By Art Spander
For Maven Sports
FARMINGDALE, N.Y. — Now he knows what it was like. Now Tiger Woods understands how the others felt when he was the man, dominating golf. Woods still can play. As we found out last month in the Masters, which he won. But it’s not like before.
Copyright 2019, The Maven
By Art Spander
OAKLAND — This is the way it’s done when Kevin Durant, the man his coach called the best basketball player on earth, can’t play.
There’s a stifling defense that keeps the other team from making even a single 3-pointer in the second quarter.
There’s a couple of guys nicknamed the Splash Brothers who couldn’t be defended — at least the way the Portland Trail Blazers attempted, with big men below the free throw line.
There’s a group of reserves, Kevon Looney, Alfonzo McKinnie, Shaun Livingston, Jordan Bell, Jonas Jerebko, Quinn Cook, that lends truth to the Warriors’ slogan, “Strength in Numbers,” and gives support to a team without the injured Durant and injured DeMarcus Cousins.
The Blazers hung in for a while, showed the style and talent that on Sunday enabled them to beat Denver and advance to the NBA Western Conference final. But the Warriors are the two-time champions, and they were playing at home, Oracle Arena, Tuesday night. and it was no surprise the Dubs won, 116-94.
Warriors coach Steve Kerr told us the Blazers barely had time to get to the Bay Area and get suited up.
“We were able to finish our last series on Friday,” Kerr said of the win over the Houston Rockets, “and they (Portland) had a tough game 7 in Denver, and the quick turnaround, so the schedule favored us.”
Unquestionably, but history also favors the Warriors, who have been to the NBA finals four straight years, winning three of those, and have all-stars such as Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green, Andre Iguodala and the absent Durant.
In betting, you stick with a winner until he loses. The Warriors so far have shown no tendency to lose.
Curry had 36 points, Thompson 26. The Warriors shot 50 percent (51 on threes) and limited the Blazers to 36 percent. If Portland hadn’t made 27 of 31 free throws, it wouldn’t even have been in the game.
“I thought the key stretch for us,” said Kerr, “was the first five minutes of the fourth quarter.”
The Warriors led 77-71 after three. Quickly enough, it was 97-81.
“They got loose in the fourth quarter and had, what 39,” said Terry Stotts, the Portland coach. “But going into the fourth quarter, down six, finding ways to hang in on a night we were struggling offensively.”
Struggling because when the Warriors are at their best they are brilliant defensively, forcing bad shots, grabbing rebounds and then racing toward their own basket for a score.
“It’s just one game,” reminded Stotts. “I know they gave Damian (Lillard) a lot of attention. They clogged the paint. We didn’t finish the opportunities when we had them. So when you turn the ball over and don’t shoot well and don’t finish around the basket, we’ve got to look for other things.”
Lillard is the Oakland kid — “I could walk home from here,” he said during the post-game inteview. He showed up wearing an Oakland Athletics jersey and with an accurate account of why, averaging 28 a game, he scored just 19.
“They gave a lot of attention to the ball when I was coming off screens,” said Lillard. “Even when I was in isolation situations I was seeing two people. I think it was obvious they were trying to make things hard for me, sending two guys at me. I couldn’t get an attempt up even if I was trying to force it.”
The Warriors didn’t have that problem, not with Andrew Bogut, Looney and Green setting up screens for Steph and Klay.
“It was a nice flow,” said Curry. “I mean, it’s fun when we’re at our best in terms of everybody feeling like they are a threat ... It puts so much pressure on the defense.”
The other defense. The Warriors defense was able to put on pressure of its own.
By Art Spander
For Maven Sports
OAKLAND — So KD and Boogie won’t play for a while. We’re going to be up to our eyeballs in Steph and Seth. And the hometown guy, Damian Lillard, is the best player on the other team.
Copyright 2019, The Maven
By Art Spander
For Maven Sports
OAKLAND — So much has been said about the Warriors, their shooting, their defense and all the other facets that are part of winning basketball. But maybe, in this great run of a half decade, not enough emphasis has been put on a word that their coach, Steve Kerr, used on Wednesday night after a game as wild and emotional as any: guts.
Copyright 2019, The Maven
By Art Spander
For Maven Sports
OAKLAND, Calif. — This was the way Draymond Green likes it, and not only because the Warriors won, although that might have entered into the equation.
Copyright 2019, The Maven
By Art Spander
SAN FRANCISCO — This one goes to the baseball gods. And to Evan Longoria, who wouldn’t have been in the game if Pablo Sandoval, a switch hitter, hadn’t hurt his leg the day before and felt he couldn’t swing righthanded.
“Sometimes it works out,” Bruce Bochy, the Giants' manager agreed, “sometimes it doesn’t.”
In a convoluted sort of way it worked Monday night against the Dodgers, and for the Giants, who had lost three in a row, there could be nobody better against whom something would work.
It was Longoria, “Longo” as everyone calls him, who delivered what arguably was the biggest hit of the year and a month he’s been with the Giants, a bases-loaded double in the bottom of the seventh that scored all three runners and beat the Dodgers, 3-2.
“He needed that hit,” said Bochy. “We needed it.”
Let’s back up to the sixth inning, where the Dodgers scored their two runs in the top half — Cody Bellinger, naturally, drove in one, and his 37 RBI are the most before May in major league history.
In the bottom of the inning, Buster Posey doubled, and with Sandoval coming to the plate, the Dodgers brought in a new pitcher, Scott Alexander, a lefty, which wouldn’t have mattered it Pablo could swing righthanded comfortably.
But he couldn't, so Bochy pinch hit another righthanded batter, Longoria, who plays third base, as Sandoval has been doing in the game.
Longoria, struggling — he’s hitless in his previous 10 at bats — flied out to no one else but Bellinger, a.k.a. Superman. But at least Longo was in the game, and when he came up in the seventh he doubled off Dylan Florio.
Like that, the chants of “Dodgers, Dodgers,” from what liberally might be called a crowd — only 32,212 fans at the place now called Oracle Park — were replaced by shouts of “Beat L.A.”
“I’ve been waiting for that hit in a Giants uniform,” said Longoria. “It’s been a year. It’s not for a lack of opportunity. I’ve been in situations. I was feeling good. I just haven’t been able to come through.”
Although he grew up in Southern California, Longoria had spent nine years with the Tampa Rays.
“Dodgers-Giants is a huge rivalry,” said Longoria, “but it’s new to me. It gives me chills when you’re out there and hear that kind of enthusiasm from the home crowd.”
Well, the temperature was in the high 50s and a Candlestick-type wind was blowing, but Longoria said that had nothing to do with the chills.
“I know my average is not good, but that doesn’t take away from my mentality in those situations. A bases-loaded double is cool.”
So, he said, is Sandoval starting at third, which is where Longoria normally is positioned.
“Pablo’s been swinging the bat good. I’m here to win. I’m ready off the bench. I’m happy to wait. I’m hitting .200 (actually .210). I can’t go into the office and ask why I’m not starting.”
What some of the media asked was why Bochy took out Giants starter Jeff Samardzija for a pinch hitter in the fifth inning of a 0-0 game. The manager had a quick response.
“We needed to score runs,” said Bochy.
They didn’t immediately, but Samardzija said he had no problem being pulled.
“After losing three in a row (to the Yankees) we needed to do anything to score runs. Another time I’ll go seven, eight innings. Anytime you win a close game, it’s awesome. It builds confidence.”
The Giants still are last in the National League West, hitting is poor and the pitching not what was expected — and now Derek Holland is on the injured list, Ty Blach having been called up from Sacramento.
“This is a game of momentum,” Samardzija said of baseball in general.
Whether the Giants have it is unclear, but they do have a victory over the Dodgers.
Something finally went right.
By Art Spander
For Maven Sports
OAKLAND, Calif. — The question was of the present. The answer connected with the past.
Someone asked Steve Kerr whether he had seen anyone play as great in four consecutive games as has Kevin Durant, now the main star on Kerr’s team of stars, the Golden State Warriors.
Copyright 2019, The Maven
By Art Spander
SAN FRANCISCO — They live on the edge. Or, as they did on this Saturday of wind, fog, sunshine and frustration, fall off.
Another team, the Dodgers for example, has the players and the punch to overcome mistakes, a burst of runs correcting whatever failures take place.
But the Giants do not. If they make the wrong call, the wrong play, the wrong pitch, they lose, as they did to the Yankees, 6-4, at Oracle Park.
If it seems the Giants were there, well, they weren’t. Until scoring four runs in the bottom of the ninth, which didn’t prevent a second straight loss to New York but looked better cosmetically than getting shut out.
Still, it was a defeat, and shoved the Giants five games below .500, and we haven’t even reached May. Meaning the situation is apt to become a great deal worse, especially with no one in the starting lineup Saturday hitting above .280 and with Mad Bum, Madison Bumgarner, looking like Bad Bum.
But it was Derek Holland who threw the wrong pitches Saturday, most of all an inside fast ball to Yankees catcher Gary Sanchez with the bases loaded in the top of the fifth. Sanchez drove the ball 467 feet into the bleachers in left center, and like that, a 2-0 game was a 6-0 game.
Bruce Bochy wanted to take the blame. “It was my fault,” said the Giants' manager. “He (Holland) was ahead in the count, 1-2, and he still had his stuff. I gave him a chance to get through. He was making his pitches. He made a mistake.”
Holland said he deserved to take the blame, not the boss. “We were cruising,” Holland insisted. “One pitch took away a whole game. Those guys (his teammates) fought back. That’s what upsets me the most. Letting them down.”
These are upsetting times around the old ballpark. First is the Giants' incapability. Next is the attendance. There were only 33,071 on hand Saturday at what seemed like a marquee game, Giants-Yankees — and a great many in the crowd were cheering for the Yankees. True, it’s still only April, but it was the only game in the region, the Warriors and Sharks both idle Saturday.
Nobody expects the Giants to get a ton of hits and runs, and even in the championship seasons they won on pitching. Still, with Evan Longoria hitting .206, Brandon Crawford .207 and Buster Posey .247, you’re going to need near perfection from the pitchers. It doesn’t exist.
Bumgarner, who started Friday night, gave up two runs in the first. Bumgarner and Holland, two of the Giants big three, each are 1-4. Those combined eight losses are exactly half of the San Francisco total.
Maybe that’s why Bochy chose to squeeze as much as possible out of Holland, to get him confidence as much as to get the team a win. “But his margin of error is not real big,” said the manager, which of course only reflects the Giants as a whole.
San Francisco invariably is playing from behind, trying to extricate itself from a quick deficit.
The Giants did show resolve in the final inning Saturday, Yangervis Solarte hitting a three-run homer and then pinch hitter Erik Kratz hitting a bases-empty home run.
“One pitch takes us out of the game,” said a rueful Holland. “I was told by an old pitching coach you’re one pitch from greatness and one pitch from humility.”
These are humbling days for the San Francisco Giants.
By Art Spander
ALAMEDA, Calif. — I’m off the clock. The pick is in. And no, to answer the question posed on the NFL Network, I don’t know what is going to happen to Josh Rosen.
Copyright 2019, The Maven
By Art Spander
For Maven Sports
OAKLAND — Kevin Durant has it all figured out. “They’re playing loose, with nothing to lose,” he said about the other team, the Los Angeles Clippers, the team that right there on the floor of the Oracle ran circles, rings and cubes around the Warriors.
Copyright 2019, The Maven
By Art Spander
For Maven Sports
OAKLAND, Calif. — This is the kind of day it was for the Oakland Athletics: A first baseman came in as a reliever; on two different occasions, fans jumped out of the stands, dashed across the diamond and were taken into custody; and the home team couldn’t pitch or hit.
Copyright 2019, The Maven
By Art Spander
For Maven Sports
AUGUSTA, Ga. — The comment provoked thought and, quickly enough, laughter. “Tiger, welcome back,” the Masters press chairman, Craig Heatley, said to the man who’d just won the tournament — surprisingly, perhaps.
Copyright 2019, The Maven
By Art Spander
Special to Newsday
AUGUSTA, Ga. — He is the baggage handler’s son of Tongan-Samoan descent who at age 7 for the first time in his life watched a golf tournament on television. It was the 1997 Masters. He was transfixed.
Copyright © 2019 Newsday. All rights reserved.
By Art Spander
For Maven Sports
AUGUSTA, Ga. — Well, it is named the Masters, isn’t it? You expect to have a lot of champions up on the leader board, the game’s elite, the names everybody knows — even if they don’t know golf.
Copyright 2019, The Maven
By Art Spander
For Maven Sports
AUGUSTA, Ga. — This was another award for Tiger Woods. Yet not just another award. He had won Opens on both sides of the Atlantic, won Masters, been voted Player of the Year. But the trophy he was given Wednesday night was as much for courage and fortune as it was for success.
Copyright 2019, The Maven
By Art Spander
For Maven Sports
AUGUSTA, Ga. — This is the Masters, where pines grow, pretension rules and power golf dominates, a sporting event as much of the past as the present. And in a world changing too fast, isn’t that reassuring?
Copyright 2019, The Maven
By Art Spander
For Maven Sports
MINNEAPOLIS — You know the story. Everyone in America does. The basketball team that embarrassed itself. That made the wrong kind of history.
Copyright 2019, The Maven
By Art Spander
For Maven Sports
MINNEAPOLIS — It was the right call, but it came at an awful time. A shooting foul, on a 3-point attempt no less, with roughly a half-second to play.
Copyright 2019, The Maven
By Art Spander
For Maven Sports
MINNEAPOLIS — It’s gray and gloomy, which is not unusual this time of year in Minnesota; perfect weather for walking through the enclosed passageways from one downtown building to another — gerbil tunnels, they’re called — or hosting an NCAA final that doesn’t seem like an NCAA final.
Copyright 2019, The Maven
By Art Spander
OAKLAND — This is what happens when a good team — well, the best team until proven differently, and it wasn’t proven Tuesday night — decides to pull up its socks, shut down the opposition and shut up a few critics.
Decides to play with the skill, passion and verve — and arrogance — of a champion.
It stumbles around for a minute or two, then locks in on the task at hand, showing everyone, most of all the other team that, hey guys, we’ve only been teasing the last month or so. The coach said this one is important. So let’s take his advice to heart.
You were worried about the Warriors? Relax. “The guys were ready to play,” said Warrior coach Steve Kerr. Ready and willing, and able to crush the Denver Nuggets, 116-99, to all but keep the Nuggets from the NBA Western Conference title the Warriors will regain.
They’ve been playing with a vengeance the last few games, physical and verbal, drawing technicals, getting ejections — Tuesday night it was Kevin Durant in the third quarter after some brilliant play and caustic words. Sunday night it was DeMarcus Cousins, bounced in the second quarter of the rout of Charlotte for a flagrant foul 2.
And then news came down from on high, NBA headquarters in New York, that for their sarcasm and complaints of some egregious calls in that one-point overtime loss at Minnesota on March 29, the league got into the bank accounts of Durant, Steph Curry and, yes, Draymond Green.
But the only real worry is that Durant and Green, who each now have 15 T’s for the season, will be assessed a 16th and be suspended. Which, being the veterans they are, is unlikely to happen. And when Kerr was asked if he thought the officials would hold a grudge, he doubted it.
What you shouldn’t doubt is the way the Warriors dominated this game. They took to heart the frequent reminders from Kerr to protect the ball and play defense, both accomplished after a ragged start, which the coach said was caused by the Warriors being too hyped.
The Warriors kept the Nuggets to 37.5 percent (the Dubs shot 54.3 percent). The Warriors had 55 rebounds (Denver 40). The only negative was that the Warriors had 23 turnovers (Denver 15).
It was 59-43 at the half, the second quarter ending with a resounding Durant dunk that excited his teammates as much as it did the usual sellout crowd at Oracle Arena.
Durant had 17 points, Cousins 28, Curry 17 and Klay Thompson 13. Durant was ejected with 8:21 to go in a third quarter that was getting a bit out of hand. Kevin didn’t like the way he had been muscled and let the officials — and spectators within hearing distance — know as much.
“I thought he deserved the first technical,” said Kerr, “but I didn’t think he deserved the second one. I was very surprised.”
Presumably Durant was very agitated, but he left the building before anyone other than his teammates could find out.
Pre-game, Kerr was in high praise of Durant, who he said was “one of five guys who can put up huge numbers,” but also understands the game so well he is willing to pass, rebound and play defense as well as take shots.
“He’s one of the guys who can score 40, 50, whatever,” Kerr pointed out about Durant. “Kevin knows. It’s an incredible luxury to have not only that talent but someone willing to do whatever is best for his teammates.”
Getting ejected wasn’t what was best, but sometimes a person has to take a stand.
Curry just took his usual variety of shots, and his 3-pointer with 7:22 left gave him five or more 3s in a career-best nine straight games. Curry now has 16,236 points, moving him ahead of Chris Mullin (16,235) on the Warriors’ all-time list.
“It kind of caught me off guard,” said Curry, “but it’s a very special night understanding what Chris Mullin was able to do in a Warriors uniform. A pretty cool moment.”
That for a guy and a team that were quite hot — Kevin Durant by whatever definition you choose.