Firing of Warrior coach disappoints A’s Bob Melvin

By Art Spander

OAKLAND — Bob Melvin has been there. Has heard the phone ring the way Mark Jackson did. Heard the order to come to the office the way Mark Jackson did. Heard the words he was fired the way Mark Jackson did.

Melvin is a baseball man, who played for the Giants and others, and has been the Athletics' manager a month short of three years.

Melvin, who grew up in the Bay Area, also is a basketball fan, a Warrior fan “all my life,” as he phrases it. 

So we talk to the guy nicknamed BoMel, grab him outside the dugout at O.Co Coliseum Tuesday before the A’s were beaten by Seattle, 8-3.

Because of the nature of the Coliseum complex — Oracle Arena attached to the big stadium — the Warriors, A’s and Raiders are in a way connected symbolically.

Maybe 100 yards over Melvin’s shoulder is the court where Thursday Mark Jackson coached his final home game for the Warriors, offering cryptic words before tip-off that nothing after this season would be the same.

Now he’s gone. Now Oracle is empty. Now Bob Melvin, A’s manager and Warriors fan, is disappointed. He is not alone.

Melvin, fired as manager of the Mariners after the 2004 season, fired as manager of the Diamondbacks after 2009, might have offered a different viewpoint, been more noncommittal or simply mused, “That’s the business.” He did not.

“I know Mark Jackson,” said Melvin. “Consider him a friend. I’m surprised, a little disappointed as a Warrior fan. But I’m certainly not an expert, and I don’t know what went on inside.”

We’re told that inside, Jackson was not trusted by the front office. Told that Jackson argued with the son of Warriors owner Joe Lacob. We know Jackson dispatched two of his assistant coaches. There was conflict. There was inevitability.

Not for Melvin, who graduated from Menlo-Atherton High down the Peninsula and then played baseball at Cal. He didn’t want Jackson ousted. On the contrary.

Melvin remembers the Warriors' years in the wilderness, the stretch of 17 seasons when they made the playoffs only once. This year under Jackson, last year under Jackson, the Warriors were a delight, a link back some 40 years when in 1974-75 they won the NBA title.

“I would like to thank (Jackson) for his unbelievable contributions in getting the organization to this point and the success that they had,” said Melvin. “And I believe he’s going to have a lot of choices afterwards.”

Jackson never had been a head coach at any level, much less the NBA, the top of the heap, when chosen out of the ABC-ESPN broadcast booth in June 2011. Now he’s experienced. Yet that doesn’t mean there will be an opening.

Or that a team that needs a coach will accept Jackson, a pastor in southern California, who may have been a bit too religious for those who controlled his destiny.

Melvin’s rookie managerial season was 2003 with the Seattle Mariners. He made it only through 2004.

“I expected to be fired,” he said. “I was with a team that was on its last legs. We won 93 games my first year. We lost 99 the second year. They needed to start fresh. I understood.”

He took over the Diamondbacks almost immediately, managing Arizona from 2005 through 2008 and winning the National League West in 2007. But when the D-Backs started 2009 a disappointing 12-17, Melvin was dumped.

“I didn’t understand that one as much, because of some of the success we had,” said Melvin. “It’s never been an ego thing. I’m not an ego guy. It’s all about the players anyway. But there’s disappointment because you feel you’re working hard and doing a job, and at least in the Arizona situation I felt we made some big strides to get where we were.”

Mark Jackson’s strides with the Warriors were plenty large, but that sign of progress became irrelevant to those in command.

“The old adage, that you’re hired to be fired, I don’t necessarily agree with that,” Melvin insisted. “The intent is to stay there for a long period of time. So I kind of take exception when people say you’re going to get fired anyway.

“That’s kind of a of a defeatist attitude.”

It’s also reality. As Bob Melvin and now Mark Jackson realize.

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.”

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.”

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.”

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

SF Examiner: Is it time for Golden State Warriors fans to believe again?

By Art Spander
Special to The Examiner

The promises are out there, from a chain of command which seems very commanding, from a new head coach who acts very demanding.

This is the season, we are told, when fans of the Warriors, the most persistent, most loyal fans in sports, receive their payback.

Sixteen years out of 17, the Warriors have missed the playoffs...

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2011 SF Newspaper Company