On Sunday night, we heard all about Golden State's strong run since Baron Davis and Jason Richardson returned to play with newcomers Al Harrington and Stephen Jackson. And yes, we can expect to hear more on that Wednesday when Golden State and Dallas resume battle.But just how good is that Warriors smallball lineup the midseason blockbuster made possible?
In the regular season, the Davis-Monta Ellis-Richardson-Jackson-Harrington lineup played 116 minutes, outscoring their opponents by 45 points in that time. Teased out to a 48-minute game, that's about +18.6. That's very good.
For comparison's sake, Dallas' standard starting five of Devin Harris-Jason Terry-Josh Howard-Dirk Nowitzki-Eric Dampier outscored opponents by 215 points this season in 548 minutes, which is a per-48 margin of +18.8. Dallas' normal lineup was in fact better than Golden State's late season small lineup, which makes Avery Johnson's decision to go tiny even more questionable.
The lineup Avery did go with -- Harris-Terry-Devean George-Howard-Nowitzki -- played a total of 31 minutes this year. They were successful in those limited minutes together (+27), but it's puzzling why Johnson would turn to such a little-used lineup in Game 1 of a playoff series. It backfired, obviously -- the lineup was a -3 on Sunday.
Don Nelson shouldn't be afraid to match Avery's sure revision to the norm with a more conventional Davis-Ellis-Jackson-Harrington-Andris Biedrins lineup, though. That squad was +65 in 88 minutes this season, or +35.5 per 48 minutes.
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Reader Comments ( Page 1 of 1)
1. that was no place for a small child. He's lucky he only needed stitches. What was his father thinking? DUH
Posted at 1:22AM on Apr 25th 2007 by linda