Klay makes a 40-point splash, brother

By Art Spander

OAKLAND — The kid is almost too cool, but that’s hardly an indictable offense. Klay Thompson knows who he is, and exactly what he’s supposed to do.

That he wasn’t traded for Kevin Love, or anyone else, proves the people in charge of the Warriors also know who Thompson is. And very well what he may become.

The man scored 40 points Wednesday night, so easily it was almost obscene. Whoosh, whoosh. Swish, swish. “Credit to my teammates,” said Thompson. “They got me the ball.”

But Thompson, half of the so-called Splash Brothers — is he Splish or Splash, and yes, it does bring back memories of that long-ago Bobby Darin song — got the ball where it’s supposed to be, in the net.

He also helped get the W’s where they’re supposed to be, in the win column, 117-102 over the Indiana Pacers.

There’s more to life than digits, but sometimes the numbers cannot be ignored. First, Klay’s 40, second highest in his NBA career to the 41 on opening night. Next, the 21 by the other Splasher, Stephen Curry, who at 6:22 of the first quarter made his 1,000th 3-pointer, sooner (this is his sixth season) than anyone else ever. Next, the 15 assists by Curry. Next the 18 points by Marreese Speights.

And maybe more importantly, after their fifth straight victory (piddling, yes, after 16 in a row a few weeks back), a 28-5 record. Chew on that: 28-5. Reminds you of the old Celtics or old Lakers.

The new Lakers, crushed Wednesday night by the Clippers, remind you that success in sports is temporary. So enjoy it while you may. And for the normal sellout crowd of 19,596 at Oracle, the victory was particularly enjoyable.

In what the mavens call a trap game, the losing Pacers between the winning Raptors and Cavaliers (even if Cleveland will be without LeBron James), the Warriors began lethargically and imperfectly. They were down 11 before tying it up 50-50 at halftime. After that, it was all Thompson and the W’s.

“A great win,” said Warriors coach Steve Kerr. “One of my favorite wins of the year.” We’ll not ask him to rank the other 27, but his exuberance is understandable. You’re down 11, and nothing is going right. Then it all turns out well.

Also not to be neglected was the return of 7-foot center Andrew Bogut, who after a hint or two by Kerr during his pre-game talk to the media, in the opening quarter sent Bogut into a game for the first time since early December. He was out 12 games, knee troubles — as opposed to ankle troubles previously.

Surely, Kerr’s labeling the game one of his favorites had a great deal to do with the return of the big Australian, who along with David Lee, also healed from an injury, will be a necessity when the playoffs arrive and basketball resembles a wrestling match.

“We were tested big time,” said Kerr. “We had to figure out things as we went.”

What the 24-year-old Thompson, in his fourth season, figured out quickly enough was that he had the rhythm and the touch, making 14 of 25 field goal attempts, 6 of 11 on threes. “I had good balance,” he said. And excellent teammates.

“I’ve got to thank them,” he said. “I was going under a lot of screens, and I was getting a ton of open looks. I missed a few, but I knew they were going to go down eventually. I got a couple of easy buckets to the rim as a result of Bogut’s passing and Andre (Iguodala’s) cutting.”

Naturally, Curry was not forgotten.

“He just does everything for us,” said Thompson. “He’s so good at finding us. He attracts so much attention on the offensive end, and his defense is underrated.”

Bogut played 14 minutes 41 seconds and had two baskets and eight rebounds, one fewer than teammate Draymond Green. “I played three-on-three (Tuesday) for the first time and felt OK,” said Bogut. “Thought to start giving it a go. Klay was unbelievable offensively, and it’s going to be a staple for us going forward.”

Thompson, raised in southern California, playing undergraduate ball at Washington State, is rarely lost for an answer. He was raised in the business after all, his father drafted No. 1 by the Trail Blazers, then going to L.A.

Someone pointed out it was a shame the dad was trapped commenting on the Lakers’ 114-89 rout by the Clips while the son was throwing them in some 370 miles to the north.

“I’m sure he had a little TV and was watching me,” said Klay.

On Wednesday night, on TV or in person, so were a great many others. Cool.

Warriors: The beacon by the Bay

By Art Spander

OAKLAND — Let’s not get carried away. On second thought, do get carried away. There’s a team in town, in Northern Cal, that has everything going for it: talent, hustle, fortune, a team untouched by so much of the trouble that has beset the others.

It’s the Warriors, of course, and they’re the beacon by the Bay, winners and not whiners, a delightful breath of spring, if you will, in a dreary autumn — and I’m not alluding to the weather.

In Santa Clara it’s one thing after another, a war between Jim Harbaugh and the media — and maybe, quite possibly between Harbaugh and the owner. The Sharks have been less than hoped, if not less than expected, and the Raiders, after losing a game, 52-0, what do you say except, “When does it ever end?”

Yet nobody wants an ending to the Warriors' success. Home again, at last, Tuesday night they extended their streak to 10 wins in a row, beating the Orlando Magic 98-97 at Oracle.

Sure, they should have lost. Warriors coach Steve Kerr said they were lucky, which arguably they were. Still, that’s part of what makes a good team good, a great team great.

They win when they should have lost.

Remember the Celtics in Boston? Remember the 49ers with Joe Montana? You had them. Then, as you cursed fate, they had you, and the opponent mumbled about what might have been.

What the Warriors have is their own Montana. Basketball never will be as big around here as football, so whatever is said or written about Steph Curry — whose 3-pointer (what else) that left his hand with 4.2 seconds was the winner — he never will be elevated to the places occupied by Montana or Jerry Rice.

He’s the man right now, however, maybe ahead of Colin Kaepernick and a notch below Madison Bumgarner. If this were New York or Chicago, cities where basketball and hockey have a history and a legacy, Curry would've already been touted for the Hall of Fame.

The Warriors, however, seem less a landmark, like the Niners and Raiders, the Giants and A’s. The word "afterthought" is a bit strong, but here is a team that at 15-2 is off to its best 17-game start in the 69-year history of the franchise and gets less attention than the Niners’ coaching dilemma.

Sooner or later the Warriors are going to lose, and Tuesday night was the appropriate time. Teams coming off a long road trip, and the Warriors’ was a six-gamer, so often fall flat on their return.

“It’s always been the case in my career,” said Kerr, who although in his first season as a head coach has years of NBA experience as player, general manager and television announcer.

“It’s a tough game when you return,” said Kerr. “Three time zones (from Detroit), and you don’t practice the day before.” And the Magic, who the Warriors defeated a few days ago in Orlando, played, in Kerr’s thinking, “fantastic.”

The Warriors were 3 of 18 on 3-point attempts at one juncture in the fourth quarter. (They finished 8 of 27). The Warriors trailed by nine, 93-84, with 4:27 remaining. Then Klay Thompson hit a couple of deep ones, and suddenly with a minute and a half left, it was 95-95.

Tobias Harris hit a running bank shot with 38 seconds remaining to get the Magic in front once more. The Warriors’ Draymond Green rebounded an Orlando miss with 6.9 seconds, passed to Curry and as everyone expected Curry flashed down the court and scored from 27 feet.

“I was thinking, ‘Don’t call timeout,’” said Kerr. “Steph Curry in the open floor is going to get a better shot than anything I could draw up. It’s what Steph does. He bailed us out.”

Somebody always does on excellent teams. Which is why they’re excellent. And exciting.

Curry saved the streak. Curry and Thompson and Green. They saved the Warriors, who as the Niners flail and the Raiders fail, are saving this autumn.

“Every night you have a game that proves something,” said Curry. He finished with 22, high for the Warriors, five fewer than Orlando’s Victor Oladipo.

What this game proved is, even when they are less than their best, the Warriors have the resources to win. They are on a roll, and as December begins a promise in an otherwise disappointing time for Bay Area teams.

Warriors have the look of a contender

By Art Spander

OAKLAND — The owner, Joe Lacob, walked out of the tunnel that goes from the court to the locker room and said to nobody in particular, “I feel better now.” Of course.

The Warriors had won, had stopped a mini-losing streak at two games. Still, with the team he has, Lacob should always feel good.

As should the Warriors fans.

This team has the look of, well, it’s tough to say champion, what with San Antonio and Cleveland very much a part off the NBA, but a definite contender, a team that will not crash out until very late in the playoffs. If at all.

The two guys we have declared as the heart and shooting soul of the W’s, Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson, the “Splash Brothers,” were imperfect Thursday night. But with Andrew Bogut at his very best and Draymond Green quite magnificent, the result at Oracle Arena was anything but imperfect, a 107-99 win over the Brooklyn Nets.

And so the W’s, after a 5-0 start and consecutive defeats, are 6-2. Asked if he was pleased that with his stars not exactly starring (Thompson was only 8 of 22 from the floor, although he had a game-high 25 points) the team could win, Kerr chose not to be that specific.

“I am pleased anytime we win,” was his answer, implying it didn’t matter how or who.

It did matter that the 7-foot Bogut, unfettered and healthy, had 11 points, 14 rebounds and five assists.

“Bogey,” said Kerr, “was terrific. He can dominate defensively at the rim. He can rebound and he’s a terrific passer. That’s why we run the offense the way we do, with all those dribble handoffs.

“We need him to roll to the rim hard and get fouled. It was good to see him get to the line a little bit (3 of 5 on free throws) and get in the paint.”

He got to the Nets. Bogut doesn’t have a great touch, but he has great emotion and intensity. His dunks set off the crowd, which didn’t get going until about a third of the way into the second quarter once the Warriors got going.

The game was tied, 44-44, with a bit under eight minutes in the half, then, wham — or in deference to Bogut, should we say “Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, Oi, Oi, Oi”? — the Warriors were in front, 66-55.

“One of our goals this year,” said Kerr, “is to dominate the home court. The crowd was fantastic. It took us a while to get going. I think the whole key to getting the crowd involved is defense. Once you get the stops and get rebounds you can get out and run, and then the crowd gets into it.”

The first half, the Warriors had 18 assists and only three — three, count them — turnovers. That’s the stuff of a winner.

“We have a deep team,” said Curry, who finished with 17 points (for him, we say “only" 17 points). “Any night, someone can step up and make the right play.”

Like Bogut, or Green, who had 17 points and was three of eight on three-pointers.

“Our job,” said Curry, the captain, “is to be aggressive, create offense and make the right play. We need that second and third punch.”

Kerr contends that even with a winning record the Warriors are a work in progress. After all, the season’s only a couple weeks old. “We’ll get better,” he said, knowing full well every other team in the league will also — other than the sad-sack Philadelphia 76ers, that is.

“We are still adjusting and finding our identity,” said Kerr. “I want them to be explosive but a little less wild. That can be done, but it’s tricky.

“You don’t want to take away their spirit, but you have to be smart too. For the most part tonight it was pretty good, 30 assists and 11 turnovers. We missed some shots we normally make, and we had some open ones. What I tell our guys is that we are six weeks into this as a staff, and as a team we are just scratching the surface of what we are going to be.”

Which is one of the top teams in pro basketball.

Warriors on outside looking at Clipper win

By Art Spander

OAKLAND — The game is won inside. That’s the NBA playoff mantra. The Warriors are an outside team, a team that beats you with threes by Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson.

Or as Thursday night at the Oracle, when the three-pointers didn’t fall, beats itself.

You’ve heard the phrase, the cliché: Dance with what brung ya. You don’t chase your style or philosophy in the playoffs. And without Andrew Bogut, the W’s didn’t have much chance inside anyway.

The Los Angeles Clippers had too much for the Warriors. Too much offense from Blake Griffin, who was banking them off the glass or ramming them through the rim, who scored 32 points and played like a man who was the first overall pick in the draft, as he was five years ago.

The Clips had too much defense. The Warriors, greatest outside shooters in the league or so we’re told, went 6 for 31 on three-pointers, and at one juncture were 2 for 24.

A hot Griffin, a cold Stephen Curry, and the Clips win it, 98-96.

Yes, the W’s had the ball in the final few minutes. Yes, it was in Curry’s hands. Yes, the sellout crowd of 19,596, all in the gold-colored T-shirts with the slogan “Loud. Proud. Warriors” was shrieking hysterically, the W’s having cut an 18-point deficit to two.

But in this game, the better team won and deserved to win. And the Clips now lead the best-of-seven first-round series two to one, with Game 4 on Sunday at the same place and perhaps headed for the same result.

“We earned the game,” said Doc Rivers, the Clippers' coach, “because we played better.”

If not all the time, especially in a fourth quarter that could be considered a quasi-embarrassment to the sport. And more of the time than the frustrated Warriors.

“There’s going to be a game soon where both teams play great,” said Rivers. With a maximum of four games remaining, it better come soon.

“In this one, we survived,” said Rivers, as forthright as he is wise — the man having led the Boston Celtics to the championship not that long ago.

The Clippers had the third-best regular season record in the Western Conference, behind San Antonio and Oklahoma City. The Warriors were sixth. That Golden State stole Game One of the series may have given some the erroneous idea the W’s are better than the Clips.

They are not, although they could beat them in seven games. Except not playing as they did Thursday night.

Not shooting 41.6 percent. Not making 17 turnovers. Not letting Griffin make 15 of 25 from the floor.

“He’s just been great,” Rivers said of Griffin. “He’s making jump shots. The bank shot that he’s added to his game, facing the basket, has taken him to a different level, because he’s very difficult to guard now. If you get up on him, he goes around you, and if you back up on him, he uses the glass.”

The Warriors simply use their long-range shooting, and when it isn’t working — Klay Thompson, the exception, was 10 of 22 for 26 points — they’re where they were in the second half on Thursday, far behind.

“If anyone breaks the mold,” said Rivers, disputing the thought that an outside shooting team can’t win in the postseason, “it is (the Warriors). They’re great at it. We’re great at posting. We have to do what we do.”

Meaning get the ball to Griffin.

“He’s having an outstanding series,” said Mark Jackson, the Warriors' coach, “topping off an outstanding season. He’s playing at a high level.”

Curry had done the same until the last couple of games. But the Clippers won’t let him loose, double-teaming, chasing him around the court. At halftime, Curry had taken only three shots and made just one. He did finish with 16 points in 43 minutes, but that was on 5 for 12 from the floor.

“We were not playing well,” said Jackson, refusing to name any single player. “I thought we tried to do too much. We were just on the edge a little bit. Then we settled down.”

Now, however, the Clippers have settled on top of the Warriors. A win by 30 points in Game 2. A win by 2 in Game 4.

“I feel we’re in character,” said Jackson. “When we defend at a high level and execute and take the basketball it shows that we’re tough to beat, and that’s been consistent in this series, also.

“Where we’ve had problems is when we’ve turned the basketball over, we’ve taken bad shots. We’ve allowed them to get it going. We’ve gone away from the game plan discipline. We’re not good enough to do that and win.”

As they showed Thursday night.

Warriors live up to their name

By Art Spander

OAKLAND — Such a perfect name. Warriors. Because they were. Warriors. Fighters, Battlers. Their coach called them “an inspiration.” The other coach called them really competitive. High praise, and that counts, if not as much as the final score in what for the Golden State Warriors the season of 2012-13 would be the final game.
   
It is done now, finished. Or has it just begun? The future looks wonderful for the Warriors. Yet that doesn’t ease the pain. It is the here and now that was important for the W’s, the game Thursday night at Oracle in front of fans so enthusiastic and loud it seemed they could will Golden State to a victory. They couldn’t.
  
The San Antonio Spurs, the old guys, the four-time champions, were too much for the Warriors, resilient as champions always are, and holding on to a 94-82 victory.
   
So the Spurs win the NBA Western Conference semifinal, four games to two. They go on to play the Memphis Grizzlies in the next round. The Warriors needed this one to keep the season alive. They didn’t get it. There will be no seventh game.
   
There will be only thoughts of what could have been. Those and the chants of the passionate 19,956 at Oracle.
  
Disappointment, certainly, for Mark Jackson, the coach; for the players; maybe most of all for the fans, clad in their yellow T-shirts and limitless hopes. They wouldn’t leave, serenading the players and no less themselves with the rolling, repetitive word, “Warr-iors . . . Warr-iors.”
   
A salute to the season, maybe to reason. The Spurs figured out this series quickly. If they were going to win, they had to stop Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson. And after Game 2, mostly they did.
  
They jammed the middle and fought through the picks. They shoved and clawed. And, as in Thursday night’s game, even when their own offense was ineffective — Tony Parker, the San Antonio guard, was 3 for 16, while teammate Manu Ginobili was 1 for 6 — the Spurs stayed in and on top. Only briefly in the first quarter, and only by two points, did the Warriors ever lead.
 
“Defense,” said Gregg Popovich, the Spurs coach. “Yeah, if we can hold them in the 80s, we should have a decent chance at the end of the game . . . Down the stretch, we made a couple of shots and they didn’t.”
  
Down the stretch is where 90 percent of all NBA games are won. Down the stretch, the Warriors closed from seven points to four to two. Yes, two, 77-75, with 4:52 left, and regaining the ball and Oracle going mad, a cauldron of sound. But then Curry missed a 3-pointer and Parker made one. Then Kawhi Leonard made a 2-pointer.
   
Reality. The Spurs would win. The deed was done. Except for the fans.
 
“As an announcer,” said Jackson, the Warriors coach who did NBA games for ESPN, “I can recall calling the (Oklahoma City) Thunder game in the playoffs. They got knocked out. We’re sitting there closing on the air, and the fans are chanting, acknowledging the great season. I’m sitting there as an announcer thinking, ‘This is cool.’
    
“We’ve got the best fans in the business. It was an incredible moment for them to acknowledge what took place this year and also for my guys to acknowledge that we don’t take these fans for granted. It’s been a great ride.”
  
If Thursday night a wobbly one. Center Andrew Bogut’s bad ankle, surgically repaired more than a year ago when he still was with Milwaukee, was sore even before the game, and he played only some six minutes in the second half.
  
Forward Harrison Barnes, just named to the all-rookie team, caught an elbow above an eye near the end of the first half, went down for the longest while, had to helped to the locker room and was given six stitches. He returned after intermission but was unable to stay in the game.
  
David Lee, of course, had torn a hip flexor in the first game of the Denver series and was declared out until next season. His courageous comeback was part of the story, but he was limited.
  
Curry’s right ankle, a chronic problem, was tweaked in Game 3, and he wasn’t completely right in the last three games. Even then, he ended up with 22 Thursday night, the best of either team.
  
So when Jackson insisted, “My guys gave me everything they had,” it wasn’t fiction.
  
“It was incredible. I can go out and win championships, and I will not be any prouder of any group that I ever coached than this group. At the end of the day, our tank will be empty and the light will be beaming bright.”
   
The light has been dimmed. The season has been concluded. But it was a joy. “Warr-iors, Warr-iors.”