Western Semis: Golden State Warriors vs. Portland Trailblazers

[DynastYWarrioR6]

Pretty simple, vote for the winner of this matchup. Winner advances to play the winner of the 1/5 series.

Golden State Warriors - Accelerate:
PG: Jason Kidd / Marcus Williams
SG: Bonzi Wells / Jerry Stackhouse / Willie Green
SF: Andres Nocioni / Al Harrington / Steve Novak
PF: Hedo Turkoglu / Joey Dorsey
C: Tim Duncan / DeAndre Jordan

Portland Trailblazers - L:
PG: Chris Paul / Marcus Banks / Chris Quinn
SG: Rip Hamilton / Anthony Parker
SF: Brandon Rush / Renaldo Balkman / Ryan Anderson
PF: Rasheed Wallace / Jason Maxiell
C: Rasho Nesterovic / Etan Thomas

 

[Accelerate]

Interesting. I wasn't actually expecting to go too far into the playoffs with how I constructed my team but looking at this second round matchup, I reckon I have a very good shot at the Western Conference Finals.

The way I see it, Andres Nocioni, Al Harrington and Hedo Turkoglu are too much for anyone in Portland to handle. Either Rasheed or Rasho ghoti are going to have to guard Turkoglu and whoever doesn't has to guard Duncan. Rasheed will be contained by Timmy and Rush and Rasho ghoti are irrelevant.

Admittedly, I don't know too much about Rush.

 

[Celtic Fan]

good points, but you're going to be murdered in the backcourt and CP3 driving past an aging Kidd will draw Timmy off his man and Paul is smart enough to finish or pass it up for an easy dunk given the circumstances.

Rip Will lose a not too interested in playing D Bonzi off of screens to light him up. Duncan vs Sheed is near equal as Sheed will get up to face TD.
You kill at the SF spot though with some very good depth.

it's a tough call indeed.

I like L's back ups at the PF/C spot a lot more too.

Rasho gets tooled by Duncan or stick with Hedo out at the 3pt line and gets blown by if he does venture out. I think Etan gets a lot of PT in this series.

 

[Accelerate]

good points, but you're going to be murdered in the backcourt and CP3 driving past an aging Kidd will draw Timmy off his man and Paul is smart enough to finish or pass it up for an easy dunk given the circumstances.

Rip Will lose a not too interested in playing D Bonzi off of screens to light him up. Duncan vs Sheed is near equal as Sheed will get up to face TD.
You kill at the SF spot though with some very good depth.

it's a tough call indeed.

I like L's back ups at the PF/C spot a lot more too.

Rasho gets tooled by Duncan or stick with Hedo out at the 3pt line and gets blown by if he does venture out. I think Etan gets a lot of PT in this series.

True, there's our Achilles in this particular matchup but you can't rely on Paul penetrating and blowing past Kidd and co. every single trip on offense.

True about Bonzi's D. I'd expect Stack to get more playing time this series as he'd do marginally better defending Rip. So Sheed on any given day just needs the motivation to neutralize a force like Duncan? He'd slow him down as good as anyone in the league can but to say someone who last year averaged 12.7 ppg and 6.6 rpg would play just as well as Duncan when he's still in the latter stages of his prime is outrageous. Sorry if I'm taking this out of context.

In all, whatever advantage L has in Paul and Rip dominating their counterparts, it's dwarfed by the advantages of our superior frontcourt.

 

[pegs]

Rasho Nesterovic is about to tear Duncan a new asshole.

 

[Celtic Fan]

True, there's our Achilles in this particular matchup but you can't rely on Paul penetrating and blowing past Kidd and co. every single trip on offense.

True about Bonzi's D. I'd expect Stack to get more playing time this series as he'd do marginally better defending Rip. So Sheed on any given day just needs the motivation to neutralize a force like Duncan? He'd slow him down as good as anyone in the league can but to say someone who last year averaged 12.7 ppg and 6.6 rpg would play just as well as Duncan when he's still in the latter stages of his prime is outrageous. Sorry if I'm taking this out of context.
In all, whatever advantage L has in Paul and Rip dominating their counterparts, it's dwarfed by the advantages of our superior frontcourt.

Sheed is a talented player when he is motivated to play hard.
the last 3 years, he's done very well vs Duncan

Player Date FG% TRB AST STL BLK TOV PF PTS
Tim Duncan 1/12/2006 0.412 13 1 0 1 0 1 17
Rasheed Wallace 1/12/2006 0.6 10 4 0 1 2 2 27

Tim Duncan 2/14/2007 0.5 8 1 0 2 1 0 23
Rasheed Wallace 2/14/2007 0.333 7 3 1 1 2 3 13

Tim Duncan 3/23/2007 0.5 14 2 0 0 4 4 17
Rasheed Wallace 3/23/2007 0.444 7 1 1 2 1 4 21

Tim Duncan 1/10/2008 0.5 15 5 1 1 1 2 24
Rasheed Wallace 1/10/2008 0.6 15 3 3 2 1 3 23

Tim Duncan 3/14/2008 0.391 10 3 0 1 4 1 20
Rasheed Wallace 3/14/2008 0.385 8 1 0 3 1 1 10

Bottom line, it's not a cakewalk for TD

 

[pegs]

Is it wrong to say that Rasho may know all of Duncan's moves, playing alongside him (and against him in practice) for a number of years?

Plus, how do they stop Rasheed? Throw Duncan at him, sure...but then, Rasheed goes to the perimeter, and then either a player drives or a big man gets it down low. Foul trouble/easy layups. Throw a smaller guy, he posts up, and owns down low.

Lack of good big man depth hurts the Warriors.

 

[#1_War_Poet_ForLife]

Having 2 rookie second round draft picks as your only bigmen backups, especially when 1 was picked on "potential", and the other one is, well, Joey Friggin Dorsey, is usually a nono.

 

[zєяσ]

I win. That's my argument.

/thread

 

[Celtic Fan]

I still hate B.Rush and Rasho as starters....