If you feel like dissecting the Warriors' play last night beyond what Warrior fans are writing off as a the effects of a road trip against a well-rested Bulls team, check out IQofaWarriors’ link dump of last night’s game. But beyond that, it’s just nice to see what the team is saying about last night’s game: video interviews and great quotes as always.
The first thing that struck me from the finale of last night’s game was how even they managed to make the score. That is, how did the Warriors and Bulls time it that they would both finish with points that were divisible by 30? Typically you might see a score that’s like 128-93. But 120-90? Something seems odd about that.
Ellis led the team with 24 points, but notched a horrific +/- rating of -37 when he was in the game. The next closest Warrior was Dorell Wright at -20. Whether or not Ellis was the worst player on the court that night is debatable. Ellis is known to take some bad shots when the team is struggling. But upon closer look at the minutes played, Ellis clearly played the longest (as did Dorell Wright, but by one less minute), which probably, partially, accounts for his seeming lack of contribution.
But as we’ve been tracking recently, even when the Warriors win (and Ellis statistically fills the stat-line), Ellis’ hasn’t necessarily been that great for his team. So what do we make of this? Is Ellis’ offensive contributions NOT helpful?
They clearly are because without them, who else is going to fill his spot? Rodney Carney? Jeremy Lin? Charlie Bell? Hardly reliable backups at this point. Granted, last night was horrible game all around, but what is Ellis doing or not doing that’s making him, statistically, detrimental to his team?