Warriors notes: Schedule toughens, Udoh's face-up game

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A little of this and thatWarriors-relatedto get yourMonday going ---The Warriors are 8-13, but thats nottheir biggest issue when it comes to turning the season around. Nope, theirbiggest problem is the schedule ahead. Bottom line is theyve failed to takeadvantage of a favorable early season schedule.The Warriors play four of their next five games at OracleArena, which will mean that through 26 games, they will have played 17 homegames and just nine road games.So, if you do the math, of the Warriors last 40 games thisseason, 24 will be on the road. Over the past three-plus seasons, the Warriorsroad mark is 28-103.

---Ekpe Udoh has had an up-and-downseason, but when hes been good, hes helped the Warriors win games, no doubt.If theres one thing thats been unfair to Udoh, its that, on offense, hesprimarily asked to be a low-post player.Udoh certainly isnt a great low post player, but the factis that hes better than most of his teammates. And, because of that, hesasked to post up more than he should.The reality is that Udohs strength offensively is theface-up jumper, from about 16 to 20-feet. He buried three of those kinds ofjumpers in last Thursdays win over the Jazz, and its how he did a bulk of hisscoring at Baylor. But he hasnt been put in that position enough this year.---Monta Ellis is having an awful yearshooting the ball. Yes, Ellis did a lot early in the season to keep theWarriors afloat, but after 21 games hes shooting just 42 percent from thefield.That would be the lowest field goal percentageby far for Ellis since his rookie season when he shot 41.5 percent from the floor. Buthe was a rookie coming out of high school that year and played just 49games.Ellis came into the season a 47-percent shooter from thefield, so the dip to 42 percent is quite significant. ---Nobodys saying Andris Biedrins ishaving a great season, but he still does certain things better than most of histeammates whether hes playing well or not, apparently.Of the active players on the active roster, Biedrins isfirst in rebounds per minuteaveraging 13.2 per 48 minutesand second inblocks per minute (behind Udoh)averaging 3.4 per 48 minutes.Add to that the fact that coach Mark Jackson has said onnumerous occasions that Biedrins is the teams best low-post defender and itscurious as to why hes getting fewer than 18 minutes per game.

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