Monta Ellis waits too long — again

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Lets tie up some loose ends from Utahs 88-87 win over theWarriors on Saturday night. Thats five straight losses for the Warriors andtheyre now 2-6.Final play: I thoughtas usualMontaEllis waited too long to try to do something on a games final possession. The Warriorshad 11 seconds and Ellis dribbled for much of it.RECAP: Monta misses buzzer-beater in Warriors' 88-87 loss to Jazz
He puts himself in a position where he doesnt leavehimself an extra second or two to improvise, which is a big part of his game.Instead, he puts pressure on himself to make something happen quicklyandalso without giving himself extra time for a change of direction, hesitation or even a pass to a teammate.Under different circumstances, he did the same thing acouple of times last year against Indiana and Sacramento, but it didnt matterbecause he knocked down shots (both jumpers, not drives like Saturday) withtime expiring.Warriors coach Mark Jackson talked about Utah having a foulto givewhich it didand that Ellis might have thought the Jazz would foulhim with five seconds or so. And then once Ellis realized they werent going tofoul, he had to go. But Jackson also said he had no issue with theshot.Ellis said the fact Utah had a foul to give meant nothingand didnt affect his decision-making.Bottom line is Ellis, when he winds down the game clock toofar, has to be perfect, because its clear his goal is for the shot to go in asthe buzzer is sounding. But hes got to give his team a chance for an offensivereboundor quick foul after a miss that may leave you with a second or two,down two or three.Or once again, this needs to be stressed, give himself theopportunity to make a pass. After all, didnt I just read a stat about how heshad seven or more assists in a game now for six straight gamesmost sinceBaron Davis did it?Now, yes, that gets us into the area of who do you want himpassing it towith Curry outwith the game on the line and thats a biggertopic for another day. Anyway, next time Ellis has to go sooner. Hop before the shot: Yes, Al Jeffersonmight have bunny-hopped on his mid-range jumper with 33 seconds left. Butthats not going to be called, nor should it be. And you know what? If DavidLees tip-in comes before the buzzer the refs probably dont call the over theback, either. Thompson at crunch time: Rookie KlayThompson got some important crunch-time minutesat the expense of DorellWright -- and it didnt work out very well. Thompson, who went 1-for-6 from thefloor, didnt connect with Ellis on what should have been a pretty easytwo-on-one score with just under two minutes left. Then he committed an offensive foul with 1:05 remaining andthe Warriors up two. In other words, two turnovers in the final two minutes. On the bench at the time was Dorell Wright, who has beenshooting terribly, but according to Jackson has been doing otherthings. One of them is not turning the ball over. Wright hasnt beenmaking much of an impact, thats true. But he hasnt been a nuisance onoffense, either. Hes committed a remarkably low two turnovers in 233 minutesthis season. After the game, Jackson offered no regrets about playingThompson down the stretch, saying Thompson played welljust made a mistake ortwo when it counted. Lee gets the minutes: David Lee played41-plus minutes against the Jazz, by far more than anyone else on the floor on either team. Monta Ellis, who led the league in minutes coming into the game(39.8 mpg.) played 36 and change. He was the next highest.Nobody on the Jazz played more than 34 minutes. Lee finishedwith 13 points and 15 rebounds, but in the games context those numbers arentimpressive. With one team shooting 39.5 percent (Utah) and the other shooting41.4 percent, there were plenty of rebounds to get.

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