Don Nelson Tears Into Andris Biedrins

These days, Nellie is not a big Biedrins fan: “After Wednesday night’s Warriors loss to Philadelphia, Don Nelson said he ‘didn’t see any life’ from Andris Biedrins, who played nine minutes, missed both of his shots and committed two turnovers. At today’s practice, Nelson was more critical of his struggling center. On whether his comments lit a fire under Biedrins: ‘I hope so. He needs to light his own fire. We play every other day. You can’t light the fire for him every game. So that’s up to him. Give us something. I mean, rebounding is one part of the game. You need more than that. Good defensive presence. The running skills. Good pick-setting. Good passing. We need a lot of things from our 5s other than rebounding.’ On the biggest difference between Biedrins’ double-double days and now: ‘A lack of aggressiveness. Running out of his scoring areas without being aggressive to catch and score.’ On why that is: ‘I think it has to do with his free-throw shooting (being tentative on offense to avoid going to the line). I told him today that if I were him, I would be wanting to shoot free throws so I’m not the all-time worst (single-season) free-throw shooter in the history of the NBA. If he could get to the free-throw line and even make five or six out of 10, at least it would be an improvement. I would be looking to get fouled, and I think he’s looking not to get fouled.”‘