warriors vs suns preview (Photo: Noah Graham/NBAE/Getty)
Phoenix Suns (36-25) vs Golden State Warriors (39-24)
Tip-off: Sunday, March 9th, 2014 – 6:00 PM PST
Location: Oracle Arena, Oakland, CA
Spread: Golden State (-8) meaning Warriors are 8-point favorites
TV: CSN Bay Area / NBATV | Radio: KNBR 680 AM
Livetweet: @LetsGoWarriors (by @goldenstatenz)
Last Game / Streak:
PHX – Won 128-122 vs OKC in Phoenix, Won 1 straight game
GSW – Won 111-97 vs ATL in Oakland, Won 3 straight games
Last Meeting Between The Teams:
PHX 122, GSW 109 as Dragic scored 34 points on just 13 shots.
Probable Starting Lineups:
Warriors:
PG: Stephen Curry (23.6 PPG, 8.7 APG, 4.5 RPG)
SG: Klay Thompson (17.8 PPG, 2.3 APG, 3.0 RPG)
SF: Andre Iguodala (9.4 PPG, 4.3 APG, 4.7 RPG)
PF: David Lee (18.6 PPG, 2.2 APG, 9.6 RPG)
C: Andrew Bogut (7.8 PPG, 1.6 APG, 10.3 RPG)
Suns:
PG: Goran Dragic (20.5 PPG, 6.2 APG, 3.5 RPG)
SG: Gerald Green (15.6 PPG, 1.6 APG, 3.5 RPG)
SF: P.J. Tucker (9.3 PPG, 1.9 APG, 6.5 RPG)
PF: Channing Frye (11.8 PPG, 1.2 APG, 5.2 RPG)
C: Alex Len (2.3 PPG, 0.0 APG, 2.5 RPG)
The last time the Warriors faced the Suns, Dragic scored 34 points on just 13 shots, but Harrison Barnes broke out of a slump that last for the better part of the season up until December, filling in at the 4 for the injured Lee. Draymond Green also played some center in place of the injured Bogut. Jermaine O’Neal had gotten the start, but went things went south quickly, Coach Jackson went with the small lineup and O’Neal sat on the bench.
As a result of not having a rim protector, Dragic torched the Warriors in every which way.
Prior to that game, Curry had the benefit of torching the Suns in every which way, recording the second of three triple-doubles he has had this season.
Tonight’s game proves the be the final matchup in a four-game season series in which the Warriors, trail 1-2, including the early season 106-102 loss that wasn’t that close for most of the game.
The Warriors have been playing excellent basketball since the All-Star break; they have a record of 8-2. Golden State this season, when they play great defense and hold their opponent under 100 points, they are 30-4. Warriors currently sit two games ahead of Phoenix for 6th place in the West and they look to make it a three-game cushion tonight. Thompson, after a bad lower back strain suffered in the win against the Atlanta Hawks on Friday, should be back.
Monte Poole of CSN Bay Area:
First up are the Suns, who visit Oracle Arena Sunday night. After the Suns come the Mavericks, who visit Oracle on Tuesday. Then on Wednesday, the Warriors visit the Clippers in Los Angeles.
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“The mindset is one game at a time,” coach Mark Jackson said.
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Yet all of the players – as well as the coaches – know what is at stake.
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“It would be great to go 3-0 in that stretch,” forward Draymond Green said. “But it’s going to be a tough stretch. But I feel if we continue to get better, continue to gel together, we’re capable of beating anybody.”
“Early on, you look and you say, ‘Well, Phoenix is surprising people. They’re not gonna sustain it; how are they this good?” Jackson said yesterday after practice, “Then you look at them and you say, ‘They’re very well coached; Dragic is having a year where he should’ve been an All-Star and the other guys around him are playing at an extremely high level.'”
“They play hard. They’re physical. They spread the floor. They compete. They don’t take nights off. It’s going to be a tough task,” Jackson added “That’s going to be a team that’s going to have to be dealt with, closing out this season, as far as the Western Conference is concerned.”
“It’s a dogfight,” O’Neal said of the playoff race, “It’s going to be a rat-race going down the stretch and every game really, really counts. I think for the most part, we’ve done a great job on really concentrating on the task at hand and absorbing teams’ runs. Now it’s time to put teams away that shouldn’t be playing on the same level as us, that don’t have — to be quite honest — the same type of record that we have.”
Dragic has certainly gotten the attention of the Warriors and their game-planning. He’s averaging 20.5 points and 6.2 assists per game, and while the Warriors enjoyed having five players score in double-figures against the Hawks, the Suns already have five players averaging double-figures in points this season. The injured Eric Bledsoe is actually their sixth. (The Warriors only have three players averaging double-digits in points scored, but Barnes is at 9.9 and Iguodala at 9.4.)
“He’s crafty,” Warriors backup point guard Steve Blake said of Dragic, “He can score in a lot of different ways. Just being a left-handed guy kind of throws you off a little bit, but he attacks the basket hard. He’s more athletic than people realize. He can shoot the three-ball and he uses his body really well. Even when he gets in the paint, you’ll see him bang with the big guys or draw contact, so he’s really come into his own and he’s impressed me with his skill level.”
Blake has spent time with not only the Los Angeles Lakers, but also the Portland Trail Blazers, and didn’t expect Dragic to be this good, necessarily.
“I knew he was a good player, but his first couple years I didn’t know he was going to be this good,” Blake said, “He’s really turned out to be a really great point guard and it’s totally the opposite (of a flash in the pan). I think he can do it for a lot of years. I respect that.”
“Dragic is a borderline All-Star that didn’t make the team this year, but probably should’ve been there,” Bogut said, “They’ve surrounded him with a bunch of three-point shooters — guys that really get the ball up — good jump-shooters everywhere. We have our work cut out for us, but it really begins defensively if we stick to our principles.”
Diamond Leung of the Bay Area News Group:
“We’re not going to surrender anything to Dragic,” Jackson said when asked about his defense possibly focusing on Dragic’s teammates instead. “He’s a heck of a basketball player, and he creates a lot of problems. We want to make life tough for him, and we want to be able to defend the other guys.
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“The best defensive teams have been embarrassed trying to defend them.”
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Phoenix guard Gerald Green scored a career-high 41 points against Oklahoma City, and the Suns also expect to get guard Eric Bledsoe back from injury after facing the Warriors to further help their transition attack.
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Bogut said he sensed opponents now enter games having respect for the Warriors defense, which is holding opponents to 41.5 percent from the field since the All-Star break for the second-best mark in the NBA.
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“Hopefully, they don’t,” Bogut said. “It’s better for us. Hopefully they come in and think it’s going to be a high-scoring game because a lot of times it’s not.”
It should be noted that Gerald Green has been playing off the charts relative to widespread expectations and is in the running for Most Improved Player of the Year. He is coming off a career-high 41-point game against the Oklahoma City Thunder.
Justin Einhorn of STATS:
“I love the way he’s playing right now,” coach Jeff Hornacek said of Green, 17 of 29 from 3-point range this month. “We knew he could shoot the ball. There’s not too many guys that can get on a roll like that.”
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Despite a career average of 9.4 points, Green is among the league leaders with 23.3 per game since Feb. 8, when he scored 25 in a 122-109 win over the Warriors.
The Suns have lost four straight at #ROARacle; in that stretch they have averaged 93.3 points per game. Last time they played in Oakland, they lost 115-86.
Justin Einhorn of Yahoo Sports
No Warriors player reached 20 points in either of the last two, but they beat Boston and Atlanta by double digits to improve to 8-2 since the All-Star break. No opponent has scored 100 during the three-game win streak, and Golden State is 30-4 when holding the opposition below the century mark.
“All in all I think we’re doing a great job of understanding who we are. We are a defensive-minded team,” center Jermaine O’Neal said. “We’ve got guys that can score the basketball, but I don’t want anybody to be fooled; we are a defensive-minded team and if we’re going to win it all, that’s what’s going to help us win it all.”
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The same can’t be said of the Suns (36-25), who have allowed an average of 112.0 points in their last seven games. However, they’ve won three of four and Green has been dominant in the last two victories.
[NOTE: Poor Man’s Commish contributed to this report]
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