Month: November 2012

Warriors center Andrew Bogut has been receiving injections in his surgically repaired left ankle while rehabilitating in Los Angeles, according to a Warriors official.

Bogut went to SoCal to continue his rehab under the supervision of Dr. Richard Ferkel, who performed arthroscopic surgery on Bogut’s ankle in April. While there, he has received several injections of Regenokine injections.

These treatments, designed to diminish swelling and assist in Bogut’s recovery, are a form of blood-manipulation therapy. It is usually used to treat joint pain, lower back pain and forms of arthritis. It works by taking blood from the patient, manipulating it to get a concentrated protein-heavy fluid, then injecting it into the problem area. Kobe Bryant and Alex Rodriguez have reportedly benefited from the procedure.

OK. Maybe, it’s too early to call it a must-win. So we’ll call it a need-this-badly game. And the Warriors did exactly what they were supposed to do — beat a short-handed team on their own floor.

MARK JACKSON: “This was a home game where they were missing two of their top seven players. We expected to win. … If we’re talking about having a successful year, you have to win this game before going on the road because we will be playing some good teams.”

Wednesday’s game was so critical because the Warriors are headed for a three-game road trip (at Minnesota, Oklahoma City and Dallas). Two of those games would be an upset if they pull it out. The Warriors need to get all the wins they can while they wait for center Andrew Bogut to return. It would be ideal if they are at .500 whenever that happens.

Such requires winning games they should win.

The best part about Wednesday’s game was they had to actually win it. It wasn’t a blow out. They had to hold on. They had to make plays. That’s valuable experience for a young team.

More on Wednesday’s victory …

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By Dan Brown (dbrown@mercurynews.com)

As a few in-need families found out Monday, one of the perks of going grocery shopping with a Warriors player is that they can reach stuff of the top shelf.

One group had Festus Ezeli — all 6-foot-11 of him — at its disposal, while another settled for 6-foot-7 Richard Jefferson. “My mom used to make me get all the tall stuff, too,” Jefferson told one boy. “Don’t worry, man.”

By the time they were done, Ezeli, Jefferson and handful of other Warriors had grabbed so much that the shopping carts overlflowed.

“Just trying to do good in the community,” Ezeli said. “That’s what it’s about.”

Each player helped one family walk away with enough goods to make a Thanksgiving meal and then some. As the kick-off event for the Warriors’ holiday outreach campaign, Lucky donated $350 gift cards to each family.

The players earned their assist by helping kids pick out the best turkey, stuffing and pumpkin pie. Jefferson even saw the process all the way through by donning an apron at the checkout aisle and insisting on being called “Checker No. 5.”

“It’s good to help families, especially the families that support you on a day-to-day basis,” Jefferson said.

Others to participate Monday were Carl Landry, Draymond Green and assistant coach Michael Malone. The Warriors will hold at least 14 more “Plays for the Holidays” events through December, including toy drives and serving food at homeless shelters. Each Warriors player will participate at least once.

Warriors coach Mark Jackson said after Tuesday’s practice that center Andrew Bogut will not join the team on the three-game road tip this weekend.

MARK JACKSON: “We’re going to stay true to the rehab and try to get him as strong as possible. When he’s ready, he’ll play. But he won’t be on the trip.”

That means Bogut will be out longer than initially announced. On Thursday, Jackson revealed that Bogut was being shut down for 7 to 10 days so he could focus on rehab and strengthening his surgically repaired left ankle. But since Jackson ruled him out for the road trip, Bogut will miss at least 12 days and six games.

The plan was to re-evaluate Bogut at the end of that 7 to 10 days and make a plan from that point. Wednesday is the seventh day, so Bogut was never expected to play. But the initial timetable, which had  suggested there was a chance Bogut could play on the coming road trip, perhaps Sunday at Oklahoma City or Monday at Dallas.

But even after the Warriors get back from the trip, don’t expect Bogut to hope right back in.

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Warriors guard Klay Thompson, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, left Oracle Arena with his uniform on. His jeans, his sweater, his shoes, all left behind in his locker. Not even a week after missing the potential game-winning shot at Sacramento, Thompson has been dealt another cruel lesson by the NBA.

In Saturday’s loss to Denver, Thompson emerged as the goat. He missed a pair of free throws in the final seconds of overtime, and making both would’ve probably sealed the game. To make matters worst, he allowed Denver forward Danilo Gallinari drive right by him for the game-tying WIDE OPEN dunk though the Warriors had a foul to give and all it took was for Thompson to grab him.

Then, in double-overtime, the Warriors were inbounding the ball with 35.9 seconds remaining down 103-101. As the play evolved, the ball wound up in Thompson’s hands. Despite only need a basket to tie the game, despite still having some 15 seconds on the shot clock, despite having missed nine of his previous 14 attempts, Thompson hoisted a 3-pointer. He missed, all but sealing the loss.

MARK JACKSON: “I wish I had an excuse to co-sign that it was his youth. But no. Not at all. I think there’s a part of him that let the missed free throws get to him, or a missed shot. But no, not youth. But he’s going to be fine. And this is not just him. We made mistakes across the board. And we’re going to get better.”

In many ways, Thompson embodies where the Warriors are in their development. Talented and full of promise but don’t yet know how to win. So inexperienced they manage to turn a strength into a weakness. The good things they do obscured by glaring limitations.

No doubt, Saturday’s performance by Thompson — 9 of 26 shooting, 3 turnovers — was devastating. The only question is whether this becomes a benchmark for his development, whether this creates a sense of urgency in him that leads to improvement.

Same goes for the Warriors.

JACKSON: “I understand it’s a process. In order to get there, you’ve got to go through times like this. But I’m not a guy that’s patient with process when it comes to that. There are mistakes that you can’t make. And we made some.”

More on Saturday’s loss …

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Both the Warriors and Nuggets come into tonight’s game at 3-3. But somehow, you get the sense these teams are far apart.

For starters, the Nuggets are coming off a blowout home win over Utah, and the Warriors are coming off getting blown out by the host Los Angeles Lakers.

Denver started slow, but have won three straight and are starting to look like the formidable team many expected. Golden State started well but have lost 2 of their last 3 and are starting to look like the mediocre team many expected.

Of course, the Warriors can change that perception with a win tonight. Watch for the sense of urgency Golden State plays with. Coming off a humbling loss, and playing without starting center Andrew Bogut, the Warriors could respond with another listless performance, demoralized by the cards they’ve been dealt. Or, they could go the other way, get more focused, more hungry, knowing any win they get during this rough patch of season will pay dividends down the road.

Here are some other things to watch for tonight …

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The Warriors allegedly high-powered offense was reduced to a jump-shooting mess in Friday’s 101-77 loss to the Los Angeles Lakers. At the end, when Golden State had made just 33.7 percent of their attempts, shot selection was an obvious concern.

The main culprits were the sharp-shooting Warriors guards: Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson. They each ere 6 of 16 from the field. Thompson was 3 of 8 from 3-point range, Curry 2 of 6.

MARK JACKSON: “I told the guys at the end of the day, these are shooters, getting good looks. They’re smart enough to turn it down and make plays but I want these guys to continue to be aggressive on the offensive end and don’t turn shots down. If you’re going to clap when they make open shots, you can’t be frustrated yelling at them when they miss the same ones. They’re knock down shooters who had a tough night.”

Jacksonsaid he doesn’t think the shot selection was bad. He said they just missed open shots. But that’s just a coach protecting his players. In the locker room at halftime,Jacksontalked to them about their shots.

Point guard Stephen Curry, who has made a concerted effort to get into the lane more, even acknowledged the Warriors needed to take better shots.

“We shot a lot of early threes in the beginning of possessions. But they were uncontested, a lot of us walking into it. You’ve got to find the balance between zero- and one-pass possessions versus getting to the basket and trying to get the ball moving a little bit and those same shots coming back around. Sometimes it is hard to turn down wide-open threes even if it’s early in the possession and you’ve missed a couple. But we’ve got to find that balance.”

The Warriors lost the game in the second and third quarters. They were downright atrocious. During those two periods, they shot 11 of 44 from the field (25 percent) with eight turnovers. It’s no coincidence that they took 16 of their 25 3-pointers during those two quarters. They were 1 of 10 from 3-point range in the second quarter, and 2 of 6 in the third quarter — meaning over those two quarters they missed more 3-pointers (13) than they took free throws (12).

DAVID LEE: “We got open shots tonight, especially from the three-point line. We just couldn’t buy a bucket. … We didn’t shoot the ball well enough. There’s always going to be days like this on the road and we need to do a better job on the boards to counter that.”This brings me to a new feature:  Writer’s Rant.

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