I had heard the hype about Brandon Jennings. Heard that he was having a great start to the season, enough to be considered a rookie of the year candidate. Shenanigans, I said, he’s probably just scoring more points because Michael Redd is injured. There’s no way a 20-year-old kid who got limited playing time in Italy could actually shine on the big stage.

Looks like I was wrong. My goodness was I wrong. 

Jennings exploded last night for 55 points, 29 of them coming in a third quarter in which he could not miss. At one point, he had about 15 points in a row and I felt like I was watching a friend play “NBA Jam” when the player was on fire. Seriously, he was in a zone I’ve only witnessed a handful of times in my life – Lebron against the Pistons comes to mind.

More importantly, his performance spoiled a very well played game by the Warriors. Corey Maggette in particular made the best defensive team in the NBA look extremely pedestrian. He consistently made Ersan Ilyasova looked like a 7th grader.

And as if losing the game wasn’t bad enough – Kelenna Azubuike sustained what looked like a very serious knee injury in the first quarter. Last week I wrote about how Kelenna was playing the best basketball of his life and was on his way to establishing himself as a definite starter for years to come. This injury will definitely put that on hold for the time being, and Warriors fans should be crossing their fingers that the injury was less serious than it looked. The injury means Corey Maggette will have to step up and get a lot more playing time at the power forward/ faux-warriors-center spot.

All in all, it was a weird week for the Warriors. They played horribly against Indiana and no one could hit a shot. Then, against the Knicks, they played atrocious basketball, arguably worse than they did against than the pacers. But then, they shoot the lights out at Milwaukee (56%), put up 125 points on a great defensive team, and lose. Go figure.

The next two games on the Warriors schedule (at Cleveland & Boston) look like certain losses – especially with the injuries continue to pile up. But, the Warriors always find a way to make things interesting, even in defeat, so I’d expect those games to be close as well.

Just happy the Warriors don’t have to see Brandon Jennings any more this year.