Post Drunkout: Nellie Ball Forever (Warriors 3rd in Pace, 23rd in Opp. Points Per Game)

Chris Cohan Ownership Win Number 483!
Robert Rowell Presidency Win Number 254!
(We all mised his 250th win on Asian Heritage Night vs. the Clippers October 29th.
Sorry, I take full responsibility for letting that milestone pass as unnoticed as a Chris Mullin jersey retirement)

Warriors are now 6-2 under Chris Cohan and Robert Rowell this season. Take the Lakers loss off of their docket and their opponents' collective win-loss record is a cool 17-30 (.362).  Yikes.  The Knicks game highlighted shitty defense and stat-centric slop ball not seen since.... all of last season, this preseason, this season, and any time Keith Smart gets flustered in a close game vs. shitty opponents.  To almost cough up a NINETEEN point lead against a doormat like the Knicks is embarrassing at best.  No progress whatsoever strategically, stylistically, or otherwise despite Nellie's best efforts to orchestrate armageddon for two years running.  Now we're just back to the syrupy pre-Drunkout shitball only with far worse defenders/contract pushers at point guard and small forward. 

Monta Ellis, the team's obvious MVP, may get the All Star nod Baron didn't in 2007-08 and Dorell Wright seems more reliable than Stephen Jackson as a no-conscience Chucker against bad teams.  But this is the same model. In EVERY meaningful way. 

One minor difference: rebounding differential.  Used to think this was THE major difference but I'm not so sure the Warriors can legitimately point to any meannigful or relevant improvement here just yet.  In 2007-08, the Warriors were not good at outrebounding opponents over the full season. At all. Yet, they won 48 games.  So far, they appear to be better and are ranked 6th in the league.  Two double-digit rebounders in the starting lineup certainly helps.  But then again, 6 of the Warriors 8 opponents are in the bottom half of the league in rebounding differential. And more confusing/troubling still for a shitball run-it-up team, the Toronto Raptors actually have a BETTER rebounding differential than the Warriors depite being about the absolute worst team in the league and all-purpose league punchline MINNESOTA is even better than Toronto.  Strange days.

The Warriors are now giving up 104.3 points per game, good for 23rd in the league.  Houston is dead last at 110.6.  Memphis and New York are both lower than the Warriors in OPP PPG.  Toronto is 21st at 103.8.  Utah, which may finally be emerging from its cave, is still down at 20th in the league.  The Warriors have played exactly two teams outside the bottom third of the league in OPP PPG:

The Detroit Pistons and the Los Angeles Lakers. 
They lost both games. 

Keith Smart's supposedly revamped offense.... isn't.

On the other side of the ball, the Warriors are pointing to their OPP FG% rates so far.  But they're dropping quickly off of stat padding stinkers from the Clippers and Utah and have already hit 45%.  They're likely to get worse as the season wears on and the good teams finally hit the schedule in any sort of volume.  The last three opponents:

Detroit: .431 season, .451 vs. GSW
Toronto: .441season, .458 vs. GSW
New York: .443 season, .468 vs. GSW

Unbelievably poor work against poor-shooting teams.

This recent failure to plan or execute any sort of new, non-Nellieball team defensive coherence suggests that, as the schedule gets tougher, the Warriors will continue to allow big shooting nights to their opponents and they may very well begin to give up even more points per night as other teams get some game tape under their coaching staffs' belts.  It won't take long to figure out that the Warriors don't really have much of an offensive toolkit at all and are largely just taking advantage of early-season sloppiness and terrible broken teams with sucker plays Nellie already ran.  All saved at the buzzer by swaggerriffic timely (desperate) three point shooting in shootouts.  The Knicks and Pistons both looked like they had the Warriors' simplistic strategic composition figured out. Detroit knew how to dismantle it from the ground up and New York was nearly capable of letting the slop ball routine play itself out and simply making more shots before the buzzer sounded.  Better shooting teams with even a modicum of defensive intensity relative to New York will simply torch the Warriors under similar circumstances.

The Warriors are third in pace behind Minnesota and Houston so good opponent shooting is hardly even necessary to shatter the illusion of defensive competence the team is selling desperately. This is still a Nellie Ball team.  Pre-Drunkout Nellie, to be sure, but still just a chucking running idiot ball team with stat padders and no defensive presence whatsoever when push comes to shove and legitimate team structure is on the other side of the media table.

When's the sale closing?