Warriors went from underdogs to favorites – to winners

By Art Spander

OAKLAND — They kept using the underdog card, telling us nobody expected them to win this first-round NBA playoff series, which is more fiction than fact because once the thing got rolling, and rocking, it was obvious the Golden State Warriors should have been the favorite.
  
Sports is like that, full of people who seem more intent on showing us, proving to the world, that they can succeed than actually succeeding. It’s a crutch many use, so if they fail, well, then they concede, “We weren’t supposed to win anyway.”
  
But on this wild Thursday night, in this sixth game of a first-round series against the Denver Nuggets, the Warriors in truth weren’t supposed to lose. They weren’t going to lose. And after a 92-88 victory at Oracle Arena that gave them the series, four games to two, it’s time to contemplate the reason as provided by Nuggets coach George Karl.
   
“We didn’t lose the series tonight,” said Karl. His team was the third seed in the Western Conference, the Warriors the sixth seed.
  
“We lost the series in Game 1 and 2. We didn’t play well enough to sustain some confidence. In Game 1, we won a close game. In Game 2, we gave everything back that we worked for 57 (regular season) games to get . . .  We didn’t play well in Game 1. We played worse in Game 2. Then we came in here and fought pretty hard.”
  
Sounds like the underdog, doesn’t it? In retrospect, the way the Warriors performed, turning the odds, upside down, maybe Denver was. The Warriors were exposed, in a positive way, as a team that belongs, a team that deserved to win.
  
Game 6 was a perfect reflection of the series and the NBA, the Warriors coming from behind, the Warriors going far ahead — 18 points — and finally the Warriors holding on.
   
Confetti poured down. Deafening screams resounded, but in truth there surely was as much relief as of elation. Underdog? Favorite? The optimum word might be survivor.
   
“I get emotional,” said Warriors coach Mark Jackson. He is a pastor. He is religious. He had been fined $25,000 earlier in the day for what the league said were remarks intended to influence the officials.
   
“I think God has a sense of humor,” said the coach-pastor, “because he wanted to show folks at the end as we threw the ball all over the place, and it’s only a miracle that we advanced.”
   
Jackson, who went from a position as a TV commentator to the Warriors job, tends to deal in the dramatic. More often than not he uses the phrase “at the end of the day.” And for this game he brought back forward David Lee, who a couple of weeks ago Warriors management said wouldn’t play again this year because of an injury.
   
A New Yorker, Jackson grew up on the tale of Willis Reed hobbling out of the Madison Square Garden locker room in the 1970 NBA finals, moving into the Knicks lineup and beating the Lakers. Jackson was only five when that occurred, but if he didn’t see it, he heard about it.
 
“I guess the New York City in me,” said Jackson, explaining his decision to use Lee — if only for fewer than two minutes. “The Willis Reed impact as a kid really played a role. Not only did I put Lee in, bit I ran a play for him for a shot, just about where Willis hit his shot.”
    
Great theater, but it was, as always, super guard Stephen Curry and finally hulking 7-foot center Andrew Bogut, who made the difference. In Game 4, Curry scored 22 points in the third quarter. In Game 6 he scored 14 in the third quarter, 22 for the game.
   
Bogut, obtained in a trade a year ago from Milwaukee but seemly recovering forever from a fractured ankle, had 21 rebounds, a career high, 14 points, four blocked shots and three assists.
   
“Bogut,” said Karl, “I’m not worried about him offensively. I mean, he would be their second most valuable player in the series. Curry was fantastic. Bogut’s ability to clog up the middle, you know, I’d forgotten how good he was at it. He’s a veteran player that I think showed a lot of professional class tonight.”
   
The Nuggets, who led by 11 in the first half, had Curry stymied. He had taken a mere six shots and made only one. But then, once more, the telling third quarter. Three 3-pointers, and the small deficit had become a large lead.
   
“I’m just trying to be patient,” said Curry. “The way Denver was defending me, they were trying to run me off the 3-point line a lot, blitzing, a lot of pick-and-rolls, trying to get the ball out of my hands. I try to be aggressive. I don’t want to force any possessions. Third quarter, I got my rhythm.”
   
Curry was asked what went through his mind as the 18-point lead kept shrinking. “Each possession,” he said, “it can’t get any worse than this. Then it does . . . But we got to learn from it.”
   
Underdogs always do. Even when they’re not underdogs.

Noise never stops for Warriors

By Art Spander

OAKLAND — Playoff basketball, so manic and rewarding, returned to Northern California Friday night for the first time in a half-dozen years in a relentless, boisterous display of fan affection — and, no less significantly, a home win.
  
The game was what you might expect between two teams who’ve already seen too much of each other, and a response you might expect from a sellout crowd at Oracle Arena that, through the seasons, never lost faith even while Golden State lost games.
 
In the end, almost in spite of themselves, the Warriors hung on to an agonizing 110-108 victory over Denver, while 19,596 semi-lunatics dressed in yellow T-shirts declaring “We are Warriors” chanted their delight.
  
Only once in the previous 17 seasons had the Warriors made it to the playoffs, and even though they survived just one round — upsetting Dallas — the Bay Area never recovered from the joy. And never wanted to.
  
So when, in a first-round series tied at a game apiece, the Warriors merely walked out to the court for warmups, the fans poured out their emotion. “I’ve never heard anything like it,” said Jarrett Jack. “They were so hyped.”
 
At times, the noise was deafening. Stephen Curry, who as you knew would ignore that ankle injury and be ready, and who scored 29 points, said at times the Warriors couldn’t communicate on defense.
  
They couldn’t hear each other. They couldn’t hear the coach. They couldn’t hear anything but those fans bellowing over and over, “Warriors  . . . Warriors.”
  
“Amazing,” said Curry. “But a big deal has been made (about) how long have the Warriors not gone to the postseason. The fans had all that energy stored up.”
  
What the Warriors have stored up in this best-of-seven series is a two-games-to-one lead, with Game 5 Sunday, also at Oracle. “And when the cloud of night goes,” warned George Karl, the Nuggets’ coach, “(Saturday) morning we’ll be up and ready to work.”
   
So will the Warriors, not that they could work any harder than Friday night when, a bit sloppy and considerably off, they fell behind by 12 points at halftime, 66-54.
  
“This is a young team,” reminded Mark Jackson, who in his second year running the Warriors remains a young coach. “It’s going to make mistakes, make turnovers, miss shots. But it works extremely hard. It stays together, and it’s defensive-minded.”
   
Oh yes, defense. The oft-told and dead-accurate aphorism is that defense wins, because if the other team doesn’t score you can’t get worse than a 0-0 tie. The thought is not literal in the NBA, where there’s always scoring. The issue is how much scoring.
   
For the Nuggets in the third period, very little, 18 points, while the Warriors were picking up 33.
   
In the final moments, when the Nuggets were within two, Draymond Green, off the bench, caused a turnover.
   
“People probably thought I was crazy putting him in,” said Jackson. “But he has an incredible IQ for the game of basketball. He gave us a spark.”
  
Curry gave them what he always gives, points, passes – he had 11 assists along with the 29 points – and stability. He understands what a point guard must be, which is a leader, and Curry is one in the extreme.
  
“He’s a big-time player,” said Jackson. “He made big-time plays.”
   
Curry and Ty Lawson, the Nuggets’ point guard, came into the NBA at the same time, the 2009 draft, from the same state, if from different schools, Curry, a first-rounder from Davidson, Lawson an 18th rounder from the University of North Carolina.
  
Lawson, with 35 points, was virtually all of the Nuggets’ offense in the second half. “He tried to put the team on his back,” said Jackson, appreciating an opponent’s skills but grateful for the skills of his own man.
 
“Lawson was in my draft,” said Curry. “We’ve been compared to each other. He was aggressive from the start. He showed his talents.”
  
As did Curry, who tested his sore right ankle before tipoff and, after consultation with coach and trainer, said it was a go.
   
“I try to be as versatile as I can,” said Curry about his multiple assists, “and help the team by making the right play at the right time. They have a lot of trust in me.”
  
Deserved, certainly. He scored 54 against the Knicks earlier in the year and broke the league’s single-season record for 3-point baskets.
   
“I approached this game the same way as I do every game,” said Curry. “I try to go out and play my game, and enjoy the ride.”
   
The ride was a fine one, a noisy one, a successful one.
   
“It was just a big-time win for us,” said Mark Jackson.
    
Big-time and so very, very loud.

Warriors coach: ‘We’re going to be here’

By Art Spander

OAKLAND – Even when they’re the only game in town, as the Warriors were on Monday night, it seemed they would be upstaged. The 49ers had traded for Anquan Boldin, and we know how big the Niners are, so big that on this night when the Warriors were the only game in town Niner quarterback Colin Kaepernick was doing his star turn on ESPN’s SportsCenter.
  
Boldin and Kaep, a tough combination. No matter, the Warriors would do their “Hey, we’re down here in the righthand corner” routine. They wouldn’t go unnoticed. On the contrary.
  
They would send the New York Knicks back to the NBA’s dark ages of scoring. They would send the rest of the league a message, as delivered by head coach Mark Jackson, to wit: “This is who we are. Get used to us. We’re not going anywhere.”
   
He meant they’re not going away, and the way they had played, losing 6 out 8, 11 out of 16, that seemed a figurative possibility. Down, down, while below them in the standings, the Lakers, the dreaded Lakers, were moving up, up.
   
The Warriors changed direction, if only momentarily. The Warriors won 92-63. Reads like a college score. Reads like a reassuring score.
   
The 63 points were the fewest for a Warriors opponent in almost 60 years, since Dec. 28, 1953, when the Philadelphia Warriors beat the Milwaukee Hawks, 69-63.
   
On Monday night, the Warriors were effective. Stephen Curry (26 points), Klay Thompson (23) and David Lee (21) alone combined for more than the entire New York team. The Knicks were pathetic. They made only 20 of 73 field goal attempts, 27.4 percent.
  
“I don’t know how many teams in history have had nights like that,” Warriors coach Mark Jackson was saying. “It takes a combination of great defense and, at times by the other team, bad offense. We have played that defense before and teams have made shots. But at the end of the day, it’s closer to who we truly are. And it’s a great way to stop the bleeding.”
  
Oh, the Warriors, with sellout crowds at Oracle Arena almost every game – there was one Monday, 19,596 – with the most loyal followers in the Bay Area, with seasons of unfulfilled expectations. 
 
Their games are half sporting event, half party. Are there really more people in the concessions area than inside the arena, or does it just seem that way? The smoke-and-mirrors introductions. The pizza giveaways. The acrobatic dunking routine. The intermission stunts.
  
Warrior games are entertaining. And often disappointing. What is it, 17 years out of 18 the W’s haven’t made the postseason? Changes in ownership. Changes in coaching. The dream persists.
   
Curry scores 54 against the Knicks, and the Warriors get their few seconds on ESPN, but they’re only a cameo. It’s Kobe and the Lakers, the Celtics, the Thunder and deservedly LeBron James and the Heat who receive the attention.
   
Part of the problem is geographical. If you’re in California and you’re not in L.A., then you’re virtually nonexistent. The Giants win the World Series, and nobody in the East watches.
  
Part of the problem is historical. The Warriors’ body of work is not considered worthy of serious study. When’s the last time the W’s were on a Sunday afternoon national telecast?
   
Jackson is a New York guy, who played at St. John’s and with the Knicks and then worked as an analyst for ESPN. If he can’t get attention, nobody can. On Monday night, he and the Warriors got it.

And Jackson, as usual, got texts from his mother, Marie, who’s in the New York City Basketball Hall of Fame.
   
“We made it click,” said Jackson. He insists he took no more pleasure in sticking it to the Knicks – who two weeks earlier had stuck to the Warriors, despite Curry’s 54 – than any other team.
   
“We executed,” said Jackson. “We defensed. We rebounded.”
   
That’s basketball in the essence.
  
”That’s what we need to do,” said Lee, who had missed the previous two games. “I thought we played as good a defense as we did all season long. This was a very important win for us, and we have one on Wednesday and try to get that one as well.’
  
That one is against the Houston Rockets. Then two days later, Friday, is another, against the Chicago Bulls. Starting with the Knicks,  three games in five days all at home. Oracle will be full. Will what takes place there be fulfilling?
   
“The important thing,” said Lee, “is to take what we did (against the Knicks) and build on it, because each game presents its own challenges. The biggest thing is to remember the energy we played with on the defensive end.”
   
The biggest thing in the region where the 49ers, Raiders, Giants, A’s and, yes, the Sharks, also play is to stay relevant. The energetic Warriors on Monday night appeared very much so.

RealClearSports: As Coach, Jackson's View Different Now

By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com

OAKLAND, Calif. — This was classic NBA, the near catchup, which keeps some fans in the arena and, more importantly, keeps others from turning off the TV.

A year ago, Mark Jackson, ESPN announcer, would have been thrilled as a lead of 19 points was reduced to five. "I would have embraced it and had about 10 catchphrases locked and loaded,'' Jackson said.

Now, Mark Jackson, Golden State Warriors coach, was properly concerned.

Read the full story here.

© RealClearSports 2011

SF Examiner: Uphill battle awaits Golden State Warriors

By Art Spander
Special to The Examiner

They are the NBA’s mystery team, led by a coach who never has coached, constructed upon two guards with divergent problems, and opening with games that may get them in headlines and perhaps into a hole from which the Warriors can’t escape.

Their past is haunting, 16 seasons of the past 17 unable to make the playoffs. Their future is promising, if the words of Mark Jackson — a man of many words as a TV commentator before switching jobs — are to be believed.

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2011 SF Newspaper Company