the basket, he would have racked up quite a few more assists. Finally, he’s active on defense - the tips, deflections, and physical presence all contributed to the energy the second unit’s energy. The scoring is really icing on the cake. The repeated blows to the head delivered by the Blazers might have left me not thinking straight, but so far it looks a whole lot like our back-up point guard problem has been solved.

Matt Barnes - After a week or two of subpar basketball, Barnes looked like his old self Wednesday night. He brought energy to a flat-lining group and helped generate, at least for a few minutes, the frenzied style on which the Warriors thrive. Here’s hoping he’s done with the flu and the injury bug, allowing him to get back to being a steady contributor from the bench. He fit the bill against the Blazers, but it was too little, too late.

Brandan Wright - Although he was a bit passive during stretches of the game, he made a few lasting impressions during his 16 minutes. On the offensive glass, he managed two lightening fast put-backs created almost entirely by intelligent positioning and his length. We’ve only seem glimpses so far, but the rookie seems to have a good sense of where he needs to be on the court to make things happen. Of course, when you have freakishly long arms, it’s a lot easier to cover a wide swath of the court. On defense his arms denied entry passes, challenged shots from the key to the arc, and helped with a few tips on loose balls. Nelson made the right call giving up on his starters early and giving the bench some meaningful first half minutes. Their superior performance over the usual crew should get his attention. With some healthy bodies past our top 8 and easier opponents on the way, there has never been a better time to start extending the rotation.

Austin Croshere - It’s hard to say how long Austin will be around until his back flares up again, but hopefully it’ll be a while. He once again showed a nice mix of inside toughness with outside shooting. His 9 boards in 23 minutes was top-notch, although he was picking up fouls at almost as impressive a rate. Still, on a night when too many Blazers waltzed to the basket, it was good to see him lay a body on a few people in the key. With Mbenga gone, it may be Croshere, not POB, who stands to gain the most minutes.

Marco Belinelli - Honestly, I’m just happy Marco finally hit two shots in a row in a real game. For someone who looked to have had his confidence obliterated, any points — no matter how much they smell of garbage time — are useful. He showed flashes of what the Warriors hoped they were getting: range out to the arc, a motion player who can create his own shot with movement and a quick release, and enough athleticism to get to the basket and keep defenders honest. Here’s hoping he does a better job building on this performance than the Warriors did building on their victory over the Spurs.

It’s hard to be too chipper after a 109-91 mauling by a playoff rival, but there’s not much sense in getting frustrated by the loss. The Blazers, given what we saw Wednesday, are clearly the better team at the moment. They should have beaten us and they did. With the “significant seven” stretch against playoff teams now complete, the Warriors know where they stand. At 3-4 during the run, with wins over the Nuggets, the Rockets, and the Spurs, the team has enough talent to beat anyone on any given night, but still lacks the discipline and depth to consistently beat top 10 teams in the NBA. Translated into playoff speak: don’t put down a deposit yet for second round tickets. We were on the playoff bubble going into this rough stretch and it’s where we sit having reached the other side. The challenge ahead is to win as many games as possible against a line of lesser opponents on the horizon. If we can’t secure those wins, we’ll need to steal more against teams like the Blazers. As we saw on Wednesday, we’re not yet up to the task.