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Hot List: Top 10 Unrestricted Free Agents

May 9, 2013  ·  11:07AM





HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS – Only eight teams remain in the playoffs, meaning the fans of 22 other teams have turned much of their attention to the offseason and the free-agent summer of 2013 in particular.

We will encounter a familiar name there, one Dwight David Howard of the Los Angeles Lakers, who along with Chris Paul of the Los Angeles Clippers, will be at the center of all things come July 1 (when free agency kicks off in all of its usual craziness).

There are a dozen teams, most notably Dallas, Atlanta, Houston, Utah, Cleveland, New Orleans, Detroit, Charlotte and Washington, with the cash to spend and the flexibility to significantly tweak, and, in some cases, totally remake their rosters. All these teams need is a free agent willing to give them a chance to make the proper sales pitch.

For the top-level free agents — and this summer that list it two truly elite players deep, Howard and Paul — the list of potential suitors will be exclusive. Only those franchises with championship potential need bother.

But that’s what makes the summer, the scramble by a large number of teams for the same small group of big-time free agents. We have more than seven weeks to before free agency goes into complete crazy mode, but why wait until then to get the party started?

The full list of this summer’s available names is around, as always, courtesy of our Free Agent Tracker. And if you’re looking for the top restricted free-agent picks, they’re right here.

Here are our top 10 unrestricted free agents for the summer of 2013 …

Dwight Howard, C, Los Angeles Lakers

Status on July 1: Unrestricted free agent
What he’s selling: A three-time Kia Defensive Player of the Year and five-time rebounding champ, Howard is a seven-time All-Star and, when healthy, the NBA’s most dominant big man. When your down year sees you lead the league in rebounding and still help power the Lakers to a playoff spot in an absolute train wreck of a season, you’re worth every penny a team throws at you.
What he’s not saying: He still a putrid free throw shooter and has been known to struggle with decision-making.
What he’s worth: A max contract, worth approximately $118 million over five years.
Who might be buying: The Lakers have no choice but to beg him to stay, with Kobe Bryant on the mend from Achilles surgery and no one else on the roster capable of carrying the mantle as face of the franchise. Houston, Atlanta and Dallas will launch all-out assaults to sway him.
Likely landing spot(s): Lakers. They can offer $30 million more than anyone else. Howard will have a hard time walking away from that kind of cash.

Chris Paul, PG, Los Angeles Clippers

Status on July 1: Unrestricted free agent
What he’s selling: A six-time All-Star and culture-changer (see Clippers before and after his arrival), Paul is the best in the business at his position, a gold medal winner and an All-Star Game MVP. Toss in his work as a pitch man (Cliff Paul comes with the package) and it’s easy to see why he’s one of the most recognizable players in the game today.
What he’s not saying: He has to stay healthy. He’s not getting any younger and he has to get to winning in the postseason, the one glaring hole on his so-far sparkling NBA resume.
What he’s worth: A max contract, worth approximately $108 million over five years.
Who might be buying: The Clippers are desperate to hold on to him. But they have coaching issues to resolve before that can happen. Houston, Atlanta, Dallas will all make pitches in hopes of prying Paul away.
Likely landing spots: Clippers … depending on what happens with Vinny Del Negro. Like Howard, Paul would have to walk away from extra cash if he decides to go elsewhere. But he’s hungry for a title, wherever he goes.

Josh Smith, F, Atlanta Hawks

Status on July 1: Unrestricted free agent
What he’s selling: An absolute game-changer when he’s focused, Smith makes plays only a few players in the league are capable of on a given night. For all the drama and criticism thrown his way, he helped power the Hawks to six straight playoff appearances.
What he’s not saying: His shot selection and motor remain issues. After nine years in Atlanta, his next spot needs to be an ideal fit, because this is likely Smith’s last big deal. He has to make sure it’s in a place where he can thrive.
What he’s worth: A max contract of approximately $95 million over five years doesn’t fit here, not from the only team (the Hawks) that can offer him that much. But a deal worth approximately $75 million to $85 million over five years is doable. Smith turned down a $47 million extension offer from the Hawks, so he’s obviously looking for a starting salary of $16 million-plus.
Who might be buying: The Hawks say they are interested in keeping Smith, at the right price, of course. Houston, Boston, Phoenix, New Orleans, Philadelphia and the Lakers will all investigate this situation.
Likely landing spots: Houston is the frontrunner and is the ideal fit and a place Smith would be comfortable. (more…)

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Posted in Free Agency 2013 / Comments (256) /

Red Carpet Rolled Out For the Spurs

May 6, 2013  ·  11:46AM

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SAN ANTONIO — Ever since they dusted off a young LeBron James and his overmatched Cavaliers with a backhanded sweep in 2007, the Spurs have been searching for a path back to The Finals.

Now, perhaps, the only thing missing is a red carpet rolled down an aisle or a trail of rose petals.

The Western Conference bracket that was supposed to a demolition derby involving a series of jarring collisions is beginning to look instead like dominoes falling just right for San Antonio.

What could have been a dangerous first-round matchup against the Lakers lost its peril the moment that Kobe Bryant collapsed with a torn Achilles tendon. Without their leader, the Lakers were toothless and clueless and simply ran out of healthy bodies to even put up a semblance of resistance, and the Spurs only had to fight boredom and try to avoid injuries.

Then while Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker were sitting at home resting their veteran legs for a full week, the remainder of the West came unraveled like a cheap sweater.

So many experts around the league had picked the superstar-less Nuggets to build on their 57-win season with a team-first attack that could carry them to the conference finals or even beyond. Yet No. 3 seed Denver had its home-court dominance ended by the sharp-shooting of Stephen Curry and the Warriors.

A season-long hullaballoo and love-fest over the No. 4 seed Clippers finally winning more than 50 games and their first division title in franchise history went out the window when they were exposed as little more than a sideshow dunking act that gave little inclination to playing defense or being serious when the stakes were raised.

While those two pretenders were being exposed, even the top-seeded Thunder were taking a severe blow when their All-Star guard Russell Westbrook suffered a torn ligament in his right knee in Game 2 of their series against Houston. First it meant that OKC was extended to six games by the young and restless Rockets and then it sent them into the second round and beyond looking vulnerable and anything like the favorites to reach a return match against Miami than a month ago.

Now the Spurs go into a second-round series tonight against the Warriors and Curry, who have become the “must-see” TV-show of the playoffs and it’s likely that the top shooting ace in the game will provide a few moments of entertainment and drama and anxiety in Spurs huddles.

But it can’t be overlooked that Golden State has lost an astounding 29 consecutive games in San Antonio, a streak that goes back to Feb. 14, 1997, four months before the 37-year-old Duncan was even drafted by the Spurs. As much of a test that they’ll get from trying to guard Curry, the Spurs would much rather have it against the No. 6 seed than trying to run and keep pace with the Nuggets in the mile high thin atmosphere of Denver.

Of course, the grit-and-grind Grizzlies are still out there lurking with their powerful inside game of Zach Randolph and Marc Gasol and the much-improved point guard Mike Conley. But the Grizzlies already blew an opportunity to take Game 1 of their series at OKC on Sunday and trail 1-0. So the storyline couldn’t be playing out any better for the Spurs if they had written it themselves.

“We lost to an eight (Memphis, 2011) once,” Ginobili told reporters. “We won being seventh (Dallas, 2009). So anything can happen.”

Of course, the Spurs know they had won 20 straight games and took a 2-0 lead on the Thunder in the conference finals a year ago before dropping four in a row to be eliminated. Nothing is ever certain, nothing is guaranteed.

But the Spurs were looking for a route back to The Finals for the first time in six years, they couldn’t have found a clearer path.

– Series hub: Spurs vs. Warriors

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Posted in 2013 Conference Semis: Spurs-Warriors, 2013 NBA Playoffs, HT News / Comments (4) /

Turnovers Pressing Issue For Warriors

May 5, 2013  ·  2:21PM

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HANG TIME WEST – Higher powers at play. That’s it. It was higher powers.

“…. I think that God has a sense of humor,” said Mark Jackson, pastor and Warriors coach, “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.”

Or maybe it was a reality check that kept changing.

“Each possession, it can’t get any worse than this,” guard Stephen Curry said. “Then it does.”

As if the opponent in the second round – the Spurs, co-favorites at worst all season to win the West – isn’t enough of a concern, the Warriors are in San Antonio in advance of Game 1 on Monday (9:30 p.m. ET, TNT) with another opponent staring back at them: the Warriors.

The Western Conference semifinals became a double-concern in that way about the time they started doing everything in their power to keep the Nuggets alive in the first round by committing 10 turnovers in the fourth quarter alone. Which came after another near-meltdown moment earlier in the series. Which came after Golden State finished 23rd in the league in turnovers during the regular season.

The Warriors are giving a clinic on what not to do at the end of games. It’s not the youthful indiscretion of a team relying heavily on four players in their first or second season, either. Curry, the hero against Denver, had four turnovers in 3 minutes 33 seconds of the fourth quarter as part of the Nuggets rallying from 18 down with 9:11 remaining to within two points with 32 seconds left.

The Warriors collapsed but survived, as much as falling across the finish line face first would be forgotten all around them amid the euphoria of going from first-round underdog, trailing 0-1 to a team that almost never lost at home and losing David Lee to a hip injury. But Golden State needed almost all of the 18-point cushion, and that was with the Nuggets making only 50 percent of their free throws (five of 10) in the final quarter and 61.9 percent (13 of 21). If Denver is so much as respectable from the line, or anything better than 34.7 percent from the field, it could have earned a Game 7 at the Pepsi Center.

That finish would have been bad enough, and possibly written off as a fluke occurrence, except that it wasn’t the first escape. Just six days earlier, the Warriors led 109-108, were coming out of a timeout with 9.4 seconds remaining, and had the ball. And Jarrett Jack was called for a five-second violation on the sideline near midcourt – even though Golden State had a 20-second timeout left.

The Nuggets got another chance, but could not capitalize. Ty Lawson lost the ball, Denver was forced to foul, Harrison Barnes made one free throw for a 110-108 Warriors lead, and Andre Igoudala missed a last-second three-point Hail Mary for the win. As much as Golden State had succeeded, Golden State had survived itself for what would become twice in four games.

“It’s hard to put into words,” Curry said after the Warriors nearly coughed up Game 6. “When the first two turnovers happened, it’s like, ‘All right, we’ll get it right.’ Two turnovers happened, they started making threes. The lead starts to dwindle down. I don’t know if we played on our heels. We did play on our heels. We had some miscommunication that put us in some awkward spots. Coach just told us, ‘Hey, we got this 18-point lead, we’ve played well the whole game, we’re going to figure out how to win this game, get out of here.’ That’s just what we did…. I promise that won’t happen again. Kind of inexcusable at this point.”

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Posted in 2013 Conference Semis: Spurs-Warriors, 2013 NBA Playoffs / Comments (7) /

David Lee May Play Against Spurs

May 3, 2013  ·  5:26PM

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OAKLAND – And so now we know his calendar is injured, too.

Eleven days after the Warriors said David Lee was done for the season because of a torn muscle in his right hip, even if they made it to the Finals in June, the All-Star power forward said after his shocking return in the series-clinching win against the Nuggets that he may play again when Golden State faces the Spurs in the Western Conference semifinal that begins Monday in San Antonio.

Lee is still contemplating surgery to repair the tear suffered in the fourth quarter of Game 1 in Denver and he said his 87-second stint late in the first period with one rebound and one missed jumper Thursday night at Oracle Arena was a struggle – “No stability. When I went to backpedal, I couldn’t even really feel my right leg. It’s not so much pain, but I definitely have limitations. I knew that and coach knew that and our doctors knew that going into (the) game. But it’s sometimes hard to tell me no when I get something in my head, so I tried to go out there and do something.” But he also would not rule himself out for the season, as if anyone would believe the claim anyway.

If the second round started Saturday, with a two-day turnaround that could have happened, Lee said he would not be able to play. Given the opening in the schedule before the Spurs series begins Monday, though, he may play for the second time since it was announced he would not play at all.

“I’m going to do my best,” he said late Thursday night, after the Warriors had eliminated the Nuggets 4-2. “We’ll just have to see what this break brings. If I’m feeling the same way I am tonight, it’s going to be difficult to expect much. But it’s already come so far in a few days, I think it can be even better by the time we play San Antonio.

“We’re going to hopefully have this make some improvement. The reason why I kind of thought of tonight was because it’s a home game. You saw the crowd’s reaction. It wasn’t necessarily what I was going to do on the court to help the team. It was more to boost the morale and to get the crowd somehow even more into the game than they already were. It accomplished that tonight. I’ll just have to take it day by day and we’ll see. But it would be limited minutes if it were possible.”

Lee said doctors told him he could not to additional damage to the existing injury, but that there is a possibility that overcompensating for the torn muscle could create new problems. That made playing Thursday a risky move and any more games a greater risk, although he said he tried not to think about the negatives.

But, he said, there is no danger of being healthy at the start of next season in exchange of a couple cameo appearances with no real tangible impact late in this one.

“I’m crazy, I’m not stupid,” Lee insisted Thursday. “I remember sitting at halftime tonight just thinking, ‘What was I thinking, thinking I could go play a playoff-intensity game with one leg?’ But it was worth it. And I wouldn’t have done it if would have jeopardized anything for next season.”
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Posted in 2013 NBA Playoffs / Comments (25) /

The Warriors Get Back To The Future

May 3, 2013  ·  2:57AM

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OAKLAND – The crowd at Roaracle Arena was the best kind of insane, refusing to sit for long stretches throughout much of the building, turning the building into a cauldron that sent people into the night with their ears buzzing, reaching a level of frenzy that reached the days of the 2007 playoffs here with the “We Believe” team.

This was a release. Obviously within the locker room because the Warriors were underdogs as the No. 6 team in the Western Conference that had just advanced at the expense of No. 3 Denver, but almost everyone had arrived in the last few years. Obviously for management and ownership that had taken public abuse for – oh, heavens! – trading Monta Ellis among other decisions that obviously had zero chance of working out, but the bosses were also new. Their bad memories were measured in months.

Thursday night and the 92-88 win over the Nuggets and the 4-2 series victory was about the years. It obviously would have been a special moment under any circumstances, beating a quality opponent and advancing to the semifinals to face the Spurs beginning Monday. But there is an added celebration for those who had truly endured.

The Warriors are in the West semifinals for the first time since 2007, the electric season of Baron Davis, Stephen Jackson, Don Nelson, the late charge just to make the playoffs and then the stunning upset of the Mavericks in a 1-8 matchup and the kenetic energy inside Oracle. Even when Golden State got eliminated by the Jazz in the semis, it was with one of the NBA’s all-time defiance moves, Davis barreling to the rim, taking on the bigger Andrei Kirilenko, putting one arm in Kirilenko’s face and hammering down a concussive dunk with the other. It’s still amazing the roof stayed on.

That series was six years ago.

“It seems like at least 10,” said reserve center Andris Biedrins, the only remaining Warrior from when it seemed so far-fetched to have confidence in making the playoffs and then advancing that “We Believe” became the popular catchphrase. “I swear. It seems so long ago.”

The losses.

The ownership change.

The guarantees the Warriors would make the playoffs that turned out to be a bad campaign promise.

The roster changes.

This was just one night, and a reminder of how being Golden State means never being in the clear, the way the Warriors went from being up 18 with 9:11 remaining to needing to desperately hang on while trying to give the game away with 10 fourth-quarter turnovers. Except that it was so much more than just one night.

“It means a lot,” Biedrins said. “The team has come a long way. All the changes. The ownership came. We were on the right track. I think now, finally, we realize that we are finally getting the feedback. Fans deserve it, the organization, the city, the Bay Area — at the end of the day, we finally got there.”

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Warriors’ Mark Jackson Fined $25,000

May 2, 2013  ·  10:42PM

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OAKLAND – Warriors coach Mark Jackson was fined $25,000 by the NBA on Thursday for comments that the league said were “an attempt to influence the officiating” after several statements in recent days about the physical play of the Nuggets in the first-round series.

He responded later in the day, about 90 minutes before tipoff of Game 6 at Oracle Arena, by saying he was “extremely thankful” he did not get disciplined for criticizing referees. The inference was clear: Jackson wanted it known he did not question the performance of the officials, but had to live with the ruling that his comments were a coach playing psychological games with referees, a ploy that doesn’t exactly make him a pioneer.

“I don’t like it,” he said of the decision. “And I disagree. And that’ll take care of itself. But at the end of the day, we’ve got a game at 7:30 and I’m excited about the opportunity that this team has in front of them. That’s the most important thing right now. We will not get sidetracked with anything that’s not on the track. We’ve got our blinders on and everything else will take care of itself.”

Jackson said he cannot remember being fined before, as a player or coach. When asked if he thinks he will get a fair whistle in Game 6 in the wake of the penalty, his replied:

“I will not try to influence anybody.”

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Posted in 2013 NBA Playoffs / Comments (17) /

The Next Step For Stephen Curry

May 2, 2013  ·  3:07PM

 

HANG TIME WEST – Now we know for sure Stephen Curry has hit the big time. Not because he threw the Warriors on his back in the playoffs, the ultimate superstar move, not because he did it playing hurt, and not even because praise as the best shooter in the game is practically coming nonstop.

It’s because the Nuggets are getting physical with him.

There is no greater status symbol than a player who demands extra attention from the opponent, and Curry is there as the first-round series returns to Oakland tonight (10:30 ET, TNT) with Golden State holding a 3-2 lead and trying to close out. That hasn’t just been the case since the rowdy Game 5, either. The Nuggets have been crowding him from the beginning. Tuesday in Denver was merely the continuing escalation.

The move by Kenneth Faried of the Nuggets to trip Curry was a cheap tactic, especially given Curry’s history of ankle problems, but Warriors coach Mark Jackson went over the top with the statement that Denver sent hit men after Curry. Or at least that’s what it sounded like Jackson said over the laughter of Dennis Rodman, Bill Laimbeer, Kevin McHale and Rick Mahorn. And Kurt Rambis’ neck says hello, too.

The series had turned testy long ago, since the Andrew Bogut-JaVale McGee scrape in Game 3 led to Bogut pointing to his chin while close to McGee, daring McGee to take a poke. In the regular season, it would have been a passing moment. In a long playoff series, it’s a layer in the rising tensions.

“If there’s a scorecard and we’re in a boxing fight right now, they’re winning the fight,” Nuggets coach George Karl told reporters in Denver. ”OK, we won a round (here and there), but I’m going to tell you, I’ll go to any arbiter now and show the dirty shots — they’re winning.

“Some of them are really good at the things they do. Andrew Bogut started it; the (Draymond) Green kid is really good at it; and Festus (Ezeli) is pretty good too…. Check the elbow to Ty Lawson‘s head with 20 seconds to go in the second quarter. Check that one out.”

Curry and the Warriors — and especially Jackson, the former veteran point guard — could not have been surprised this was coming, even if they were bothered by the extent. Of course the Nuggets, with the benefit of bigger wing defenders to throw at Curry, were going to get physical with him. Any playoff opponent would have tried the same thing, only without Corey Brewer and Andre Igoudala.

Don’t be surprised at an early technical tonight by the officiating crew headed by Danny Crawford, one of the best, to send a message it will keep order. Don’t be surprised if both sides remain aggressive and the crowd at Oracle Arena, passionate anyway, is especially riled. But most of all, don’t be surprised this has happened with Curry.

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Posted in 2013 NBA Playoffs / Comments (20) /

Warriors Have Taken Nuggets’ Heart

April 29, 2013  ·  2:50AM

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OAKLAND, Calif. – Yes, Stephen Curry. Of course Stephen Curry. This time, it was with 22 points in his forever third quarter and 31 points, seven assists against two turnovers in all. And he had the help of Andrew Bogut, he of the surge out of the blocks in Game 4 and the snarling attitude every day.

But this first-round upset in the making became about heart sometime in the second half Sunday night, and that’s more surprising than anything Curry tossed in during Game 4. The Nuggets mostly stopped showing any. That’s the thing: he Warriors did their part, shot by shot, but Denver is playing like an underdog on its heels, like a team lacking confidence, and proving once again it is impossible to win a game in the fetal position.

Denver is on the brink of elimination, trailing 3-1 in the best-of-seven series after Golden State’s 115-101 victory at Oracle Arena behind the latest Curry showcase, which would be surprising enough. But these are the Nuggets admitting confidence lost, which is more like impossible.

This group – Ty Lawson, Kenneth Faried, Andre Miller, Corey Brewer, Kosta Koufos, Danilo Gallinari (when he was healthy), and certainly coach George Karl – has always handled adversity. They were relegated to rebuilding mode after trading Carmelo Anthony in February 2011 … yet they still made the playoffs. They were dismissed as a sparring partner for the Lakers in the 2012 first round … yet they pushed L.A. to seven games after falling down 0-2.

The pall is unmistakable this time, though. The Nuggets may have stood up to the bigger, more-experienced, heavily-favored Lakers a year ago, but the underdog Warriors needed four games to break Denver’s spirit.

“They’re hitting big shots,” Lawson said. “They’re hitting crazy 3s, 3s from behind the arc. I can see a couple faces just looking down like, ‘Man, they hit another one.’ But we’ve just got to keep fighting. Keep fighting and just realize who we’re playing against. A lot of shooters.”

It is the Nuggets’ biggest hope and their biggest problem. Golden State is hitting everything, at 55.7 percent from the field Sunday after 64.6 and 52.5 the previous two games, and Denver can find solace in the realization there is no way the Warriors can continue at that pace. Except that, oh yeah, the Warriors have proven they can and the only thing close to slowing Curry is perhaps Curry’s own gimpy-at-times left ankle.

Karl said after Game 4 that changes were forthcoming, whether in the lineup or staying with the same starters and trying new matchups, but that won’t fix the real problem. The Warriors have demoralized the Nuggets, the team that has shown it cannot be demoralized. That’s the real problem.

“The next 48 hours is going to be difficult, to say the least,” Karl said. “They found some magic and we’ve got to somehow take it away. They’re beating us a lot of different ways. Tonight, I think our offense kind of got frustrated and got selfish. We lost the pass, and that had been our forte. They were definitely the quality offensive team.

“Now we shake it up and how we frustrate them, and now our pride, our competitive pride, is going to be tested on Tuesday night. There’s an excitement of getting this feeling, getting this frustration, out of our bodies by going out and playing our best basketball of the season, at least of the postseason.”

He called the Nuggets “the team without confidence right now.” It’s the biggest upset of the playoffs, that this roster that has stood up so many times before is so emotionally wounded now.

“Just our offense,” Karl said when asked why he so concerned about the mindset now when the core of the roster has handled adversity before.

“They have more flow than we have. They’re passing the ball better than we are. They’re probably making better basketball decisions at the offensive end of the court. And they’re probably twice as good of shooters as we are. They shoot the ball at an incredible level. Tuesday night will be a fight game and a battle game, a pride game, a determination game. We win that game and hopefully something will come our way.”

Another chance, for one thing. And confidence. The Nuggets are hoping to find their confidence.

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Schedule An Issue For Warriors, Nuggets

April 28, 2013  ·  4:59PM

OAKLAND – This is when the pace quickens in the Nuggets-Warriors series that continues in a few hours at Oracle Arena, and not the tempo on the court.

Neither side minds it in style of play, especially Denver. Both sides may mind it with the schedule.

The first-round series that went from Game 1 to two days off to Game 2 to two days off has moved into an every-other-day routine. It’s not a big deal for teams that play back-to-backs and three times in four nights in the regular season, except that the calendar could become an issue because of extenuating circumstances with location and health.

Stephen Curry, the spark to the Warriors’ 2-1 lead, will have very little recovery time with the sprained left ankle that remains a Golden State concern despite Curry passing the first test by playing 38 minutes on Friday, and playing very well. Curry, who already wears a brace to support the right ankle that needed surgery last year, said he ditched the brace on the left ankle during Game 3 because using two was too difficult. But, he said, he will have the bottom of the left leg heavily taped.

Location becomes an issue when the series returns to Denver on Tuesday and, if necessary, Saturday for a Game 7. Even the Nuggets talk about the risk of adjusting to being back at altitude after they have been out of town, which makes Game 5 at the Pepsi Center a potential unique challenge for both sides.

A few other notes heading into tonight:

  • Strange reaction from Nuggets coach George Karl after losing Game 3 to fall behind in the series: “There’s a lot of good tonight. I told the team after the game that the process of the NBA playoffs is to get better. We got better tonight. We didn’t win tonight, but there’s a process going on and it’s just two wins. They’re barely half the way there. I think it’s going to be fun Sunday. I think tonight’s game was a great game to be a part of.”
  • The Nuggets are still obviously in the series, no matter how uncomfortable it may be to be down and facing another game in the noise of Oracle Arena. But “There’s a lot of good tonight?”
  • Warriors coach Mark Jackson continues to put a great deal of faith in his three rookies. He played Harrison Barnes, Draymond Green and Festus Ezeli together in the fourth quarter of Game 2, though with the safety net of a big lead, and then in the tight finish to Game 3 went with Barnes the entire fourth quarter and Green about half the final period.
  • The question had to be asked: Was Curry really as hurt as the Warriors indicated before Game 2 or was it one giant head fake? He played 38 minutes, after all, and had 29 points and 11 assists against three turnovers, which qualifies as a little more than getting through the night.

“I really wish I was giving a Hollywood treatment,” Jackson said. “Steph, we did not know. He did not practice both practices (Wednesday and Thursday), he did go through shootaround (Friday). We got here, took a look at him jumping rope like everybody else and took a look at him sprinting. We didn’t need to see him shoot the basketball. He’s a gamer. The interesting thing, I believe, the second half or somewhere in the third quarter, he took his brace off. I mean, the guy made big-time plays, man. I’m still baffled and I know it’s going to sound like a broken record, but somebody owes the kid an apology. Please write an article and say, ‘Sorry.’ He’s an All-Star. He’s a big-time player and he made big-time plays.”

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Warriors Have Regained Their Edge

April 27, 2013  ·  2:53AM

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OAKLAND, Calif. – Mark Jackson can deny it all he wants, but he’s the one who said it.

“We’ve been bad,” the Warriors coach said of his team on March 6. And: “If we expect not just to make the playoffs, but if we expect to do the damage that we want to do, we’ve got to be better.” Also, in zeroing in on the primary problem: “Our defense is bad.”

So it was either being forgetful or going for revisionist history when the same Jackson said late Friday that the Warriors never lost their edge in the difficult second half of the regular season, when the very encouraging start mostly without Andrew Bogut and entirely without Brandon Rush and while relying heavily on three rookies gave way to weeks of a reality check down the stretch.

Really, this playoff response, this 2-1 lead over the favored Nuggets after the 110-108 Golden State victory at rollicking Oracle Arena, came from nowhere. At the very least, it came from a long way away.

From months away, to be exact. These are the Warriors with their edge back, the way they played until February arrived and the overachieving roster of the first half of the season crashed back to Earth. There was a six-game losing streak, the stretch of 10 defeats in 15 games, the real possibility very late in the regular season of dropping to seventh or eighth in the Western Conference, particularly unwanted territory because it would have meant a meeting the Thunder or Spurs in the first round. In the last 10 games alone, Golden State warmed up for the playoff by losing to the Kings, the Jazz and the Lakers along with Oklahoma City.

To deny the Warriors had to regain their edge is not true. Of course they had to. Of course they did.

No one could have counted on Golden State bringing the proper level of playoff intensity because there was no consistent sighting for much of the second half of the season, not to mention fact that this group had never been in the postseason. How very Warriors of them. This is like the surprising break from the gate amid injury-fueled doubts, only this time they have done it when it mattered most.

“I tell you what,” Jackson insisted when asked about the Warriors regaining their edge. “ We never lost it. We struggled. We’re a young basketball team, we certainly struggled. You lose five, six in a row. But one thing that I did after losing six in a row, I had my video guys talk to each player and ask them about making the playoffs and being successful. In the face of adversity, it’s easy to answer those questions when you win six, seven in a row. We struggled at times. But we’re a team that works extremely hard, we’re tied together, they compete.”

They lost a tough series opener in Denver, lost All-Star power forward David Lee for the rest of the season because of a hip injury, and responded. Win in Oakland, win in Denver. They’re back, all right. There is no denying it.

–Series Hub: Warriors vs. Nuggets

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Posted in 2013 NBA Playoffs / Comments (21) /

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