Warriors beautiful in an ugly game

By Art Spander

OAKLAND — It was so ugly, and yet it was so beautiful. It was basketball as boxing more than ballet, a game too full of missed shots and fouls, a game to be forgotten more than remembered.

Unless you were the Warriors.

Style didn’t matter for the Warriors. All that counted was the result. They had to get a win. A loss and the season was finished. A loss and they wouldn’t be together again on a court until the fall.

But they didn’t lose.

To the thrill of 19,596 fans at Oracle Arena. To the satisfaction of their head coach, Mark Jackson. Maybe even to the delight of the NBA, which on Saturday will have three game-sevens to put forth, one of which will match the Warriors, those how-did-they-do-it Warriors against the Clippers in Los Angeles.

That one became reality Thursday night when Stephen Curry intentionally missed a free throw, slamming it off the glass, with 00.4 remaining, so the Clips wouldn’t have a chance at a rebound, and the Warriors had a 100-99 victory.

The first-round playoff between the only two California teams in the postseason was tied at three wins apiece, and after all the emotion of the week, the tapes of racial remarks by Clippers owner Donald Sterling, the banning of Sterling by NBA commissioner Adam Silver, the emphasis was on playing the game.

No matter how poorly.

“This is who we are,” said Jackson, almost defensively, of a squad that wasn’t sharp on offense but had more than enough character. “We’ve proven that when we play our brand of basketball, we’re awfully tough to beat. I’m proud of my guys. It’s been an incredible, incredible ride.”

And it’s not over yet for the sixth-seed Warriors.

“Now against a three-seed with two of the top 10 players in the world, and a future Hall of Fame coach,” said Jackson, exaggerating a bit — if not that much about Blake Griffin, Chris Paul and Doc Rivers — “we are going to Game 7 in spite of all the sideline music.”

That’s his way of alluding to the situation involving Sterling, and involving the heart of the NBA, a league that prides itself on equality.

“And I like my chances because I’ve got a group of guys that want to do whatever it takes to win.”

Even when they only shoot 39.3 percent from the floor.

Even when they lose center Jermaine O’Neal with a knee injury just minutes into the second quarter.

Even when David Lee fouls out with 9:44 left in the fourth quarter.

They were down. They were up. They were down. They were up.

They got 45 minutes 29 seconds, 24 points and nine rebounds out of Curry. He wasn’t holding back, taking 24 shots, making nine, but why hold back when you’re trying to hang on?

They got 40 minutes 35 seconds from Draymond Green, who might not have had half that total if Andrew Bogut weren’t out with a fractured rib. Green had 14 points. Green had 14 boards.

“It wasn’t a very well-played game by either team,” said Rivers, the Clippers' coach, “going by shooting percentages. But I think both teams played extremely hard.

“I don’t know if they played harder than us, but they made the big plays. Give them credit. I thought they came up with just enough plays to beat us.”

That’s the whole idea, isn’t it? To win, if by one point as the Warriors did. Those fans at Oracle, in their gold T-shirts emblazoned with “Loud, Proud, Warriors,” were so wound up it seemed they could power the lights with their energy. This was it, the season on the brink, and they hoped to keep it alive.

Hoped the Warriors would keep it alive, which they did.

“They made tough shots,” said Jackson of his players. “You’re thinking, ‘Oh, my goodness. Can we get out of here and make sure there is a Game 7?'”

He knows the answer. We know the answer. We don’t know whether Game 7 will be the Warriors' last game of this 2013-14 season, but even a defeat should not diminish what they’ve attained and how they’ve done it.

“Those guys just competed,” Jackson said again. “I’m excited to see this young basketball team experience a Game 7 on the road. They haven’t experienced it as players. It’s new to Klay Thompson. It’s new to Stephen Curry. It’s new to Draymond Green. It’s new to all my guys, other than the veterans who have been around on other teams.

“It’s new to me. It’s going to be a lot of fun because a lot of folks didn’t we’d be here . . . We earned this platform.”

The very hardest way.

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 understand what is necessary

By Art Spander

OAKLAND — Not good enough to relax. The head coach said that about the Warriors. Said it Tuesday night when the Warriors proved they are very good, indeed.

Maybe as good as they’ve been in the last 20 years, tough, confident and, as Mark Jackson told us, refusing to relax, even when in another time they very well might have relaxed.

The mark of a great team is that it understands what is necessary to win. Understands there are going to be starters out of the lineup. Understands there are going to be opponents with awful records, and the record of the Orlando Magic is nothing but awful.

Understands to ignore everything but the task at hand.  

There was usual obligatory sellout at Oracle Arena, 19,596, the Warriors’ 71^st straight at home, and in that crowd surely there were more than a few people who remember when in another era — maybe not too distant — Golden State would have lost.

Not this team, which after losing here Friday night to Cleveland went up to Portland, fell behind by 18 points and won. That single game showed us that this group has the mental toughness to go along with the physical skill.

Tuesday night was a reiteration.

Andre Iguodala couldn’t play because of tendinitis in his knee. Andrew Bogut couldn’t play because of an inflamed left ankle. Two down out of five. And the Magic, on a five-game losing streak, and 19-48 overall, ready to spring a trap.

Except Mark Jackson teams do not get trapped. Or beaten by 19-48 teams. On the contrary. They score 18 consecutive points early in the third quarter. They get 23 points from Stephen Curry and 20 points each from Klay Thompson and David Lee. They get the usual boost off the bench, this time from Marreese Speights (13 points, 8 rebounds). They blow out the Magic, 103-89.

“It was a quality win for us,” said Jackson. “I’m really pleased the way we got after it. We handled our business and competed.”

An excellent way to describe it. The Warriors are relatively young, other than David Lee and Iguodala, and young teams, young players, sometimes lose their focus.

So many games over so many weeks and so many flights to so many cities combine to take a toll. Suddenly, everything can go the wrong way. For the Warriors, everything is going the proper way, the way they’ve been instructed, the way that champions perform.

“I thought we were very unselfish and did a great job of sharing the basketball,” said Jackson. When he played, he was a point guard, in charge of sharing the basketball. Now he is delighted to share the accolades.

“We got some good play from our bench also,” he added. “We continue to chalk up wins, and we are closing it out right.”

Closing it out by rallying against the Trail Blazers on the road. Closing it out by overwhelming the Magic at home. Playing effective defense — Orlando scored 19 points in the third quarter, 20 in the second quarter.

Closing it out by shooting 45.1 percent — which, strangely, is a bit under what Orlando shot (45.5) but the W’s got more shots and thus made more.

“I think our guys know we’re not good enough to relax,” said Jackson. What he knows is the sport of basketball. There was some question as to how he would do, how he would relate, when after several years in the broadcast booth Jackson was the surprise choice to be the Warriors’ coach. But in retrospect, it was a brilliant move by owner Joe Lacob and whoever gave him advice, from consultant Jerry West to GM Bob Myers.

Jackson’s years as an analyst for ESPN and ABC gave him a different look at the modern game that he now gets from the bench — or because he’s often standing, from the sideline. He can be critical with his players. He can be instructive. He never is destructive.

“All teams at this stage of the season are dangerous,” said Jackson. “People are playing for contracts, for jobs. Everybody’s out to prove something, even the teams far back.”

What the Warriors are proving is that they have the right stuff. We already knew they had the right people. Again without hesitation, Jackson called Curry and Thompson the best pair of shooting guards in history, and it doesn’t matter if specifically they are or are not. They’re fantastic, and that’s enough.

“It starts with Curry and Thompson,” said Jacque Vaughn, the Magic’s head coach. “It makes it tough to defend their (big men). They do a good job of playing with each other, passing the basketball.”

And, certainly, shooting it.

“You’ve got to win games at home down the stretch,” said Curry. “This is one of those situations obviously, so it's a big win for us to try to regain some momentum after two tough losses (at Oracle) and keep it moving. We got stops, and we were able to push in transition and keep that ball moving.”

The Warriors' Jordan Crawford is the name for today

By Art Spander

OAKLAND — And our name for today is, no, not Jonathan Martin, although he has to be part of the equation. Or even Barry Bonds — who belongs in the Hall of Fame — because he talked baseball with Willie Mays and Willie McCovey, who are in the Hall.

No, our subject is Jordan Crawford, one of those people in sport who keep getting dumped overboard but, in a beautiful example of how our games teach us so much about life, keeps showing his value.

Crawford has been in the NBA four years, and now, after being sent to the Warriors by the Boston Celtics some two months ago, is with his fifth team.

And if you want to add the New Jersey (now Brooklyn) Nets, which took in the first round of the 2010 draft but within minutes moved him to Atlanta, the total is six teams.

What Crawford did on a Tuesday night at Oracle Arena was come off the bench to score more than Steph Curry. More than Klay Thompson. More than Dirk Nowitzki.

More than anyone on either team.

Crawford had 19, and the W’s, after a hesitant beginning, played defense as it’s programmed, offense as the opportunity presented, and overwhelmed the Dallas Mavericks, 108-85.

That they immediately flew to Los Angeles, where tonight they face the Clippers, the team that most likely will be the W’s first-round playoff opponent and could thump them, in no way diminishes the victory, Golden State’s fifth in a row.

“You have to care of the ones you are supposed to take care of,” said Mark Jackson, the Warriors' coach, a very satisfied gentleman not only because of the success but also because of the manner in which it was achieved — with the Mavs shooting just 36.6 percent.

Having grown up in New York and played for Lou Carnesecca at St. John’s, Jackson learned early on that defense is the key to every game. It’s much easier to knock a ball out of a man’s hand, whether he’s shooting or dribbling, than to knock down a 20-foot jumper.

That is, unless Curry and Klay Thompson are in your lineup. And they were in the Warriors’ lineup.

On Tuesday night, so was Crawford, a 6-foot-4 guard, who had 14 points by the time Curry, with only 4:19 to go in the first half, got his first points.

“He was great,” Jackson said of Crawford. “I don’t think enough credit has been given to him because we went out and got Steve Blake.”

That was on February 19, a month after Crawford came to the Warriors. Blake was dispatched by the hated Lakers because they have sunk to a level no one this side of Chick Hearn’s memory ever could have believed.

Crawford arrives. Hurray. Then Blake arrives. Oops.

“I’ve seen guys fold up the tent,” Jackson said, talking about Crawford’s response to the acquisition of Blake. “And I’ve seen players hold their head down and not be ready. (Crawford) has been professional.”

Such a poignant word, no matter what, no matter whom. A professional, by definition — and he or she can be an amateur — doesn’t brood or sulk or quit but tries to do their best.

“He has the gift to score,” said Jackson. In 22 minutes, Crawford was 8 for 12 from the floor, including 3 of 6 on three-pointers. “When called upon," the coach added, "he’s been ready and deserves a lot of credit.”

So too, reminded Jackson, does Bob Myers, the Warriors' general manager. The W’s now have two legitimate NBA lineups, never missing a beat — or many shots — when the subs take over.

“I think our bench scored 59 points,” said Jackson. “We defended at a high level.”

Especially in the third quarter, when the Warriors outscored the Mavs, 24-13. If a pro team can’t get 20 in a period, it’s in trouble. And Dallas was.

“Having the Dallas Mavericks in our building with us being rested,” said Jackson, “it was important for us to take care of business.”

For Crawford, well accepted by his teammates, the business is one of enjoyment. Big salaries are not always a substitute for lack of playing time.

“It’s a good feeling,” said Crawford. “It’s fun. I think the coach has more confidence in (the reserves), and we see that. It’s easier for us to play, and you can get a little more time. To be on a streak like this heading into the playoffs and to move up in the standings bring out the competitive spirit in everybody.”

Warriors-Clippers rough stuff perfect end for the NBA

By Art Spander

OAKLAND, Calif. — That’s exactly what the NBA needed at the end of a very long day, in a game out here in the wild west that presumably, despite Steph Curry and Chris Paul and Blake Griffin, nobody east of Tonopah, Nev., would stay up past midnight to watch.

Except for the possibility of a brawl.

A few shoves, a couple of elbows and some ejections would keep the weary basketball mavens in New York and Boston tuned in while the Warriors and Los Angeles Clippers held up their end of what the teams’ coaches contend isn’t a rivalry.

And who are we to disagree with such knowledgeable sorts as Mark Jackson and Doc Rivers?

“I still believe it’s not a rivalry,” Jackson said for about the 15th time Christmas night after his W’s edged Rivers’ Clippers, 105-103, before the usual sellout of 19,596 at the Oracle Arena.

Maybe not, but it is a confrontation, which is good enough when you’re the end of a TV quintuple-header that has become as much a part of the holiday as eggnog and mistletoe.

The day after Christmas in Britain and Canada is called Boxing Day, because bosses give employees presents in boxes. What the W’s and Clips tried to give each other on Boxing Night was a lesson in intimidation, not that either team would ever admit to being intimidated.

Griffin was bounced from the game on a second technical with 10:43 remaining after a — does the word “scuffle” fit the situation? — with the Warriors’ 7-footer, Andrew “Sugar Ray” Bogut.

Not long before, the W’s Draymond Green was ejected for a flagrant 2 foul, something that sounds like a NASA code term but means that Green was very intent on clubbing Griffin.

“The Warriors tried to get Griffin ejected,” said Rivers, “and it worked.”

What Griffin, who had 20 points and 14 rebounds before taking his leave, said was, “I didn’t do anything, and I got thrown out of the game. It all boils down to (the officials) fell for it. To me it’s cowardly basketball. I don’t know their intentions, but it worked.”

The teams had met the second day of the season, Oct. 31, in LA, and that’s where the dislike began, the Clips winning that one, 126-115.

“We play four times a year,” said Steph Curry. “It’s going to be competitive. We were up for the challenge.”

Curry wasn’t up for hitting his shot — he missed his first six attempts and finished 5 of 17 — but he had 11 assists, as did Paul, who led the Clips with 26 points.

The Warriors, as now is standard, fell behind early and then with Klay Thompson scoring — and also playing great defense on Paul in the closing seconds — came back in the second half. The margin was on two free throws by Harrison Barnes with 1:09 remaining. After that came a lot of almosts, including two missed foul shots by Andre Iguodala with 9.3 seconds to play.

As the Warriors’ David Lee explained correctly, the Warriors, who shot a sad 42 percent, won the game on the boards, out-rebounding the Clippers 49-38, and on defense.

“Keeping them from their transition game,” said Lee, who had 23 points and 13 rebounds.

That translates as not allowing all those fastbreak dunks for which Griffin gets considerable airtime, along with his numerous commercials. Hey, he’s a star in a city of stars, on a team desperate to fill the void being left by the Lakers.

The Warriors, however, decline to be deferential.

“They’re a physical team in the middle,” said Bogut, whose best move was hoisting up Griffin — and as Griffin reminded, without getting caught.

“Neither of us backed down,” said Bogut, who had 14 rebounds and 10 points. “That’s the way it should be.”

Rivers, who coached the Celtics to championships, was understanding, if a bit frustrated.

“The basketball part was OK,” he said. “We were showing pretty well. The other stuff worked in their favor.”

The other stuff had the crowd in frenzy and the game, because of the ejections and delays, dragging on for 2 hours and 44 minutes.

“It’s not a rivalry,” reiterated Jackson, “because neither team has done anything.” He means in the postseason. They’ve done plenty against each other.

“Just physical basketball,” he said, maybe anticipating the next meeting on Jan. 30 in Oakland.

When someone asked Jackson why the Warriors and Clippers don’t like each other, the coach, an ordained reverend answered, “We like them. Merry Christmas.”