Monday, January 29, 2007

It all begins here...

The Warriors are about to embark on their most important road trip of the season. They play 6 games in the next 10 nights away from the O in Oakland. 5 of those games are against eastern conference teams, with only 2 of those teams currently holding winning records.

Taking their two game winning streak on the road to Cleveland tomorrow, early indications are that the Dubs have caught a much needed break for tomorrow's game. All everything Mr. Lebron James (the number one pick in my fantasy draft by yours truely)most probably will not be playing because of a sore toe.

This is so huge for the Dub squad which have only won 4 games (good for second worst in the lig)on the road this year. Without Lebron, the Cavs are not a playoff team. I expect Cavs coach Mike Brown to slow it down, avoid the running game that the Warriors will love to play and dump the ball into Z and have Larry Hughes and others cutting trying to get layups and high percentage shots. Of course, I also think that without Lebron, the Cavs will not be the same team that stole a win at the O last week, in the debut of the DubThugs. The Warriors are semi rolling, and motivated to get this trip off to a good start. A win tomorrow at the Q (Quicken Loans Arena) could propell the Warriors into a winning streak, which they desperately need.

I also think that this tirp could see another trend of this season's Dubs come to an end. They are currently 0-10 on the second night of road back to back's. Wednesday nights game is in Atlanta, against the Hawks, and I'm sure that AL will be eager to show (one of) his old team(s) what they are missing. Stephen Jackson was also a Hawk in the not too distant past, but more than anything, the Dubs NEED this game. They currently sit at 21-23, two games under .500, and with Minnesota's win against Phoenix tonight, 2.5 games out of the final Western Conference playoff spot.

After Atlanta, the team has Thursday off, and then they are onto Philly and Charlotte on Friday and Saturday nights. So in essence, the Dubs play their next four games against probably 4 of the worst 6 teams in the league (of course, that includes the Cavs sans Lebron).

Sunday is another off day, before what I now look forward to as the match up of the year. Monday, Februay 4th, the new look DubThugs play the Indiana Pacers, who amazingly now start Mike Dunleavy and Troy Murphy. I think Stephen Jackson and Al Harrington will do exactly what they did to the those two soft front court players back in early December....pre-trade, which is to say, DOMINATE. I am definitely going into work early to leave early. My prediction, is the Dubs will run them off the floor, and win by Double digits.

I know this is a bold statement, but I'm feeling the momentum of Saturday night's laugher against the Bobcats. I'm thinking the Dubs win tomorrow, and use the the momentum to go 5-0 on the first 5 games of the trip. Don't think they will beat Minnesota in Minnesota to end the trip, but then again, if they actually go 5-0 in the first five, anything can happen.

So I'll have to keep track, but anything less than 4-2 on this trip will be a dissapointment. 4-2 would put the Dubs at 25-25, and back at .500 after the trip. I really feel that the new players are starting to come together, understand their roles, and yet still want to play hard to please Coach Nelson, their new teammates, and generally show the NBA community that they are difference makers. We'll see.

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