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.