By Art Spander
The Sports Xchange
OAKLAND — Someone wondered before the first pitch what Oakland Athletics' manager Bob Melvin was going to do about Yoenis Cespedes.
The second-year major-leaguer from Cuba was hitting below the dreaded "Mendoza Line" of .200, at .198. Or as the players say, he's on the wrong interstate, I-98.
Copyright 2013 The Sports Xchange
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.”
By Art Spander
OAKLAND — Another one of those "tote that barge, lift that bale" situations for the Oakland Athletics, another game that was worked and not played, agonized and not enjoyed.
“Our type of baseball,” said Josh Donaldson.
On Tuesday night, however, that type, the type that drags on when most of the fans have dragged themselves home — and when the announced attendance is 12,969, that doesn’t leave many in the stands — wasn’t successful.
The Texas Rangers got a couple of home runs in the 10th off a star-crossed A’s reliever named Chris Resop, and when this one came to a close, long after every other game in the majors already had done so, 3 hours 43 minutes after the first pitch, the Rangers were 6-5 winners.
Resop was the sixth A’s pitcher. He came in for the 10th, got Lance Berkman to ground out. Then he went 3-0 on Adrian Beltre. It’s like baiting a lion.
“I was just trying to get back in the strike zone,” Resop would say quietly, his right shoulder encased in ice.
The ball stayed there for a blink of an eye, then Beltre, who already had a double and a single in the game, powered it over the center field fence to break a 4-4 tie. After Nelson Cruz was retired, Resop threw another over the plate, and Mitch Moreland, who had hit one out in the fourth off Bartolo Colon, hit one out in the 10th off Resop.
“It’s not what I wanted,” said Resop.
“Rough,” someone sympathized. Resop disagreed. “This is worse than rough,” he said. “This is tough. This is not fun at all. You hate to let the others down. It’s a team game, but at the end of the day, there’s one person who could make the difference. I was trying to be too fine.”
The Swingin’ A’s, they used to call the franchise in a different time. Now it’s the Plodding A’s, the team that turns a sporting event into a seven-act production of Shakespeare. Nothing is easy. Nothing is quick. Nothing is brief.
There was that 19-inning game a couple weeks ago, right here at O.Co Coliseum. Then Tuesday night, when the pace was acceptable, everything slowed and slowed.
The A’s trailed 3-0. The A’s led 4-3. Seven innings had passed. It wasn’t going to be tidy, but at least it would be a win, and in regulation. The A’s needed it. Oh, did the Bay Area need it. The Warriors had lost. The Sharks had lost. The Giants had lost. Saved by the A’s? It was to dream.
The Rangers tied the game in the eighth, and then, boom (Beltre), boom (Moreland), they led by two in the 10th, 6-4, and they held on despite an Oakland run.
Maybe 1,500 fans were left. Maybe 30 or so beat their drums and blew their horns. So few people, so much noise. So little satisfaction.
“(Resop) is just going through a bad stretch,” said Bob Melvin, the A’s manager. Melvin has gone through his own bad stretch.
Last week he was ejected in Cleveland for arguing, correctly, that a ball hit by Oakland’s Adam Rosales was a home run, not a double. Tuesday night he was ejected, incorrectly, for arguing that Daric Barton beat out a grounder to short in the eighth.
“I probably deserved to go,” said Melvin of getting thumbed over the Barton play. “From where I was, I thought he was safe. But he (umpire D.J. Reyburn) got the call right, so I deserved it.”
The A’s have lost seven of nine. Sometimes it’s the hitting, or lack of it. Sometimes it’s the pitching. Or lack of it. When a team rallies from being down 3-0, goes ahead and then squanders a lead and a game, the feelings are mixed.
“We continue to battle,” reminded Melvin, “especially here at home.”
That’s admirable, but moral victories are of little use, especially for a team that was in the playoffs last season and is expected — was expected — to return in 2013.
Josh Donaldson, the A’s third baseman, had four straight hits, including two doubles, before flying out in the 10th. He’s hitting .315. He’s optimistic, not about his numbers but about his team.
“We feel competitive,” said Donaldson. “We’re aggressive. We play hard.”
Unquestionably. Now, if they only could play faster and with less stress.
By Art Spander
The Sports Xchange
SAN FRANCISCO — The game is not that complex. If a team pitches and hits better than the one it's playing, it's going to win. Which is exactly what the San Francisco Giants did for three games against the Atlanta Braves.
Not only did the Giants make it three in a row after dropping the Thursday series opener, but they outscored the Braves 23-4 over the final three games. San Francisco cruised to a 5-1 win Sunday afternoon.
Copyright © 2013 The Sports Xchange
By Art Spander
The Sports Xchange
SAN FRANCISCO -- Matt Cain pitched as expected. Tim Hudson did not. And so the San Francisco Giants, who have haven't had an easy victory in a while, got one Friday night, defeating the Atlanta Braves 8-2.
"We don't have a lot of these games," Giants manager Bruce Bochy said. "It's kind of nice."
Copyright © 2013 The Sports Xchange
By Art Spander
SAN FRANCISCO — They call him a manager, don’t they? Bruce Bochy manages, in every possible way. Manages his players with grace and skill. Manages his own emotions with superb calm.
Baseball will drive a man crazy, but only if he lets it.
The San Francisco Giants have done things the hard way for several seasons now. “Sweet Torture,” it was labeled by TV announcer Mike Krukow. Sweet because somehow the Giants make all the gnawed nails and deep breaths worth it.
As they did Wednesday at AT&T.
The Giants couldn’t hold a two-run lead in the ninth but as normal held their composure, and then won in the 10th, beating the Phillies, 4-3, and avoiding a sweep.
Not what Bochy desires, but almost what Bochy has come to expect.
“I’m used to it,” said Bochy. He looks more grizzled every game, but after this game, after the halt of a two-game losing streak, he also looked satisfied, a twinkle in his eyes.
What doesn’t break a man makes him laugh, right?
“These guys are entertainers,” Bochy said. If he was being sarcastic, and the possibility existed, it was hard to detect.
“I enjoy the game.”
He might have enjoyed it more if Sergio Romo didn’t give up a couple of runs in the ninth, but that’s baseball. Imperfection is everywhere. If you lose 62 times during a major league season, you’ll be a winner. It helps to be philosophical, maybe even fatalistic.
“Sergio’s been so good,” said Bochy. Which, certainly, he wasn’t on this afternoon by the Bay, but you’re not going to hear Bochy rip his players. You’re more likely to hear him credit the opposition, as he did with the Phils. “They’ve got a good club too,” he pointed out.
A club that beat the Giants on Monday and Tuesday.
What Bochy wanted was for his starting pitcher, Barry Zito, to get deep into the game, giving an overworked bullpen a rest. Zito responded, giving up only one run in seven plus innings and even adding a run-scoring single.
But Philly scoring twice in the next inning, off Romo, meant for a third straight game, after the Padres, after the Dodgers, Zito was not involved in the decision, even if in a larger sense, walking none, giving up only four hits and one run, he was very involved.
His control was a reason the Giants never trailed. It’s considerably easier when a team isn’t always playing from behind
“What a job Barry did,” Bochy said with emphasis. “He was throwing strikes. We’re not clicking on offense. It’s too bad he didn’t get the win, but it was a quality start.”
After the squandered lead, there also was a quality finish. Buster Posey was hauled out of the dugout on what was supposed to be his day of rest and opened the bottom of the 10th with a single. Then, after moving to second on a sacrifice and third on a wild pitch, he scored the winning run on a single by Andres Torres, who also had begun the game on the bench.
For Torres, who was with the Mets in 2012 before returning to San Francisco this season, it was the fourth walk-off hit of his career. It also was the Giants fifth walk-off win of the season and — time to exhale — their third in the last six games.
“I just tried to be aggressive,” said Torres. “I was looking for a slider. I just reacted. I think it was a fastball.”
Torres was buried under celebrating teammates, as was Buster Posey on Friday night and then Guillermo Quiroz on Saturday night after game-winning home runs against the Dodgers.
“This type of win is a confidence booster to us,” said a magnanimous Zito, “to get it done in the bottom of the 9th or 10th when the other side battles back.”
Zito’s performance had to be a particular boost to a franchise built on starting pitching but in the past two weeks rarely getting the starting pitching it needed.
Matt Cain did achieve his first win of the season Sunday, and Tim Lincecum, after a wobbly beginning, lasted seven innings on Tuesday night, if in a loss.
“It was important for me to be aggressive,” said Zito, “to make those guys swing their bats so I could keep my pitch count down.”
He met that requirement, lasting 101 pitches, the last one smacked into left for a single by Carlos Ruiz. Santiago Casilla took over for Zito but hurt his knee and two batters later was replaced by Jeremy Affeldt.
“We’re going to have a hiccup now and then,” said Bochy.
The cure for hiccups is water sipped slowly, we’re advised. Or in a game as this one, a run-scoring single by Andres Torres.
Entertainment? Whatever Bochy wants to call it is fine with the fans if it’s a win.
By Art Spander
SAN FRANCISCO — The game wasn’t merely about Matt Cain and his vexing month of winless pitching. Then again, it was mostly about Matt Cain.
When a guy is your ace, throws a perfect game, is the All-Star starter and then has zero for April in the victory column, he is the central character in the mystery.
Dodgers-Giants remains the essential component of San Francisco baseball, as the unrelenting chants of “Beat L.A., Beat L.A.” bear witness. The final score means everything.
Sunday night’s final score, 4-3 in favor the franchise that carried “GIGANTES’’ on its uniforms for Cinco de Mayo, meant those Gigantes had swept the three-game series from Los Angeles.
Yet the Cain performance was not to be underestimated. To the Giants, who knew once more Matt was the rock of a pitching staff that is the team’s strength, and yes, to Cain himself.
No matter how much success a player has experienced, an 0-2 record with a 6.49 earned run average in six games must be bewildering at the least.
He and probably everyone else knew sooner or later the wrongs would be corrected, but the issue was when. The response was delivered by Cain along with his fastballs and breaking pitches in 7 1/3 reassuring innings.
“It was a solid effort,” said Giants manager Bruce Bochy of Cain. “A great job. No runs.”
Until an eighth inning Bochy said has become all too familiar for the Giants, when a 4-0 lead ebbed, relievers entered and departed and the normal sellout crowd of 41,000-plus at AT&T Park wondered why it always had to be so nerve-wracking.
“Our boys made it entertaining,” said Bochy, who by his subsequent smile made us understand he’d accept something less so. “It’s our nature. We made it close.”
But close or not, it was the Giants’ sixth straight win, three over the Dodgers, each by a run, after three over Arizona, following five straight defeats. Some chewed fingernails, some beautiful hitting — Sunday night Hunter Pence drove in all the San Francisco runs — and a lot of happy patrons.
The mini-achievement, Cain getting off the schneid for 2013 and also becoming the first Giant starter in 12 games to get a victory — oh, that bullpen has been spectacular — was simple enough.
“I didn’t make as many mistakes,” said Cain, “and some of the mistakes I was making were hit at guys.”
It is a baseball truism that nothing in the game is fair. Line drives are caught — as three line drives, or at least deep flies, off Sergio Romo were caught in the top of the ninth — while bloops and dribblers fall for hits.
“A couple ground balls go through,” Bochy said of the Dodgers' eighth. “Then in the (top of) ninth, hard-hit balls right at them.”
Still, it isn’t only a matter of fortune. When a pitcher is sharp, the breaks, good or bad, don’t have that much of an effect. Twice this season, Cain had given up three home runs in a single game. Sunday night he allowed nothing more destructive than a first-inning double by Matt Kemp, who never moved from second.
“All of the starters hadn’t been doing what we wanted to do,” said Cain. “To get off that skid, it just took some time.
“I had those bits where I was giving up home runs while ahead in the count. I wasn’t necessarily thinking about that, but about bearing down and just thinking about pitching. (Catcher Guillermo) Quiroz did a good job keeping me focused.”
Cain gave up five hits and three walks and, although charged only with one of the Dodger runs, still has an ERA 5.57. It will decline.
There was a report on ESPN, which televised the game nationally, that the Giants felt Cain’s problems were physical, he had dropped the angle of his delivery, causing his balls to flatten out. Bochy was in full denial about that or any other issue with Cain’s body.
“I never thought something was wrong with Matt,” said the manager. “I said along he was healthy, his arm was fine. And tonight he showed it.”
Cain was not one to disagree,
“My arm always felt good,” Cain said. “I was just making bad pitches. I didn’t pitch well. Tonight I made better pitches at times. Yes, sometimes when you make a bad pitch they’ll pop it up, but that wasn’t what happened.”
The Giants continued a remarkable record. Never in their 56 years in San Francisco have they lost a home game to the Dodgers when they built a lead of three runs or more.
That beat goes on. Matt Cain’s beating finally has changed.
“The most encouraging part,” answered Cain when asked, “was I got kind of better as the game went along.”
He’s a winner now. Of course, he always has been.
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.
By Art Spander
OAKLAND — The other coach, George Karl, and he’s an experienced coach, a winning coach, made a reference to the mystical, as if this first-round NBA playoff was being determined by factors other than suffocating defense and offense that does at times seem otherworldly.
“They’ve found some magic,” Karl said of the Golden State Warriors, “and we’ve got to take it away.” But time and games are running out for Karl’s Denver Nuggets. Time, games and history.
The Warriors did it again to the Nuggets on Sunday night, a Sabbath of bewilderment and not faith for Denver, figuratively run off the court at Oracle Arena, 115-101, by the Warriors, who now are one game away from the series everyone presumed would belong to the Nuggets.
Three games to one, the Warriors lead now, after three straight victories. They broke the curse — maybe it was magic — last week, winning at Denver where the Nuggets had lost only three times in 41 games during the regular season.
Sunday night, they broke Denver’s back.
It was Andrew Bogut, rattling rims — and maybe Karl’s senses — dominating in the first half and then, on a sore ankle, Stephen Curry, with 22 points in the third quarter and 31 for the game, in the second half.
It was defense that had the Nuggets throwing away passes and rushing shots.
It was basketball played by the book and by the heart, basketball that had a sellout crowd of 19,596 in a three-hour frenzy.
Warriors coach Mark Jackson, while enthralled, was also wary, offering the obligatory, “It’s not over yet” when we know it is — even if a year ago Denver rallied to beat the Lakers.
But the Warriors are the better team, the hotter team, the growing team. They might drop Game 5 Tuesday night at Denver, but they certainly will not lose Game 6 back in Oakland.
There’s no fear in the Warriors, and no reluctance either. They are believers and competitors. They swarm when the opponent has the ball — in the second quarter, the Nuggets made 10 turnovers to the Warriors one. The connect when they have the ball.
“God bless Steph Curry,” said Karl, “but there’s Jarrett Jack and (Carl) Landry. They also score. Turnovers gave (the Warriors) control of the ball. But it takes one game to turn it around, to regain our confidence.”
The Warriors are the confident ones. They’ve always been confident. It’s an expression of youth and fantasy. To the Warriors, anything is possible. Even shooting 75 percent, which they did in the third period, hitting 13 of 17 from the field.
Curry, naturally, was the catalyst. The right ankle, the one that’s troubled him for years, the one that required surgery, was sore even before the game, and so he received an injection, a pain killer.
However, the hurt remained early on, and so Jackson thought of benching his star and did take him off the court for a long while.
Finally the pain subsided after intermission. Curry was able to flee the Nuggets’ trapping defense. A shot went in. Then another. Then another. In the last 4 minutes 22 seconds of the third quarter, Curry scored 19. Game, set and virtually match.
“He put the team on his back,” said Jackson, repeating a comment he’s used frequently, and for good reason. After that, someone from the Nuggets put a finger in Curry’s eye. With the Warriors up by 20 or so, Jackson smartly pulled Curry.
“I was considering shutting him down in the first half,” said Jackson, “and I told him that. It was almost like a boxer who knew he was on the ropes, because it was a matter of time. I told him I didn’t need him to be a hero. Smart coaching, huh? I guess he realized and sensed that, and he captured the moment and embraced the moment.
“The thing that stood out to me, it’s almost like he was waiting for this moment his entire career and wasn’t going to allow his body to tell him that he was too hurt to match the moment. It was an incredible, incredible performance by him once again.”
It was a performance reminiscent of that by Sleepy Floyd, who for the Warriors in a 1987 playoff against the Lakers scored 51 points, a record 29 in the third quarter. The Warriors coach that game: George Karl.
“They were definitely the quality offensive team,” Karl said of these Warriors on Sunday night. “They have shooters like they have, and Bogut played well.”
The 7-foot Bogut, acquired in a trade a year ago but not entirely recovered from ankle surgery that predated the swap, was aggressive and mean in the first half. He had several dunks, going to the basket as Denver trapped Curry, and one, reshown on the big screen again and again, was the stuff — literally — that brought fans to their feet hollering in delight.
“He was off the charts,” Jackson said of Bogut. “I thought he was the key to keeping us in the ball game, setting screens, rebounding, playing physical.”
Curry was on the charts, taking 16 shots and making 10, going 6 of 11 on 3-pointers. He also had seven assists, numbers that have to be displayed.
“The way I explain it,” said Jackson, a who has his own church, “(Curry) is blessed.”
If you choose to describe that as magic, all well and good.
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.
By Art Spander
SAN FRANCISCO — The Giants did everything they could to lose it. And succeeded.
Just one of 162, certainly, and there are going to be games like this, but, full of errors and other misplays, particularly worrisome nonetheless.
Maybe former Giants shortstop and current Comcast TV commentator Rich Aurilia was a bit strong when, after an erratic top of the 11th inning Tuesday that made the difference in Arizona’s 6-4 win, he tweeted, “Terrible baseball in this half inning.”
Strong but hardly inaccurate.
He was referring to Andres Torres watching a ball fall for a double in that half inning, then an error by first baseman Brandon Belt on a one-bounce throw from Pablo Sandoval, then a wild pitch by Santiago Casilla.
“We probably should have been better there,” said Bruce Bochy, the Giants’ manager.
Matt Cain, the Giants’ starter, still searching for the dominance of last season, also probably should have been better there.
He had some bad breaks — the first batter of the game was safe on one of the three errors San Francisco would make. And then against the nemesis, Paul Goldschmidt, he made a bad pitch in the third inning, a pitch that was immediately turned into two-run homer.
Bochy, always the optimist, didn’t seem displeased with Cain, who went six innings without a decision and still is winless in 2013.
“He threw well at times,” said Bochy of Cain, who struck out six and allowed five hits. “Matt settled down. One pitch got away. It was a mistake, and that was against a guy who did some damage.”
It was the Arizona starter, Patrick Corbin, who was doing damage to the Giants. He retired the first nine betters in order and gave up only three hits through seven innings.
San Francisco, with Brandon Crawford tripling to center, however, picked up two runs in the eighth, and then Brandon Belt, pinch-hitting for Joaquin Arias, homered into McCovey Cove in the ninth to make it 4-4.
The usual sellout crowd at AT&T, the 177th straight, shook off its torpor and the icicles (summer left in late morning), screaming, chanting and thinking that as Monday night the home team would find a way.
Yes, as Bochy says virtually every game, these Giants, the World Series Champion Giants, prove resilient. But also at times, they tend to inefficient.
You can shrug off Sandoval getting thrown out by what, 20 feet or 25, attempting to score from second on Hunter Pence’s two-out single to right. It was the onetime Giant, Cody Ross, who cut him down. It was the third base coach, Tim Flannery, who sent him home.
“A two-out base hit,” said Bochy, whose managerial skills are rarely questioned, “you try to score. Ross charged it well. That’s part of the game.”
Part of this game, a huge part, was the Giants looking bewildered at the plate against the left-handed Corbin and incompetent with the gloves against the ground balls.
Three errors mean the other team figuratively gets 30 outs instead of 27. And wild pitches with a man on third in a tie game are ruination.
As Bochy said, you play enough games and those things occur. But for a team constructed upon pitching and with only one starter, Sandoval, who could be timed by an hourglass, hitting at least .300, when errors and errant pitches occur, too often you lose.
The Giants had won seven in a row at AT&T, and since baseball is a game of averages, surely they were due to drop one. It’s the way they dropped it that causes dyspepsia.
In the mind’s eye there’s Sandoval, rumbling into the end of an inning — yes, we’ll shrug it off — then moments later Casilla bouncing a ball as if he were a bowler in cricket rather than a pitcher in baseball.
Maybe the Giants should find satisfaction that, for a second straight game against the Diamondbacks, they rallied. But this time, it only extended the time until the eventual disappointment.
Bochy was asked why he allows his starting pitchers to stay in a game when they don’t appear to be particularly sharp, but it’s obvious. They are the strength of this Giants team, even on nights when they’re not particularly strong. Besides, he doesn’t want to overwork his bullpen.
“They’ve earned the right to stay in,” Bochy reminded, not that anyone who’s studied the Giants needed reminding. “You’re going to allow your guys to work.”
Cain worked, and that’s a good description. It wasn’t easy. He left trailing by four runs. The Giants managed to get those four and get even. After that, it was an embarrassment and a defeat.
This article was originally published April 13, 2012.
By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com
The number, 42, hangs in every major league ballpark, a reminder of a man who was as much a pioneer as an athlete — a superb athlete — talented, proud and courageous.
Sixty-five years now since that April day in 1947 when Jack Roosevelt Robinson integrated the majors.
By Art Spander
For GlobalGolfPost.com
AUGUSTA, GEORGIA — Jack Nicklaus summarized the situation and the event. The other majors, he reminded, are championships, The Masters is a tournament. What he didn't say, and what we all have come to understand, a tournament of privilege and unique rules interpretations.
Status counts, as does reputation. After all...
Copyright 2013 Global Golf Post
By Art Spander
Special to Newsday
AUGUSTA, Ga. -- He was under an umbrella but under no illusions. Tiger Woods didn't win the Masters he was supposed to win, and there would be no talk on this rainy Sunday about bad breaks or anything except his inability to gauge the speed on Augusta National's vexing greens.
Woods played a decent back nine Sunday with three birdies after an indifferent front nine, and his two-under-par 70 moved him up to a tie for fourth at 283, four shots shy of first.
Copyright © 2013 Newsday. All rights reserved.
By Art Spander
Special to Newsday
AUGUSTA, Ga. -- Beyond the controversies and penalty strokes, the slow play of 14-year-old Tianlang Guan, the debate over Tiger Woods' non-disqualification, this Masters has become a compelling tournament.
Going into Sunday's final round, the competition is about as wide open as the eighth fairway at Augusta National.
Copyright © 2013 Newsday. All rights reserved.
By Art Spander
AUGUSTA, Ga. — The mad rush of humanity, for hours waiting, working to get on the hallowed ground of Augusta National and then, with Tiger Woods coming off the course and a “Weather Warning” sign going up on the scoreboards, the desperate and successful attempt for most of those people — the Patrons, they’re called — to get off.
Fleeing, departing, as if warned of some onrushing tide. But this was not time to get to high ground, but rather a reality check on what and who counts at the Masters — and if it’s not Mr. Woods, it’s the fans’ own survival.
It wasn’t raining yet, but the threat of lightning and with Tiger finished, let’s get to one of those taverns on Washington Road.
Woods is the story even when Thursday, for the first round of this 77th Masters, he wasn’t the story. That is if you go by the leader board, on which he failed to earn a place, because there’s room only for the low 10 and ties. At 2-under 70, Tiger was among the group sharing 13th.
Marc Leishman, trying to become the first Australian to win the Masters, and Sergio Garcia, the Spaniard who had insisted he was not good enough to win a major — hey, we all make mistakes — were tied for the lead at 6-under-par 66. Dustin Johnson was at 65.
Golf tournaments, however, are like mile runs, four rounds instead of four laps. The guy in front after 18 holes may not be the one who’s in the lead after 72. Everyone knows that, especially Tiger Woods. The idea is not to lose touch, to stay close enough.
Tiger would be fine with two rounds to play, even with one round to play. With three to go, he’s in great shape, if not in first place, where those thousands of spectators, the Patrons, were hoping he would be before they hastily took their leave.
It’s been Tiger’s year so far in golf, three victories on Tour, a return to the top of the world standings. Yet, Tiger, as Jack Nicklaus, is all about major championships, because in his sphere — as in Jack’s — there’s little else. The rest of the tournaments, Torrey Pines (unless it’s a U.S. Open there), Doral, are merely obstacles to get past.
Nicklaus brought this about, although he contends it was unintentionally, after his win in the 1972 Masters.
Jack reached a point in his career, as now at age 37 Tiger has in his career, where nothing matters except one of the big four. Nicklaus seemingly didn’t care about and rarely entered any of the rest, which aggravated the late, great sportswriter Jim Murray to produce a column headlined, “Majoring in Golf.”
“I never counted my majors,” Nicklaus said a couple of days ago, “until (the late Associated Press golf writer) Bob Green told me at St. Andrews in the ‘70s, ‘Hey Jack, that’s 10. Only three more to tie Bobby Jones.’
“I said, ’Really?’ I never counted them. All I did was try to be the best I could be.”
Some of the facts are incorrect, if perhaps because of the passing of time. Jack’s win in the 1970 British Open at St. Andrews was his eighth, not his 10th. His win in the 1978 Open at St. Andrews was his 15th.
Irrelevant? Possibly. The ultimate total became 18, while Tiger, who has 14 but none since the 2008 U.S. Open, remains second.
“He’s got to win five majors,” Nicklaus said of Tiger’s quest, “which is a pretty good career for most people to start at 37. I still think . . . still he’s got to do it. If he wins here, it would be a very large step towards regaining that confidence that he has not won a major in three and a half years.
“He’s going to have to figure it out. But I think if he figures it out here, it will be a great boost for him. If he doesn’t figure it out after the spring he’s had, I think will be a lot tougher for him.”
When Tiger after his round Thursday stood relaxed behind a protective rope that separated him from the recorders and notepads of the press, he seemed contented if not elated.
“It’s a good start,” said Woods, who as others surely is concentrating on the finish. “Some years, some guys shoot 65 starting out here. But right now I’m only four back and right there.”
Tiger has played the Masters, Augusta National, since the mid-1990s when he was still an amateur. He won in 1997 as a rookie pro and then three more times, but not since 2005.
“I feel comfortable with every aspect of my game,” Woods said on Tuesday. “I feel I’ve improved, and I’ve gotten more consistent, and I think the wins (before the Masters) show that.”
What the first round in 2013 showed was Tiger can break par and draw a huge crowd that isn’t interested in much else other than Woods and not getting caught in a storm.
By Art Spander
ATLANTA – Sometimes it works out like this. Sometimes the biggest game of the season turns out to be the best game of the season, a game of emotion, drama and subplots that validates our love of sports, a game that, true to the mottos printed on the warmups of both teams, did rise to the occasion.
The preludes, the regionals, even the semifinals, were hesitant, awkward games, making us wonder what was wrong, instead of what was right, games when players couldn’t score, games that elicited criticism instead of the expected praise.
But on Monday night, the NCAA final swept away all the disappointment that had gone before, as Louisville, once trailing by 12 points, was able to sweep away Michigan, 82-76, and both take the championship and justify its overall No. 1 seeding.
It was a beautiful day for Rick Pitino, the Louisville coach, who in the late morning was chosen for the Basketball Hall of Fame and then so very late in the evening, just before the stroke of midnight because these games are staged for a maximum TV audience, watched and urged the Cardinals to their third title – and his second.
Thirteen years ago, at the only other school that counts in the state of bluegrass, thoroughbreds and college basketball, the U. of Kentucky, Pitino earned his other championship.
So Louisville, which at one time in the first half had trailed by 12, would come out ahead in the end, but the true winner was the sport, as wild and enthralling as only could be imagined by the record finals crowd of 74,326 at the Georgia Dome and the usual millions of television viewers.
“A lot of times when you get to championship games,” said Pitino, “the games are not always great, not always pretty. This was a great game.”
This was a game in which a kid nicknamed Spike, Michael Albrecht, a 5-foot-10 freshman, came off the bench for Michigan to score 17 points before intermission and then, as the media wondered if he were the stuff of fairy tales, slipped into oblivion.
This was the game in which a backup named Luke Hancock took the role of the injured Kevin Ware and not only led Louisville with 22 points but was chosen the Final Four’s most outstanding player.
This was the game in which players from both squads raced from one end of the court to the other at the sort of breakneck pace that had the screaming fans -- and oh, were they loud -- taking as many deep breaths as the athletes.
Michigan (31-8) was doing it for a while with four freshmen, and oh, are the Wolverines going to be strong in the future. Louisville (35-5) was doing it for a while figuratively without guard Russ Smith, who made only 3 of his 16 field goal attempts.
Yes, Ware was in the building, on the bench, the right leg in which he incurred a compound fracture 10 days earlier against Duke under sweat pants, his number “5” on the T-shirts of so many Louisville fans. He was given the opportunity to make the final snip, separating the net from the rim.
Louisville was not quite as ecstatic as it was relieved. The Cardinals gained control in the second half, as they did against Wichita State in the semifinal, but Michigan, shooting 52 percent for the game, wouldn’t fade until the bitter end.
“As fine an offensive team as there is,” Pitino said of Michigan.
The Wolverines with their happy ghosts from the past, Chris Webber, Jalen Rose and others from, the ’93 Michigan finalists in attendance, would get 24 points from the new Player of the Year, Trey Burke – even with Burke out most of the first half with two early fouls.
That’s when Albrecht came in and came on, making 6 of 8 and getting his 17. That’s when Michigan zoomed to a 33-21 lead with 3:56 to play before halftime. But even more quickly, in three and half minutes, Louisville did its own zooming, and went ahead, 37-36. You sensed it had become the Cardinals' game.
“We feel bad about it,” Michigan coach John Beilein would say in retrospect. “We could have done some things better, every one of us. At the same time, Louisville is a terrific basketball team. I have not seen that quickness anywhere, and we played some really good teams. That quickness is incredible, and it got us a couple of times today.”
It got Louisville the victory, as one of Pitino’s horses, Goldencents, on Saturday got him the Santa Anita Derby victory.
“I think when you work as hard as we work,” said Pitino of his team, “it builds a foundation of love and discipline because you have to suffer together. You're always pressing.”
He meant for greatness. In this game, this great game, Louisville achieved it.
By Art Spander
ATLANTA -- The fans of the school that didn’t win, Wichita State, were complaining, not about their team, which was magnificent, but about the college basketball rule that awards alternate possessions on what used to be jump balls and, of course, about the officiating.
What happened was Louisville -- which was down 12 in the second half and came rushing back to win the NCAA national semifinal, 72-68, Saturday night, and advance to Monday night’s final against Michigan -- missed a free throw with nine seconds to play.
Wichita’s Ron Baker grabbed the ball, then Louisville’s Luke Hancock also grabbed the ball, although the Wichita people among the huge crowd at the Georgia Dome insisted Hancock grabbed Baker, getting away with a foul that became a tie-up.
The possession arrow pointed to Louisville, and naturally Wichita had to foul intentionally. And that was that, the No. 1 seed beating the No. 9 seed.
But forget the rules and the refs. If you’re in front, 47-35, with under 14 minutes remaining, they’re not at fault. Your team is.
Your team, which was so protective of the ball for more than 30 minutes, which had only four turnovers, wilted under Louisville's pressure and made six turnovers in eight possessions. Your team, which got this far on 3-point baskets hit on only 6 in 20 attempts.
Louisville won because when its starters were less than effective, its reserves -- including a walk-on, Tim Henderson -- were very effective. Louisville won because it’s the best team in the country.
“They do that to everyone,” a saddened Wichita State coach Gregg Marshall said of Louisville.
Then he sighed, “This may be the most important basketball game I’ll ever coach. It’s definitely the most important Wichita State has played in.”
It was no less important for Louisville, which certainly was without its emotional leader, Kevin Ware, who broke his leg in last weekend’s regional final against Duke. Louisville has made even greater comebacks – it was down 16 to Syracuse in the Big East tournament – to advance as it has.
“We had to win this game with our second unit,” said Rick Pitino, the Louisville coach, “with Steven Van Treese, Tim Henderson, one of the best sixth men in basketball, Luke Hancock, and Montrezl Harrell. Our starters played poorly, and that was because Wichita State is that good.”
If not quite good enough.
Henderson is one of those hometown kids who sat on the bench while Peyton Siva from Seattle, Russ Smith from Brooklyn, Gorgui Deng from Senegal – and definitely Ware, from the Bronx – got the playing time and accolades.
Hancock also is a sub, if one who Saturday night, basically taking Ware’s place, was on the court 31 minutes and scored 20, one point fewer than Smith.
Great teams, or at least very good teams, are deep teams, with players who perform when nobody except their teammates expects them to. Very good teams have players such as Henderson, who defied the Wichita State defense, if not logic.
All season, in the 25 games he played, Henderson had made just four 3-pointers, In this game, an agonizingly awful one in the first half and frantically exciting one in the second half, Henderson made consecutive 3-pointers. At the most critical of moments.
With Wichita ahead by those 12 points, Henderson cut the margin to nine at the 13-minute mark. Then he trimmed it to six, 47-41, with 12:18 to play.
“Tim hits shots like that in practice,” said Hancock.
This wasn’t practice. This was near perfection. Three 3-pointers in 17 attempts in 25 games. Two in three attempts in the national semifinal game.
“I think the two Henderson hit,” said Marshall, the Wichita coach, “were in concert with the two one-and-ones (the Shockers') Ehimen Okupe missed. You got to get some points there. Then the six-point run for them becomes three or four points.”
A week ago, when Ware went down with that gruesome fractured leg, the Louisville Cardinals prayed for him. On Monday night, Ware said he prayed for Hancock. “We’d love for him to be out there,” Hancock said of the injured teammate. “He’s out there in spirit. It means a lot.”
What meant a lot was for a dog of a game, Wichita leading at half by the ridiculous score of 26-25, to awaken after intermission and make the final totals respectable. More than respectable were the turnover numbers. Louisville had only two in the second half, nine for the game, Wichita just four in the first half and 11 for the game.
In domes, the shooting invariably is off -- although Siva, who was 1 for 9, was asked if the depth perception affected his jumpers and cracked, “Well, my layups. I couldn’t really see. I was too far away from the basket.”
No laughs, just the realization he’s close to the national title.
By Art Spander
OAKLAND, Calif. –- There’s a reason they call him King Felix. “He can throw any pitch on any count,” said Bob Melvin. He’s the Oakland Athletics' manager. He was in the other dugout Monday night, opening night, a disappointing night for Melvin and the A’s.
A losing night.
“Opening night,” Melvin reminded, not that anyone needed reminding, “you’re always going to face the other team’s best pitcher.”
The Seattle Mariners’ best pitcher. One of baseball’s best pitchers. Felix Hernandez, who’s won an American League Cy Young Award, who last season threw a perfect game, who by anyone’s definition is pure baseball royalty.
“Maybe he didn’t have his best velocity,” said Melvin, a former catcher who knows all about pitching and too much about Hernandez, “but he was great.”
What Hernandez did was retire the first 10 batters of the game, really of the season, and although Hernandez would allow three hits – one to his former battery mate, John Jaso, whose double in the fourth was end of the no-hitter – the A’s never scored, losing 2-0.
An opening day and night without runs from teams by the Bay. Down in Los Angeles, the Giants – the World Series champion Giants, if you will – were blanked by the Dodgers’ Clayton Kershaw, 4-0. A few hours later, up at this end of the state, the A’s, the American League West Champions, were just as ineffective.
Two teams, two winning teams from 2012, zero runs.
“You always get somebody’s ace,” said Melvin.
The A’s similarly had one of their aces pitching, Brett Anderson. He struck out the first four Mariners. He went seven innings. Permitted only four hits and two runs.
“You’re going to take seven innings and two runs anytime from your starter,” Melvin insisted. Absolutely. But when your team gets no runs, you’re in trouble.
The A’s traded for Jaso in January. So long, Felix. “It’s easier catching him than batting against him,” said Jaso. But he did get that double. He did halt any chance for more perfection.
Before the game, Hernandez sent his former catcher a remembrance from the perfect game against Tampa Bay last August, a Rolex watch. Those beauties don’t come cheaply, starting a $5,000 or so and climbing exorbitantly depending on the number of diamonds on the face. Then again, Hernandez signed a $175-million, seven-year contract in January, so he has a bit of spare cash.
Someone asked Jaso whether it meant more getting a watch from Hernandez or a hit. “The hit,” he said, not all that seriously. “Then he struck me out.”
Hernandez struck out eight in his 7 2/3 innings, walking only one. “He had his stuff,” agreed Jaso. “He was really fun to catch when I was in Seattle. But today, so was Brett.”
Anderson is the medical miracle. The lefthander underwent Tommy John surgery in June 2011 and didn’t pitch again until last August. Then he strained an oblique muscle in September and missed more time. But on October 10, with the A’s trailing the Detroit Tigers two games to none in the best-of-five American League Division Series, Anderson, in his first start in six weeks, went six scoreless innings.
Monday night, opening night, was the next time Anderson pitched in competition. He liked the way he threw, for the most part. He didn’t like giving up the runs.
“A couple of mistakes,” said Anderson, analyzing the performance. “We had a chance to win it. I walked the leadoff batter (in the fifth). I hate walking people. That was my biggest downfall.”
The O.Co Coliseum was a wild place, a sellout – if with an asterisk, because the tarped rows of seats restrict attendance to 36,067 – the fans coming out with their rally towels and high hopes.
Where the A’s go from here – no jokes about San Jose – nobody is certain, but they won’t be going up against Hernandez at least for a few days, maybe a few weeks.
“We kept feeling we would pull it out,” said Melvin, the 2012 American League manager of the year. “In close games you have to have that feeling. We had it all last year, and it worked. A lot of times, one hit makes the difference.”
Hernandez wouldn’t let it work Monday night. The fans could chant “Let’s go Oakland.” The A’s couldn’t get that one hit. The A’s couldn’t get any runs.
“Felix is probably as good a pitcher as anyone as getting guys to swing at pitches,” said Melvin. He meant pitches at which they shouldn’t have swung. Pitches which they couldn’t hit.
At least when thrown by King Felix, as he threw them Monday night. So disappointing.
By Art Spander
The Sports Xchange
OAKLAND, Calif. -- The ankle. Again.
"We'll have to wait," said Stephen Curry. "But I don't think it's too bad."
For the Golden State Warriors, anything with Curry's right ankle is never good.
In his almost four seasons with the Warriors and in the NBA, Curry, the seventh overall pick in 2009 NBA draft, the gun for Golden State, has had one problem after another with that ankle, from surgery to days of rehab.
Copyright 2013 The Sports Xchange