Brooklyn Nets (4-3) at Golden State Warriors (5-2)
Tip-off: Thursday, November 13th, 2014 – 7:30 P.M. PDT
Location: Oracle Arena, Oakland CA
TV: CSN Bay Area / TNT
Live Tweet: @LetsGoWarriors #LetsGoWarriorsLive
Projected Starting Lineups:
WARRIORS
PG: Stephen Curry (26.0 PPG, 6.1 RPG, 6.9 APG)
SG: Klay Thompson (24.7 PPG, 3.0 RPG, 3.3 APG)
SF: Harrison Barnes (10.7 PPG, 5.7 RPG, 1.4 APG)
PF: Draymond Green (13.6 PPG, 7.1 RPG, 2.6 APG)
C: Andrew Bogut (6.1 PPG, 10.3 RPG, 2.7 APG)
Head Coach: Steve Kerr (5-2, .714)
NETS:
PG: Deron Williams (18.7 PPG, 2.7 RPG, 6.7 APG)
SG: Joe Johnson (20 PPG, 5.7 RPG, 3.7 APG)
SF: Bojan Bogdanovic (10.6 PPG, 2.6 RPG, 1.1 APG)
PF: Kevin Garnett (8.6 PPG, 8.6 RPG, 2.4 APG)
C: Brook Lopez (15.2 PPG, 5.6 RPG, 0.2 APG)
Head Coach: Lionel Hollins (218-204, .517)
Last Time Out:
Golden State lost to San Antonio, 113-100.
Brooklyn lost to Phoenix, 112-104.
What To Watch For:
Both Williams and Curry won their respective conference’s Player Of The Week honors last week.
The Warriors are coming off a two-game losing streak, the most recent loss coming at the hands of Gregg Popovich and the Spurs.
Despite a strong 29-point effort from Thompson and a surprising 24 points from Barnes, the Warriors were unable to stop the Spurs in the halfcourt set. They also committed 20 total turnovers and allowed eight offensive rebounds, which resulted in 23 more shot attempts for the reigning NBA champions.
Kerr, however, wasn’t too disappointed with his team’s play.
“I’m not disappointed at all,” Kerr said, “I think our guys fought, we did some good things. I thought we got better with our execution. We lost to a great team, but we learn, keep improving, and move on.”
As for Brooklyn, things are getting a bit “testy” so to speak after Hollins took some time to call out Lopez on his recent play.
“Making Brook a better basketball player is a priority,” Hollins said on Tuesday after practice. “Being tougher, being more aggressive, thinking that every time the play is for him, but also being a guy that’s passing the ball to his open teammates.
When you’re 7-foot, 260, I’d like for him to be a force, but I would like all of our big guys to play tougher, more aggressive.”
Johnson, the Nets’ veteran shooting guard, also had some words on the team’s recent play, highlighting the team’s overall lack of ball movement.
“I just think guys kind of exhaust their options and then when there’s nothing else for them, then they’ll pass it when they have to,” Johnson said, “For the most part, we’ve been very selfish. 4-2, I mean, it’s pretty good, but I wouldn’t say it’s where we want to be right now against teams that aren’t playoff teams.
“We haven’t played anybody. There’s no way you can play like we’ve played, you can’t go out on the road like that and play against these caliber teams – Phoenix, Golden State, Portland – those will be double-digit losses.”
Things are certainly looking a bit shaky in Brooklyn’s corner. If the Warriors can take advantage of that while taking better care of the basketball tonight, the Nets could very well see themselves on the losing end of a double-digit game.
Stay tuned for our pre-game report from Oracle Arena!
[NOTE: Zachary Cote contributed to this report.]Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
