Warriors 105 Sonics 99- Yeah, the Warriors beat a team they should beat but the best news to hit the Warriors today was Yao Ming's season ending injury. The Ws had been involved in a nine team pileup in the Western Division and had scratched and clawed their way to the eighth and final spot thanks to the largess of the Nuggets, now currently starring in a three-game losing streak. But with Yao down, a team that had won twelve straight now looks pretty doomed. The Warriors should solidify their playoff spot just as soon as the Rockets start losing, something for which they should start doing any minute now. Any minute now.....

-The Sharks picked up defensemen Brian Campbell for right wing Steve Bernier and a first round draft pick. No, we're not sure what this all means either. Apparently, the Sharks thought Bernier would help the offense as he's got good stats and was considered some pretty good trade bait. They also sent Rob Davison to the Islanders for a seventh-round pick and signed free agent goalie Brian Boucher. Shark fans, however, aren't quite happy as apparently, nobody is happy with Patrick Marleau.

-Omar Vizquel will be out for the rest of the preseason as he's going to have knee surgery, thus proving this was a bad week for people named Omar (sniff). This means Ray Durham will play 2nd base, Kevin Fransden will play short, and the third baseman will be whomever on the bench draws the short straw.

We instantly checked to see who was "headlining" the event and the six biggest names are: Jack Johnson, the Verve, Raconteurs, Portishead, Kraftwerk, Death Cab for Cutie, Roger Waters, Love and Rockets and My Morning Jacket. It doesn't seem as strong of a line-up compared to last year's line-up: Arcade Fire, Andrew Bird, The Decemberists, Amy Winehouse and of course, Bjork. (And we only named a few.) Is it as exciting? We're thinking, no. But, we were excited to see two local bands come up on the list: Rogue Wave and dredg.

Rogue Wave, an indie-rock band from Oakland, are performing on the first day of the festival, Friday, April 25th. They recently released their third album, "Asleep at Heaven's Gate" on Brushfire Records. (Their first two records were released on Subpop Records.) Zack Rogue, the lead singer and founder of the band, has been featured at Noise Pop 2006 where SFist Emily thought the male-pattern baldness seemed to plague half of the band members. (That sucks.) This doesn't deter these guys from rocking out.

Dredg (officially named "dredg" with a lower-case d) are originally from Los Gatos and have been together since 1996. They officially just came out of hibernation last fall with a performance at Great American Music Hall. (Did anyone go?) It looks like they will have some new music for Coachella.

To see the full list of performers, take the jump.

Warriors 113 Rockets 94- On the pregame show before the game, the announcers were saying that whomever controlled the pace of the game would win. If it was fast paced, it's all Golden State. If it was slowed down a bit, then the Rockets would take it. Guess which kind of pace the game was played at? Despite the presence of Yao, the Warriors outrebounded the Rockets and held him in check. So much for that size disadvantage the Warriors are supposed to have. For those keeping score at home, that's eight out of nine games the Warriors have won.

-So you've probably heard the Lane Kiffin to Arkansas rumors. We have no idea what the what is but the thing makes kind of sense in a weird sort of way. Kiffin was totally unprepared for the job and kind of looks it. He has the same look on his face that you'd see in Starbucks when a barista who's been on the job for only a week suddenly finds himself running the place because the manager was sick. Throw in all the Al craziness and the fact that the Raiders are the second most dysfunctional franchise in sports (the Knicks are, of course, #1 by a wide margin) and Arkansas sounds kind of inviting. Just think about that for a minute.

-McCovey Chronicles has a really good discussion about the Giants' "Sophie's Choice" dilemna this offseason, mainly in that in order to get some good players in a trade, they'd probably have to trade either Cain or Lincecum. So which one should they trade? Right now, it doesn't look like it's gonna happen, but somebody on the team has to be able to hit the ball. And if you ask us we'd get rid of the Enchanter as something about him just screams "Kerry Wood."

Photo by AP photographer Marcio Jose Sanchez

Hey, here's a couple of news flashes for you: on Wednesday night the Warriors won, on the road, by holding a fourth-quarter lead.

That's right, the team's road losing streak of eight games is over after a less-than-convincing 96-95 escape in Boston. Baron Davis carried the Warriors with 31 points and 8 assists, but the Warriors did everything they could to give the game back; it was really an assist from Celtics coach Doc Rivers that gave the Warriors the game. With 24 seconds remaining, timeouts in hand, down by one point, and with the ball, Rivers elected not to call a timeout. Instead, the Celtics ran the only play in their playbook: give it to Paul Pierce and hope for the best. Pierce is a great player, but everybody in the building knew he was going to get the ball, including the five Warriors on the court. They surrounded him and forced a jump ball with just 0.6 seconds left. Game over baby.

So that puts a tiny band-aid on the 1-3 road trip and slightly daubs the road bleeding this year (2-9), but it does nothing to address the Warriors number one problem: REBOUNDING!

It could be a whole new ball game for the Warriors if they'd quit with the little-man's complex and play some size to get rebounds. Graphic from Atarimuseum.com.

This team is getting killed on the boards and it's making every game against every opponent an uphill battle. The Warriors are 24th in the league in rebounding, pulling down a paltry 39.6 boards a game. With opponents averaging 46.3 rebounds per game (rpg), their rebounding differential is by far the worst in the league at -6.7. It's so bad, the next closest team to them in rebounding differential is the Milwaukee Bucks at -5.1. (Side note, the Bucks outribbied the Warriors by 10 boards and won the game when the two teams met earlier this month.) Last year, the Warriors were fifth in the league in boards, collecting 42.3 rpg. They still had an operating deficit, but it was only -2.2 rpg

It gets worse. In losses, the War's are getting out-glassed by almost 8 rips a game; in wins, by nearly 6 per. In December, opponents have averaged 8 boards more per game. Against the Houston Rockets on December 14 in the O-rena, a game they won at the buzzer, the Warriors were outboarded 53-33. Do you think if maybe they had a couple of extra possessions in that game by virtue of a few more rebounds, they mightn't have had to rely on a last-second jumper for the win? Ya' think? On their current road trip, the team has been outrebounded 200-162 and has not grabbed more rebounds than their opponents in a game yet. A 1-3 road trip and 4-7 record for the month are no coincidence.

What a stinking dog of a putrid rotting corpse of a disgusting disgrace of an abomination of a disgrace of a debacle of a sham of a fraud of a spectacle of a sham of an embarrassment. Or something like that. How else to describe the Warriors recent sleepwalk through Texas.

On Monday night, the San Antonio Spurs spanked the tribe like a teenager's monkey, 129-89; just 24 hours later, the Houston Rockets piled on and beat the living tar out of them, 118-90 -- neither game was as close as the scores would indicate.

Remember all the way back to the first week of the season? The Warriors waltzed in to Dallas full of swagger and energy and broke the Mavericks down like they was a cardboard box on recycling day. Barely cracked a sweat. In the next couple of weeks they went on to topple the Pistons, Jazz, and Spurs (all at home) to push their record to a surging 9-5.

That was then.

We think it was either Santayana or Benoit Benjamin who first impaled themselves upon the jagged, intellectual teeth of this timeless hardwood saw: Is it better for a team to pull off spectacular upsets of the highest NBA magnitude or to take care of business at home and against lesser teams that they should beat and thereby gain solid footing toward a playoff position?

It's now a full week into December and the Warriors are still sitting on nine wins. Well, they would be sitting on nine wins if their collective ass wasn't hurting so bad from the Texas-sized whuppins they just received from the Spurs and Rockets.