Friction Between Big 3 and Bench?

Interesting blog post by Janny Hu over at SFGate. When she interviewed Jackson after tonight's let down, he commented on the lack of bench contribution.

"We got to get somebody that you don't expect to show up to show up some nights...We need somebody on the bench to get us going, to help us these last couple of games."

We've seen this problem throughout the entire season. Harrington's been spotty. Azubuike faded from his strong performances at the beginning of the season. Barnes looks like a one-hit wonder (the Portland game notwithstanding). I don't remember any Warrior personnel, except Nellie, publicly critiquing the bench this season, so maybe Jackson's comments might help a bit.

Okay, here's the interesting bit about Pietrus and his injury:

"Hopefully he sucks it up and comes back and thinks about the team and fights the injury a little for us. But at the same time, we got to go with what we got, and I feel confident enough that we can get the job done."

Does anyone get a weird vibe from this? I think Janny detects something, since she adds that Pietrus' injury isn't helping "his standing with his teammates."

The Warriors seem too much of a chummy, one-for-all brotherhood for a locker room divide like this, so maybe they just want Pietrus to hurry up and start contributing again and Jackson just got his words garbled a bit. I hope there isn't any actual tension, since the Warriors already have a tall order of winning back the 8 seed.


Note: I originally posted this at GSoM.