Tim Kawakami: Golden State Warriors' New Look Includes Plenty of Defense

Stephen Curry anticipated the pass, tipped the ball to himself, raced down court to the hoop ... and then promptly clanked the layup.

Typical Warriors: defense, defense, defense, just can't get that ball in the basket.

Wait. That's not at all the Warriors' history or habit, at least not in the past 400 years or so.

Which made Curry's first-half moment distinctly worth noting at the Warriors' exhibition opener against Sacramento on Saturday.

Everything except the miss.

Add in several other strange and mysterious occurrences -- like Oracle Arena crop circles! -- of Warriors team defense, help defense, responsible defense, rotating defense ...

And coach Mark Jackson's first time on the Warriors sideline was certainly not a debacle.

Andris Biedrins, in particular, seemed fully invested in the new regime and the need to bang into whomever he could on defense.

Of course, this all came in a practice game against a Kings team that should be awful again; worse than awful, actually.

And the Warriors still seem too small, too slow, too skinny, and over-tilted toward offense.

But Jackson's entire mission, loudly proclaimed once again before the game, is to make the Warriors a better defensive team.

Not in a year or three months. Right now.

They didn't make many major changes to the roster, so the entire situation with Curry, Monta Ellis, David Lee and the rest is basically a Jackson leap of faith.

With this roster, some leaps are larger than others.

"We will be a good defensive team," Jackson said before the game. "We will take pride on the defensive end.

"That does not mean that we're going to stop everybody. No matter who you are in this league, you're still going to get scored on. But we will make the proper adjustments and get better."

It wouldn't have been the end of everything if the Warriors looked drowsy and fundamentally flawed in their first game under Jackson.

But it sure wouldn't have been a good sign, either.

General conclusion: The Warriors' key players, who have been so bad defensively individually and as a group for so long, are buying into Jackson and his staff for the most part.

They have physical limitations, and most of their mindset will always be directed to scoring as quickly as possible.

But against a Kings lineup that has its share of scorers, the Warriors' D held up. Biedrins, Ekpe Udoh and rookie Jeremy Tyler had some good moments defending the rim and Ellis and Curry didn't zone out.

For instance, in the first half, the Warriors held the Kings to 36.1 percent shooting and out-rebounded the Kings 24-16.

The second half was much less sharp for the Warriors, but again, it was an exhibition game and it came after an abbreviated training camp.

Maybe the most positive defensive sign for the Warriors actually came on offense -- Udoh, by far their most talented defensive player, looked good offensively, which could earn him major minutes in the regular season.

And the more Udoh plays, the better the Warriors' defense will be.

Before the game, Jackson said he expected his team to come out with a defensive mindset, and with discipline on offense.

"Things that we've talked about from the beginning of camp, we expect now with live competition to not forget them," Jackson said.

And will that be evident right away?

"Oh, we're going to see it," Jackson said. "Absolutely."

It's not like the Warriors blew the roof off the place on Saturday. There's every indication that they've got a long ways to go to even be average defensively.

But they could've looked worse, and have almost always looked worse, so for a practice game, it was something worth noting. You can only go forward once you stop going backward.

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Source : http://www.mercurynews.com/warriors/ci_19572586