Once again we’ll just watch for reasons to get optimistic about the future: can Udoh stay on the floor against one of the craftiest big guys in the league? Can Curry keep Parker in front of him? (Don’t laugh.) Can Thornton make the rest of the team better at all? And would it kill Smart to just play Adrien at least 10 minutes? After all, what’s the worst that could happen: You lose the game by 30 points and set a season low in points scored? Because that just happened last night — might as well try to get something positive out of it.

Now much to say about this one: The Warriors got smashed from the get-go and never really stood a chance — and capped things off with perhaps their worst 4th quarter of the season.

Not even much to get excited about on an individual level. Udoh was perhaps the bright spot as he had a team-high -1 in 29 minutes, though his atrocious rebounding continues as he only grabbed a single board in that span. Of the others we’re watching here in the final weeks of the season Curry had a so-so game 11 points, 6 assists, and 6 rebounds, and a -8 that was decent compared to the rest of the team.

On the other hand, Thornton was a mess with a team-low -27 to go with 9 points and 4 boards — and no assists. Williams was a bit better at only -11, but not by much.

And hey, Jeff Adrien got off the bench! He matched Udoh’s rebounding total and got to the line 4 times in only 3 minutes. Can we please just play him a bit more to see if there’s anything there?

All in all, another forgettable road performance in a season that is fast becoming unwatchable — especially when there’s good basketball on other channels.

With 13 games left on the season, what should the Warriors be aiming for? If the season ended today they would draft 11th (if my judgment of the eastern conference standings is correct), but they’ve made a good run on the draft standings with their recent swoon and a move up the order is no longer out of the question — getting to 9 now looks like a distinct possibility.

So that’s one “objective,” and figuring out the roster is probably the other. Udoh and Curry could use some development — and please, Smart, let them play through their mistakes at this point — and I’d like to learn more about what we’ve got with Williams, Thornton, and Adrien.

Of course, that would require Smart to throw in the towel and recognize that his head coaching days will soon be going on hiatus. So we’ll see.

Udoh is clearly the draw on that front — while the Kawakami’s of the world are trashing the Warriors for yet another PR campaign, from all accounts the guy has been a standout presence while he’s been out and is turning heads now that he’s been practicing again. Should at least be fun to see a guy step into the Anthony Randolph “huge upside” role for the team if he can leap and block as well as has been reported.

As for Acie Law? Eh. They obviously need another body in the back court, especially with Curry likely out with his ankle, but it’s not like he lit the world on fire during his first tour of duty with the Warriors. Still, with the big guys back Adrien became expendable, and despite all the hustle he brought to the team the dude just couldn’t score consistently. Given how hard he played I do hope he catches on with another team and is able to put a solid role-player career together.

So on to the game tonight — while a win is still unlikely, it should be fun to see the “super team” in action, and it would be great to at least get something to feel hopeful about again.

• Beef Injection. With a few notable exceptions (such as last night), the Warriors have been getting destroyed inside since Lee went out with his elbow injury. How much of an impact will he have tonight, considering that he couldn’t even get his heart rate up for a week and a half? At the very least, his enthusiasm, defensive communication, and great hands on the boards have to be an improvement over what we’ve seen the past two weeks. The question is whether it will be enough to spur a win on a road back-to-back.
• No Love. WP48 credits Kevin Love with 4.1 wins — and no other Timberwolf (sp?) has generated even one (Anthony Tolliver, of all people, is second on the team with .7). Keep him relatively quiet and the Warriors should have an excellent chance to win the game. We’ve already seen what Love can do this year, so this will be quite the matchup for Lee on his return. I’d like to see Adrien work on Love a bit as well, as his bodying up on Zach Randolph slowed the Grizzlies’ biggest post-presence last night.
• Day Old Beans. Biedrins looks like a completely different player last night, with great energy, smooth moves, and soft hands. Can’t expect him to be similarly dominant on the back end of a back-to-back (especially since he played over 40 minutes last night), but it would be great to see him build on last night and at least show similar energy in spurts tonight.

Photo by Joe Murphy/NBAE via Getty Images

The Warriors waste a career night from Biedrins and, more important, a great opportunity to steal one on the road before Lee comes back tonight. They shot 49% from the field, outrebound the Grizzlies 44-33, held Randolph and Gasol in check, and were even close in terms of foul shots with 23 attempts to the Grizzlies 29. But when it really mattered at the end, huge turnovers and missed shots pushed the losing streak to five games.

Dorell Wright was the goat in this one, as he missed two huge shots near the end — one a botched attempt to pick up a foul, the other a wide-open 3 with the game on the line. Let’s hope he bounces back like he did the last time he had a wretched game…3 games ago. After a great start to the season, games like this make you wonder if there was a reason why Wright never got a chance to play big minutes until this year.

Back to Biedrins, he was an absolute beast around the rim tonight. Perhaps most impressive was how smoothly he moved around the rim, taking a single dribble when needed to get in better position for a layup. That’s something we never would have seen from him a few years ago, and combined with his improved set of post moves from about 8-10 feet he might be using enhanced skills to make up for any lessened quickness compared to his earlier days.

The controversy du jour from tonight’s game was Smart’s 4th quarter decisions with regard to the bench: both Monta and Steph were kept out of the first five minutes of the quarter, and while the reserves didn’t do too bad as the deficit only grew from 5 to 8, as Steinmetz pointed out on the post-game show that stretch was the perfect opportunity to close the gap with the Memphis starters on the bench (Smart was planning to bring them in a bit earlier but there wasn’t a dead ball for several minutes). The decision to pull Curry after two bad plays and leave him on the bench until the 2-minute mark was also odd, and raises some questions about Smart’s coaching skills.

I thought this exchange from the Chronicle writeup was a big strange:

“I had two possessions when I was rusty. I’ve got to learn to ease my way back into a game when I sit that long,” said Curry, who had 26 points.

“I don’t buy that out-of-rhythm stuff. That’s a cop-out by ballplayers,” Smart said. “When I played, we were ready to play at any time.”

Silver linings? Jeff Adrien had a breakout game with 12 points (on 6-11 shooting), 8 rebounds, and a team-high +6 in over 30 minutes. Adrien still has flaws — the Grizzlies got a lot of easy inside baskets in this game — but until Amundson is back, he needs to jump over Gadzuric and Radmonovic in the front-court rotation.

Speaking of those two fools, Gaszuric managed a -15 in only 8 minutes of action last night. Radmonovic was slightly better and even hit a three, but his behind-the-back pass to the Grizzlies’ bench near the end of the game was a killer. The rest of the bench was similarly worthless: Carney in particular was extremely disappointing after a few solid games in a row; Lin was ok defensively but went 0-4 from the field with all four shots being blocked; and Reggie Williams played a largely forgettable 17 minutes with only 7 points.

And O.J. Mayo going for 23 off the bench? I guess no one read my game preview…

So now it’s on to Minnesota for a must-win game on the back end of a back-to-back. At least David Lee will be waiting for them when they get there — now we get to see how much the recent slide has been his absence and how much is just a tougher schedule exposing the Warriors’ flaws.

The Warriors got some good news before tonight’s game, as David Lee has been cleared to play and is flying out to Minnesota to meet the team for the final game of the road trip. But he won’t be available tonight, so the team will try once again to get that elusive second victory without their big offseason acquisition. The Warriors won the first meeting between these two, though the Grizzlies were without Zach Randolph and he’s back and expected to play. What to watch for tonight:

• Home Cookin’. Memphis is Monta’s offseason home, and he had the team over for Thanksgiving dinner last night at his “compound.” Monta’s been struggling since banging his hip, and is mired in his worst shooting slump of the season. Here’s hoping a couple nights in his own bed have recharged him a bit.
• Inside, inside, inside. It’s been a broken record since Lee’s been out, but this game will once again hinge on whether the team of Andris, Gadzuric, Adrien, and, yes, Radmanavic can hold off Randolph and Marc Gasol inside.
• Hold the Mayo. Regular Monta trade rumor partner O.J. Mayo has been struggling this year, and he was recently demoted to the bench for the first time in his NBA career. So he’ll be motivated to have a big game, and lord knows the Warriors are a good target for those sorts of attempts. I’ll probably watch the ESPN 2 feed, but for those of you watching CSN I hope you don’t have to hear Fitz ranting about the amazingly poor luck that would cause Mayo to go off against the Warriors of all teams — since defense of course can’t be blamed.

• Shoot the damn ball. The shooting percentages have been brutal over the past few games (and, really, all year), and until they get some bodies back inside that’s the number one thing that needs to change for them to have a shot. With Monta regularly being doubled, the other shooters need to step up and hit the open shots they’re going to get (and have been getting — and missing). Until that happens, hard to give this team a chance.
• Da Bench. Want to get depressed about our bench? Read this item from Owen. The one bright spot was actually the last game, when Carney and Williams dropped in 16 each. Let’s hope they can make it a trend.
• Inside D. Even with a health Lee, Luis Scola had a monster game on the inside in the season opener. I’d love to see Adrien get a chance to put a body on him tonight, and either way interior defense will need to be a team effort to slow him down.

• Showing up when you need to. The Warriors head out on a geographically long 3-game roadtrip to Houston, Memphis, and Minnesota after tonight, so it would be great to bag a home game before they go. The Warriors got off to a nice start to the season by winning the games they needed to in order to have a chance for the playoffs, and I think tonight qualifies. But they missed a similar opportunity last Friday against the Knicks, and Denver is better than the Knicks.
• Frontcourt bench, again. Carmelo and Nene offer another big challenge upfront, and Lee and Brandon Wright remain out. Adrien was better last night against the Lakers, so he could be the key guy there.
• Shoot the rock. For the Warriors to win tonight against the Nuggets, they’re going to need to score. And with Lee out, their best hope to score big is to shoot well from outside. I’d love to see Dorell Wright get back on the bandwagon by getting hot from deep for the first time in a while.

There’s not much to get excited about from this game, as most of the positive numbers came from garbage time (though Jeremy Lin’s +6 in 18 minutes was still nice to see). Curry managed to go 24 minutes without a turnover (though he only had 2 assists), Adrien was decent with 10 boards and 9 points in 26 minutes, and the team actually got to the line decently. And the starter got decent rest, so there’s also that.

But other than that, just another reminder of how far this team has to go before they realize the new owners’ dreams. Let’s hope they can regain their composure for tonight’s game against Denver, because with a road trip on tap the team could desperately use a win tonight.