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-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.”