Warriors' Speights still finding motivation in doubters at 21-2

The Golden State Warriors will regress from their current 75-win pace. Marreese Speights won't keep averaging a career-high 12 points on 53.2 percent shooting with the league's 10th-best player efficiency rating. The Warriors can't keep surviving without Andrew Bogut and David Lee.

Speights hears your criticisms, your doubt and even your hate, and the man they call Mo Gotti wants nothing to do with it.

"You ever go try to pay your bills with somebody's opinion?" Speights asked rhetorically on Tuesday. "You ever do that before? You won't get that far."

The 27-year-old Speights had been asked about the sustainability of both his own production and the team's, taking offense to the suggestion that the 21-2 Warriors won't be able to handle the Memphis Grizzlies on Tuesday without their two frontcourt players.

"It's kind of like a kick in the face when they really count us out when two of our players aren't playing," Speights said. "All the guys who are playing get motivated because of their willingness to count us out with the two big men out."

The Warriors are 2.5-point underdogs on Tuesday, thanks in part to the injuries and just the general difficulty of winning at The Grindhouse. The Grizzlies are 19-4 themselves, not exactly pushovers, and the Warriors' 16-game winning streak has to end at some point. Tuesday seems a prime night for it, considering the interior edge the Grizzlies now have with Zach Randolph and Marc Gasol. It's not exactly a crime that the Warriors aren't the favorites here.

Of course, we can't pay the bills with that opinion.