Niners: After win over America’s Team comes Philly

You know the lyric, The road gets tougher, it’s lonelier and rougher. Not about the NFL playoffs, but it should have been.

Just about the time everything’s going splendidly, a divisional playoff win over the erstwhile America’s team, the Dallas Cowboys, the 49ers get the team currently acknowledged to be best in America.

Or least the best in the NFC, which may be one and the same, the Philadelphia Eagles.

They also get one game away from another Super Bowl.

But because that game is against the Eagles, Sunday in the chill at Philly, one mustn’t make future plans.

As Niners coach Kyle Shanahan stood on the field at Levi’s Stadium, where after the 19-12 victory over Dallas he agreed to appear for Bay Area television — people get magnanimous following big wins — the subject of the Eagles was brought up.

Philly may not quite have the magic and the history of Dallas, which always has had the attention of, and occasionally the edge over, the Niners.

They offer no Jerry Jones in egotistical splendor making promises, no memories of Montana to Clark — The Catch — fulfilling promises. They are just a franchise that started the schedule with a victory and a lead over everybody.

Also with a roster that so crushed the New York Giants Saturday night in the other divisional playoff, going in front 28-7 in the first half before winning 38-7, the New York writers were shocked — which seemingly is impossible.

“They’re very good,” or words to that effect, conceded Shanahan about the Eagles, whose quarterback, Jalen Hurts, missed a considerable part of the season with an injury, but were dominant because of, yes, defense.

The same thing that won for the 49ers and the Cowboys, teams that in the long-ago era were known for offense, Montana and Steve Young, Roger Staubach and Troy Aikman. Now their reputation is constructed on defense, as a halftime score of 9-6 would verify.

The Niners scored the game’s only touchdown, a two-yard run by Christian McCaffrey, in the fourth quarter.

Defense and turnovers are the difference in the postseason. San Francisco limited the Cowboys to 282 net yards while gaining 312. Niner quarterback Brock Purdy didn’t throw an interception; Dallas’ revered and reviled Dak Prescott threw two.

Purdy is 7-0 since replacing Jimmy Garoppolo (who of course replaced Trey Lance, who was forced by injuries to sit out). The question is what San Francisco will do with all three quarterbacks next season.

First comes the question of whether this season, Purdy, famous as Mr. Irrelevant, last pick in the draft, can be the first rookie to be a Super Bowl quarterback.

He’s already the third rookie to win two playoff games.

Tight end George Kittle, whose catch of a slapped ball was worthy of the many replays it got on Fox, said of Purdy, “Brock is a good quarterback. He keeps his eyes up when the play is falling apart and gives us a shot at the ball.” 

He certainly has given them a shot at the championship.

A wild win for Niners in wild card

This wasn’t the way it was supposed to be. Or then, perusing history, maybe it was. After all, the words “wild card” can be interpreted any way you decide.

And the prevailing wisdom about the 49ers was that their game against Seattle wouldn’t be as wild as it turned out to be.

The Niners had defeated the Seahawks in both regular-season games this fall and winter, but as has been pointed out quite accurately, it’s difficult to beat another team three in a row in the NFL.

Unless they are mismatched. Which, in a second half that began with the heavily favored Niners trailing by a point, ultimately turned out to be the situation.

San Francisco, with its top-ranked defense taking control as it has so often, scored 25 points before the Seahawks got a touchdown, with three minutes remaining, that didn’t matter.

So the 49ers won 41-23 on Saturday and are into the next round of the playoffs, for a game that will be played, as was this wildest of cards, at Levi’s Stadium against a yet undetermined opponent.

And most likely, not in the rain that has been punishing the Bay Area and returned in the third quarter, as seemingly did the Niners.

Yes, for those of a certain age, it brings back memories of 1981, when the weather was inclement and the results were inspiring, San Francisco beating the New York Giants on a Candlestick Park field barely playable — remember the sod squad? — and then on the Montana-to-Clark pass taking down the Cowboys and going to the Super Bowl.

Where this journey concludes is unpredictable, but at least the Niners are still a presence, and head coach Kyle Shanahan is still a happy individual — after being less happy at two quarters into the Seattle game.

The Niners were doing virtually everything they needed to do in the first half, other than getting people into the end zone, a rather significant problem.

“You’ve got to score points,” said Shanahan, and then someone reminded him the Niners gained more yards in this game, 505, than in any this season.

“We only had 13 points until late in the first half,” said the coach.

Rookie quarterback Brock Purdy threw four touchdown passes. Not quite a rookie after playing six games — and winning every one — he was under pressure early. Sure, he was unbeaten and had performed remarkably for a man taken last in the draft (actually for anyone taken anywhere in the draft). But this was his first postseason game. Ever.

Under pressure from a pass rush carefully crafted by Seahawks coach Pete Carroll, Purdy, a righthander, kept running to his left before throwing an incompletion.

Asked if he thought Purdy was nervous, Shanahan said, “No, the deficit made me nervous. I appreciate what he’s doing. I was wishing he could have had a couple of touchdowns.”

They got one quickly after Niners defensive lineman Charles Omenihu knocked the football loose from Seattle QB Geno Smith. The 49ers recovered at their own 19 with some three minutes left in the third quarter. That did it for the Seahawks.

“The ball hit the ground,” said Shanahan. “I saw it bouncing and kept thinking, ‘Grab it.’ He scooped it up.”

And San Francisco was about to scoop up a win that shouldn’t have been as difficult as it became.

Will third time against Seattle be a problem for Niners?

The thinking in the NFL is that you don’t beat another team three times in a season. Which means the 49ers might have a problem. Or that whatever people say doesn’t mean as much as how people play.    

The first round of the playoffs, a wild card game on Saturday at Levi’s Stadium, will be the third between the Niners and Seahawks. San Francisco won the other two, one at home, one up north.

Sure, the Seahawks may have figured out by now what they must do to beat the Niners, but so what? The personnel hasn’t changed — although the Niners have used two different quarterbacks, so why should the results?

San Francisco has the longest current winning streak in the sport, 10 in a row, topped off Sunday by a 38-13 win over the Arizona Cardinals.

But a rather mortifying 3-4 start to a record that at 13-4 is their best in a long while, left the 49ers a game behind the Philadelphia Eagles in the NFC standings.

Philly earned the bye, the week off, which can be a refresher for any athlete who’s been pounding and pounded on since training camp in July. But what matters is qualifying for the tournament, the postseason, and that’s what San Francisco has accomplished.

What any team needs is to be playing its best football in January. The current longest win streak in pro football is an indication that the Niners are doing just that.

Somehow, by planning or fate, the guys who run the league have the ability — or the fortune — to keep us fascinated until the final moments of the final regular season game. That happened Sunday night

Detroit at Green Bay, former Cal quarterback Jared Goff, a No. 1 overall pick, against former Cal quarterback Aaron Rodgers, who should have been a No. 1 overall pick. The game was in the chill at Lambeau Field. The Packers were ahead.

But Goff and the Lions won. The Packers, the probable Niners opponent in the wild card, were done. So perhaps is Rodgers, age 39.

The Niners are far from done. They’ve got the best defense in the NFL — as you’ve been instructed, defense wins. They’ve got a rookie quarterback, Brock Purdy, who barely was drafted and has never lost a game; they once again have their full roster, with Deebo Samuel and Elijah Mitchell back from injuries and running wild.

And they have old mo, momentum.

The knock on the Niners is they lost to the Kansas City Chiefs and beat a lot of lesser teams like the Seahawks and Los Angeles Rams. We’ll see if it matters.

“I don’t know if I’ve had this feeling that I have right now about our team and the opportunity we have to win this thing,” said Niners linebacker Fred Warner. “We have everything we need on this team to do what we need to do.”

He was on the 2019 team that was 13-3 (the sked has since been altered to 17 games) and lost to KC in Super Bowl LIV. Comparisons are difficult, especially after a gap of three years. 

Coaches believe in their system and their players but understand their plans can fail with a freak bounce or a bad throw. “It’s a relief,” head coach Kyle Shanahan said of getting to the postseason. “It was a stressful week knowing you needed a win, but you’re thinking about the (playoffs) also. So being able to pull off the win — and being able to rest some guys at the end — was great.”

Rose Bowl: Grandaddy has it tough

PASADENA—So the home of old grand daddy made it to the century mark on Monday. That’s the Rose Bowl, the stadium, which opened in 1923, 21 years after they played the first Rose Bowl game.

For me it was was the 69th in a row. No I didn’t go to Texas for the 2021 game, moved there because of Covid restrictions in California, but otherwise as program salesman (then in high school) or sports writer, all the others.

And of course I saw the Bowl played in a rainstorm, 1955, when people dumped tickets for $1.50 and the irascible Ohio State coach Woody Hayes complained because the USC band marched on a soggy field at halftime—as if the athletes hadn’t already torn it up. The Buckeyes still won.

It kept threatening to rain this Rose Bowl when Penn State, breaking a halftime tie by breaking loose on an 87 yard run, by Nicholas Singleton, beat Utah 35-21.

It finally did rain near the end of the game, but it was gloomy, cool (54 degrees) and generally as depressing as the Utes’ defense.

Not that the offense was much better until the very end, after in fact the game already was decided.

The sort of day that would have had Jim Murray, the late L.A Times sports columnist gleeful, if in private. When a Rose Bowl was played in sunshine, as usually was the situation, Murray, would give us one of the “and there goes the neighborhood” pieces.

Everyone residing in Ohio or Michigan, trapped indoors, would be coming out to Southern California, creating even more traffic.

What Penn State created in this Rose Bowl was really a re-creation.

The first a year ago to Ohio State was memorable. Not this one, however.

The Rose Bowl used to have a place of its own, a holiday tradition. Newspapers treated it reverently if perhaps for no other reason than the attention it brought to a region that had a lot of land and not a large population.

Alas everything changes, in sports, in society. There were so many football games on television, college and pro, the past few days, you sometimes didn’t know who was playing who. 

The Rose Bowl announced its usual sellout of more than 90,000, although there seemed to be numerous empty seats. Maybe we’ll get some idea when the television ratings are announced.

The Rose Bowl long has had its own time slot (2pm Pacific, 5pm Eastern). It no longer has exclusivity or maybe priority. Depending on your rooting interest or alma mater, will it be on your schedule?

Granddaddy--I only hope it is.

Giants decide to play (and pay) with the big boys

Here are two truisms. One: If you want to play with the big boys, you have to play like the big boys. Two: in wine, cars and baseball players, you get what you pay for — with exceptions.

Yes, the salaries of sport are growing more exorbitant by the hour, as are prices of virtually everything, including necessities, which may include baseball, depending on your viewpoint. No, it’s not to be equated with, say, gasoline, but those summer evenings would be empty without the game.

For the San Francisco Giants, the deal was awarded to the free agent shortstop Carlos Correa, a contract reportedly worth $350 million, which isn’t bad for not being Aaron Judge.

Who, with his Northern California background and Ruthian glamour, supposedly was the guy the Giants would have preferred but couldn’t pry away from the dreaded New York Yankees.

“Chicks dig the long ball” was the message in a commercial ages ago. As do most in baseball, a game in which everyone now swings for the fences and the hit-and-run is on the verge of extinction.

Correa is a home run hitter, and one of those in the middle of the infield as well as the middle of the lineup is a particular blessing.

Shortstops once were thought of as lean, lithe individuals who could start a rally or keep one going. The infield power came from the guys at the corners, first and third basemen. But as demonstrated by Brandon Crawford, both the image and responsibility have changed.

What happens now to Crawford, a longtime member of the Giants, who through his play — MVP votes attest to the fullness of his career — and engaging personality and intelligence have made him a fan favorite? He may go to third or the outfield. For sure, he won’t be at shortstop. The Giants aren’t giving Correa a king’s ransom to be a backup.

The Giants were overdue for a move after the slippage last season, when they fell to an even and (looking around at the always inescapable Dodgers and recently bombastic Padres) mediocre finish in 2022.

Perhaps they weren’t tumbling into irrelevancy (that word belongs to the draft placement of a surprising 49er rookie quarterback), but they had lost some of their appeal as well as far too many games.

Attendance at Oracle Park had declined, if not precipitously then at least notably. Empty seats were common if not prevalent. It’s embarrassing when there are more spectators in the right field stands wearing blue and cheering for that franchise from L.A.

Will Correa fix that problem? He’s a beginning, along with the acquisition of outfielder Mitch Haniger and pitcher Ross Stripling and maybe the former Oakland A’s pitcher Sean Manaea.

The other day on the ESPN show “Pardon the Interruption,” co-host Tony Kornheiser suggested that signing Correa might end up better for the Giants than signing Judge.

Just talk, of course, but the kind of talk needed by a team desperate to get back into the limelight.

Niners: Wrong audible, right quarterback

One play into the game and Brock Purdy was down, sacked. Not quite the way saviors are supposed to begin.

“Wrong audible,” was the brief, unemotional explanation from 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan.

But in time, the right quarterback.

No, Purdy, the acclaimed Mr. Irrelevant, did not by himself beat the Bucs and Tom Brady, called the GOAT or greatest of all time. Football is a team sport.

But on Sunday at Levi’s Stadium, the rookie Purdy, utilizing his talents and a game plan brilliantly created by Shanahan and his staff, was better.

Because, as has been the situation since the loss to Kansas City, the 49ers’ defense is better.

Sure, much of the pre-game material was about the two QBs — the Niners’ rookie, who took over from the injured Jimmy Garoppolo, and the Bucs’ star, who grew up in San Mateo, some 25 miles from Levi’s.

Yet as we have been instructed over the years, it’s the other people, the linesmen, the defenders, who make the difference. Brady only had thrown two interceptions all season. He threw two alone against San Francisco. Two more than Purdy.

“I was really happy for him,” said Shanahan. “He’s tough. It looked like he would be our No. 2. Then Jimmy signed. He works hard.”

After the game, Purdy was as humble as a man taken last in the draft figured to be.

“He’s very poised, but he plays with energy at the same time,” running back Christian McCaffrey said. “And I think those are two great traits to have as a quarterback.”

If Purdy had game-opening, first-NFL-start jitters, they were probably knocked out of him by safety Keanu Neal on that first play — a sack that was negated by an unnecessary roughness penalty.

Said Purdy, “Honestly it just felt good to get hit and just feel like I was in the game.”

He knows the system and his teammates after weeks of practice. What he didn’t know was that the two men ahead of him would get hurt.

What we don’t know is how he’ll respond in a road game where the crowd is hooting and jeering, but we will learn quickly enough. The Niners play at Seattle on Thursday night.

“We got turnovers in this game,” said Shanahan, about the offense. They also had 404 yards rushing and passing, And the Niners, once 1-2, are 9-4 after a sixth straight win.

Deebo Samuel is injured, a high ankle sprain, which could be a big loss in this run-oriented system. Then again, that’s why the 49ers signed McCaffrey. He is not Deebo, but he is very close.

The theory in the NFL is “next man up.” If the next man is Brock Purdy, the idea would seem to have some merit.

As Niners learned, nobody’s irrelevant in the NFL

The definition of irrelevant is “not connected with or relevant to something.” Unless, of course, it involves the NFL, where everything and everyone is connected. As we learned once more on a Sunday in San Francisco, where a foot was broken but a team’s hopes were not.

We refer to Jimmy Garoppolo, Mr. Hard Luck, and to Brock Purdy, perhaps Mr. Good Luck. And to the screaming unpredictability of sports. Do not try to outguess fate. Or rewrite fables.

Nobody would have believed the Niners’ quarterback progression this season, or the accidents incurred.

But here they are, using a quarterback who in generic terms was little more than third string, but because he was in the right place — or wrong place — at the right time is forever to be labeled Mr. Irrelevant, famous for being infamous. 

Paul Salata, who grew up in L.A., was a receiver for USC and played in the 1945 Rose Bowl. He also was on the Trojan baseball team. Drafted by the 49ers, he played a smattering of NFL games and became enamored by the players, who like himself, were pros but never stars.

“Everyone who is drafted works hard,” Salata once told the New York Times, but some don’t get any recognition. “I wanted to celebrate who gets picked last. The player at the end of the line rarely gets noticed. And their hard work should be noticed.”

Thanks to Salata, who died in October 2021, one day before his 95th birthday, the player at the bottom gets plenty of notice, and so does Salata. He and his friends from Orange County came up with the idea of Mr. Irrelevant and Irrelevant Week, where the man chosen last gets almost the same attention as the man taken first. Almost.

There’s a dinner and TV appearances, a tradition that started when Kelvin Kirk of Dayton was drafted by the Steelers in 1976. Kirk took umbrage, believing he was the punchline of a joke, but later on those designated Mr. Irrelevant have been appreciative. Some end up on rosters. Kicker Ryan Succop (South Carolina, 2009) made it to the Super Bowl with Tampa Bay, winning a ring.

Purdy and the Niners would be thrilled by that possibility, although admittedly there’s a big difference between a player who gets a team into the end zone and someone who gets the ball over the crossbar.

Purdy was projected as not even being drafted, but the Niners made him the 262nd player taken.

In movies, people like Purdy are tossed into a game and toss the winning touchdown pass. But this is real life, and the dreamers are warned not to believe in miracles.

Still, Purdy did throw for a touchdown last weekend. Whatever happens from here, is a tribute of sorts to Paul Salata — and a reminder that nobody who’s good enough to be an NFL draft pick is irrelevant.

These shots from Tiger are vocal

Interesting what’s happened to golf. It used to be known as the gentleman’s game, one in which you may have missed a critical putt but rarely missed a chance for an appreciative handshake. Now? Certain people are at such odds it’s remarkable they aren’t at each other’s throats.

There’s a tournament this weekend in the Bahamas, the Hero World Challenge, a limited-field event that might not mean much except for Tiger Woods. He has plantar fasciitis and withdrew because he can’t walk. However, he can talk, particularly about Greg Norman.

Norman once was known as the most sympathetic figure in golf. He blew a six-shot lead, lost the 1996 Masters to Nick Faldo and responded like — well, he did win many other tournaments including two British Opens, so champ would be a fine word.

For the PGA Tour, the best word might be pest. As you know, Norman, with Saudi Arabian money, is involved with the rival LIV Tour, which with shorter (54-hole) events and higher payments is stealing players from the PGA Tour. The hope is to force the PGA Tour to accept the LIV, creating one very wealthy if unhappy family

Apparently for this to take place, Norman will have to take off.

“Greg’s got to leave,” said Tiger when asked at the media conference about the possibility of a merger — which was what the Saudis, in the process of trying to upgrade their image through “sport washing,” want anyway.

In other words, Norman will be forced to make the ultimate links-connected sacrifice, his dream buried in a shallow bunker — but, this being golf, not without a large-sized financial gain.

“Right now,” said Tiger, “is not right, not with their leadership, not with Greg there and his animosity toward the Tour itself.

“As Rory (McIlroy) said and I said as well, Greg’s got to leave and then we can — eventually, hopefully — have a stay between the two lawsuits (one by each side) and figure out something. But why would you change anything if you have a lawsuit against you? They sued us first.”

Did someone out there add “Nah, nah”?

What Pat Perez added two weeks ago after Woods previously knocked the LIV was, “That’s the stupidest spit I’ve ever heard in my life.” Only he didn’t say spit. The question is, whether with 54-hole events and guaranteed money, golfers still would have incentive.

Perez, who played the PGA Tour for more than 20 years, is 46 — a few months younger than Woods, who will be 47 at the end of December. He grew up in San Diego and faced Tiger in junior tournaments. There’s respect but no idolizing.

Claude Harmon III is Perez’s swing coach (and son of Butch Harmon, who used to be Tiger’s coach). Harmon III pointed out that Woods still had “incentive” to compete despite getting money up front.

“He’s made so much money off the course, he found incentive to go,” Perez added. “But again, he only played how many tournaments? He didn’t go — I never saw him at John Deere, never saw him supporting all these events.

“He played in the majors, he played in the WGCs and that was it. But he’s worth every dime. In fact, like I said, he’s two billion short of where he should be, I think.”

Fore!

Niners: Not much offense, but oh that defense

That’s true, the offense was held to a single touchdown and two field goals. Which usually isn’t enough to win an NFL game, unless the other team gets fewer points. Like zero.

And so we harken back to that old — very old — reminder from John McKay, who won games at USC and then, after becoming coach of an expansion team, lost them with the Tampa Bay Bucs: You win on defense; if the other team doesn’t score, you’ll never get worse than a 0-0 tie.

But since the 49ers managed to put a few piddling points on the scoreboard at Levi’s Stadium on Sunday, they got a win, not a tie, their fourth win in succession, a 13-0 victory over the New Orleans Saints.

The Niners now are in first place in the NFC West, ahead of the Seahawks, who somehow lost to the former Oakland Raiders, ahead of the former St. Louis Rams and ahead of the onetime St. Louis Cardinals.

Indeed a lot of movement in the NFL, even some on the gridiron. Those Carole King lyrics, “Doesn’t anybody stay in one place anymore,” seem appropriate here.

Also appropriate is the comment by head coach Kyle Shanahan from a few days ago, to the effect that this is 49ers football.

You’ve been advised that San Francisco, with good old Jimmy Garoppolo, doesn’t have the quarterback a team needs to win a Super Bowl, that he manages a game instead of taking control and ramming it down your gullet.

But Jimmy G, who completed 26 of 37 for 222 yards, including a five-yarder to Jauan Jennings for the game’s only touchdown, showed exactly what a QB needs, the ability to get up after being smacked around and then act like the leader he’s proven to be.

“He’s tough,” Shanahan said of Garoppolo.

The Niners know what they have, and no less importantly what they don’t. If Jimmy G doesn’t make you think of Tom Brady, whom Garoppolo was drafted by the Patriots to replace, well, he’s the major factor in the offensive system designed and administered by Shanahan.

Week after week, the TV commentators use at least part of a phrase to describe the Niners’ attack, “so many weapons.” The arsenal was interesting with Garoppolo, Jennings, Deebo Samuel, Elijah Mitchell, Brandon Aiyuk, George Kittle and others; it became fascinating with the acquisition of Christian McCaffrey.

Alternatives? If that running back doesn’t have the ball, this receiver does. There are 60 minutes to an NFL game. On Sunday, the Niners had the ball only 10 seconds short of 35 minutes.

Inherent in sporting success is the belief you have the capability and determination to succeed. Winners act like winners, talk like winners.

“We’re on our way, for sure,” said Nick Bosa. He’s the Pro Bowl pass rusher who late in the game had yet one more sack. “I think we have the guys to do it, definitely. And everybody who is still here (from when the Niners went to the Super Bowl three seasons ago) could be better.”

The 49ers haven’t allowed a point in 94 minutes, 19 seconds of game action, since the second quarter of the win last Monday night in Mexico City.

That will get the job done anytime, anywhere.

For Joe Starkey, a last Big Game

BERKELEY — The band was on the field. Forty years later Joe Starkey said it again, although this time it was only as an off-the-air reference. Yes, it was that ragtag Stanford band, and it was the same end zone at Cal’s Memorial Stadium. But now it was in the final minute of pre-game warm-ups, not in the closing seconds of one of the most historic of college football games.

This has been Joe’s week, memories and farewells. There will be one more Cal game to announce, but Saturday was his last Big Game, the rivalry that because of that crazy ending and Joe’s alert call — “The band is on the field!” — seem a perfect way to close.

I didn’t hear Starkey’s emotional description on Nov. 20, 1982 — I was in the press box — but I’ve heard it since, again and again, as have many people, involved in sports or not. A great way to be remembered.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but these words do surpass any photo.

For the 125th Big Game, in which Cal overcame a deficit to win 27-20, there was no better place to be located than the Joe Starkey Broadcast Booth, dedicated in November 2016. Joe was prepared and professional, sounding a bit subdued when Stanford was in surprising control and a bit elated at the end.

Through the seasons, Joe’s been through it all, the surprises, the upsets, the sheer enjoyment of being, well, involved in a business that makes you think of John Madden’s line when he was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame: “I never worked a day in my life.”

Joe Starkey worked a lot of days and nights, calling football, Cal and the 49ers, and ice hockey, and he touched a lot of lives. On Saturday, he and analyst Mike Pawlawski, the former Cal quarterback, offered a commentary aimed at Cal fans but acceptable for everyone.

“Stanford hasn’t done anything on offense,” Starkey pointed out early in the second half when the Cardinal had a 17-6 lead. He reminded us that it had done enough on defense.

Later, a two-fumble play resulted in a Cal touchdown, and if it didn’t remind you of “The Play,” it at least injected a little excitement into a game that needed some.

Starkey and Pawlawski weren’t sure what had happened until they — and the officials — had video verification.

When it was over, both on the field and in the broadcast booth, Starkey was asked what he will miss most about probably never broadcasting another Stanford-Cal after missing one in more than 40 years.

“It’s so soon after this one,” he said, “and I do have Cal-UCLA next weekend. “It will be the competition between the two schools in the Bay Area who both emphasize academics and respect the rivalry. I imagine when the teams start practicing in the spring and start playing games next season, it will hit me.”

As the game finished, many of the 51,892 (an announced sellout) began climbing down to the gridiron. Too bad Joe Starkey also had finished, or he could have said, “The fans are on the field.”

Warriors ‘missing collective grit’

That was a poignant observation from Steve Kerr. For Warrior fans, it also was a painful one.

He used different phrases, but basically Kerr told us — reminded us — that sporting dynasties do not last forever. Even one as exciting and gloriously enjoyable as that of the Golden State Warriors.

Earlier Wednesday, Kerr was interviewed by Ramona Shelburne on ESPN, which along with NBC Bay Area a few hours later would televise the Warriors’ game against the Suns in Phoenix. And the subject was success, of course, but in a twist the inevitability of that success comes to an end.

Players change, results change.

The Warriors, not knowing what their coach would forecast, went out and remained winless on the road, dropping their eighth straight game, this one to the Suns, 130-119. Steph Curry would score 50 points for the Warriors, but basketball is not a one-man game.

As the past few seasons, the Warriors, with their winning streaks and four NBA championships, made quite clear. As Kerr, a member of the Michael Jordan Chicago Bulls — certainly a dynasty in the 1980s — was clear about what lay ahead: change.

“History would suggest teams have runs,” said Kerr. The Warriors most likely have two or three years remaining in a run, that with Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green began with the magical season of 2015. “Maybe five years,” he conceded.

But players get old — we all do — and despite wise management, fortunate trades and perceptive drafting, the new pieces don’t fit together like the previous ones. That’s why championships are so rare. And so treasured.

During the game, a television sideline reporter, noting Curry’s outburst — he was well on his way to an 11th game of 50 points or more — mentioned to Kerr the Warriors needed offense from others besides Steph. “We don’t need offense,” said the coach, “we need defense.”

It was only one game, but truth tell it was more than one game. It was a verification of what the Warriors once had and what so far in this struggle of a season they lack, the ability to stop the other team. The Suns shot right around 50 percent and hit 3-pointer after 3-pointer.

“We have to get everybody on board,” said Kerr. “But with the new kids learning the system and each other, will they? It takes talent to build a winner. It takes time.

“We had a lot of joy beating people over the years. The other teams don’t forget. That feeling of joy is lacking now. We’re missing collective grit.” 

Kendrick Perkins, a longtime NBA player and now an ESPN analyst, said that Draymond Green punching teammate Jordan Poole in practice just before the season began is having an effect.

“People say it’s over,” Perkins remarked about the incident, “but those things linger.”

For the Warriors, basketball may become less a game than it is a grind.

Remembering Joe Roberts and a Warriors win

OAKLAND — They came to say goodbye to Joe Roberts, to tell several stories, share a few laughs and, for some at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, shed a few tears.

Joe was 86, defeated after a long struggle against cancer. It was one of the rare fights he ever lost in a career that from start to finish was loaded with success.

Roberts is best remembered as the assistant coach who took control of the Warriors in the 1975 NBA finals, helping win a game and a championship.

But he was so much more, a member of that 1960 NCAA champion Ohio State team, with Jerry Lucas, John Havlicek, Larry Siegfried and, yes, Bobby Knight; the overall 21st pick (by the Syracuse Nats) in the 1960 NBA draft; and a coach and teacher in the Oakland schools.

But for those of a certain age, Roberts will be the man who couldn’t be intimidated by a situation or a sneaky tactic by a member of an opposing team, in this case Mike Riordan of the Bullets (now the Wizards).

The Bullets were huge favorites in the series. One paper — was it the Baltimore Sun? — described the Warriors as the worst team ever to reach the finals. But the Warriors (the nickname Dubs was years in the future) won the first three games. 

When they got in front in Game 4, Riordan pummeled Warriors star Rick Barry, who pummeled back. Before Barry could be ejected, Warriors coach Al Attles charged out and charged in — and was thrown out, not Barry.

For a few moments, the Warriors were in, shall we call it, a semi-chaotic state, a ship without a captain, as it were. Then Roberts stood up and ordered everybody to sit down and stop talking. There could be only one boss, and it was going be Mr. Roberts.

There could be only one NBA champion, and it was the Warriors in a sweep. 

Attles was at the celebration of Joe Roberts’ life, as were Cliff Ray, George Johnson and Charles (Hopper) Dudley, who is working on a video to honor those ’75 champions. So were top players on subsequent Warriors clubs, including Purvis Short, the guy with the rainbow jump shot.

The NBA adopted the 3-point shot in 1979, just before the start of Short’s decade-long career, but the emphasis in the NBA in that era was to shove and push and get the ball closer to the basket.

Asked if he still had his jumper, which seemed to soar out of sight, Short, now 65, said, “I could make the shot. I don’t know if I could get open.”

Short lives in Houston, Cliff Ray in Florida and Dudley in the Seattle area. Their reunions are infrequent but also important.

The Warriors these days are the class and pride of the NBA. But we shouldn’t forget the team that won the title because Joe Roberts showed us — and them — how to be a leader.

Thanks, Joe. We’ll miss you.

‘Say Hey’ says it all about Willie

SAN FRANCISCO — What a great few days for baseball stars from the Bay: Dusty Baker on the tube and on top of the world (Series); Willlie Mays on the silver screen and always on our minds; Barry Bonds on stage and on target.

On Saturday night there was Dusty in Houston, finally clasping the long-missing World Series title. Twenty-four hours later, we were at the century-old Castro Theater in San Francisco, and there was the documentary “Say Hey, Willie Mays!” and in attendance for what was the local premiere was Bonds, Willie’s godson and, of course, the single-season home run champion.

The film, directed by Nelson George, offers some material we’ve seen over the years — not that anyone wouldn’t want another chance to catch The Catch in the 1954 World Series — and other stories not as well known, such as the racism Mays encountered when attempting to buy a home in the City.

Mays, now 91, was only a kid from Alabama, still a segregated state, when he joined the New York Giants in 1950, but he was brilliant virtually from the start. The actress Tallulah Bankhead said, “There are only two geniuses the world — Willie Mays and Will Shakespeare.”

Shakespeare didn’t give interviews.

So much of Mays’ genius, certainly, is physical. He was a so-called five-tool player — hit, run, hit with power, catch and throw — as we see again after he chased down Vic Wertz’s towering drive in the ’54 World Series. Willie spun around and fired the ball back to the infield.

I came to San Francisco in 1965, when Mays still was hitting home runs. The Giants came here in 1958, and Mays has a tough time adjusting — not to the game but to the Candlestick Park winds that, as mentioned in the documentary, kept his long balls from clearing the fences.

San Francisco was Joe DiMaggio’s town. He grew up here and played minor league ball here, years before the Giants arrived.

So when Mays came here in ’58, long after DiMaggio’s retirement following the 1951 season, the press looked back and not forward. Willie was not appreciated, Tallulah Bankhead to the contrary.

DiMaggio was damn good. His 56-game hitting streak in 1941 surely never will be broken. After Joe left the game, he would make public appearances and be introduced as “America’s greatest living ball player.”

But Joe was no Willie Mays, and he wasn’t forced to play home games at Candlestick Park as Mays was. 

George’s documentary, which will be streamed on HBO, doesn’t forget that Reggie Jackson played in Oakland and is a Hall of Famer, or Dusty Baker, who after the World Series win is destined to be one. 

Barry Bonds said the documentary “basically is about mentoring, about growing wiser and more proficient as we mature.”

The plan certainly worked for Willie Mays.

Dare we add, “Say hey?”

For Irving, no apology but a suspension

Yes, that was a rabbi on ESPN’s NBA Today. You might say he was acting as a point guard, trying to keep things under control. Not on court, in society.

Trying to do what ESPN tells us sport often does: brings together people from different places, with different viewpoints. Enables us to share the joy.

Except now, we’re sharing disappointment. Not over the results of a particular game. We get over losses in time. This is different. This is about an observation from basketball star Kyrie Irving that is as worrisome as it is unacceptable.

Irving went on the internet and endorsed a propaganda film from a book by the same name, “Hebrews to Negroes,” loaded with antisemitic assertions.

Irving insists he doesn’t dislike the Jews or any religious group, but he refused to apologize for the internet post — which, of course, was taken down Wednesday by his team, the Brooklyn Nets, who are based in one of the country’s predominantly Jewish areas.

“I don’t hate anyone,” Irving said.

In suspending Irving, the Nets — already a dysfunctional mess — called him “unfit to be associated with the team.”

What Mike Wilbon from ESPN’s Pardon the Interruption called Irving was dangerous.

Last season, because he refused to be vaccinated against Covid, Irving was not cleared to play in New York, the Nets’ home state, or California. 

Irving supposedly said the Holocaust never took place, but he denies the assertion, and Thursday before he was suspended, offered a confusing open-ended remark.

“Some of the criticism of the Jewish faith and the community,” said Irving, “for sure, some of the points made there, that were unfortunate.”

Everything with which Irving has been in involved of late seems unfortunate.

Asked if he believes or agrees with the false idea that the Holocaust never happened, Irving answered “those falsehoods are unfortunate.”

So is this entire situation. Fans at a Nets game Monday night wore T-shirts with the slogan, “Fight Antisemitism.”

In West Los Angeles, Eraz Sherman, rabbi at Temple Sinai,

cringed and readied for his own fight. Many NBA players work out in the temple’s gym not too far from the UCLA campus.

“It makes me scared,” he told NBA Today of the film and the Irving internet posting. “One of the kids who belongs to the synagogue loves wearing his Kyrie Irving shoes. Now he wants to throw them away.”

Someone wondered what the rabbi might tell Irving, given the chance in a conversation,

“I would point out this is a multi-faith world, not inter-faith,” said Sherman. “We have to stay together, not tearing everything apart.”

Irving, apparently believing money is a substitute for an apology, will donate $500,000 to promote antisemitism.

“l didn’t want to cause any harm,” Irving said to reporters.

But he caused great harm, for himself and others involved in this awful event.

McCaffrey: ‘Just trying to master my craft’

And oh yeah, Jimmy Garoppolo had an excellent game too. Not that you noticed. Which was understandable, since he was playing on the same 49ers team as Christian McCaffrey.

McCaffrey is the guy who told us Sunday, after the Niners beat their patsies, the Los Angeles Lambs, 31-14, “I’m just trying to master my craft.”

What craft is that, carving sculptures like Michelangelo?

He seems already to have mastered the art of football. Or is that becoming only the third NFL player in the last 60 years or so to run for a touchdown, catch a pass for a touchdown and throw a pass for a touchdown in the same game merely pedestrian?

Jimmy G? He was 21 of 25 for 235 yards and two touchdowns. This was the same Niners team that a week earlier was embarrassed and overwhelmed.

Of course, they were playing the Kansas City Chiefs.

The constant advice in sports is never get too depressed after a defeat or too excited after a victory. For the moment. you are permitted to ignore the advice and instead consider the words of the Fox announcing crew, who said San Francisco once more is a Super Bowl possibility.

McCaffrey, the Stanford kid (well, he’s 26 now), spent five seasons with the Carolina Panthers. He was in great demand by other teams, including the Niners and Rams. And for the cost of a bag of beans — well, three high draft picks — the Niners got him.

On Sunday, the 49ers were without their main offensive threat, Deebo Samuel, who was injured. The 49ers have a bye next week, and when Samuel returns, he will make McCaffrey better — as McCaffrey will make Samuel better.

As McCaffrey in a way also made the already strong Niner defense (excluding the KC debacle) better because the other team won’t have the ball if the Niners have it.

“I think there’s still so much more left for me to learn,” McCaffrey said. “I’m excited to continue to grow and get better with this team and with the offense … I think there’s still a lot of meat on the bone that I left out there.”

After the win, the Niners only have a 4-4 record and are not even first in NFC West (Seattle is). But the Niners had numerous players who missed games (and practice) because of injuries. Most will be well in a month.

They’ll also have McCaffrey, as much for the way he has lifted the squad mentally as he has physically. Against the Rams, he rushed for 94 yards and had another 55 yards as a receiver. There are no statistics to rank degrees of optimism.

McCaffrey was measured in responding to questions about the remarkable achievement, accomplished previously only by LaDainian Tomlinson and Walter Payton.

However, Garoppolo said what others surely must have been thinking, that was some performance.

Especially for someone trying to master his craft.

Will this be the ‘Dustino’ World Series for Baker?

The nickname seemed perfect at the time, “Dustino,” created by Rod Beck, one of Dusty Baker’s relief pitchers when enough talent and a bit of good fortune were part of the landscape for the San Francisco Giants.

It was 2002, and ahead was a World Series, one in which — talk about fortune — Darren Baker, Dusty’s then 3-year-old son, was hoisted out of harm’s way at home plate by an alert J.T. Snow.

But destiny, Dustiny, Dustino, whatever, did not last.

A 5-0 lead in Game 6 disappeared. And then in Game 7 so did the Series. Now, 20 years and four teams later, Baker, 73, at last may get his first World Series championship — as a manager. At least his team, the Houston Astros, is favored over the Philadelphia Phillies.

It’s not correct to call Baker the accidental manager, but after the Giants and four other teams Baker was briefly unemployed and baseball was in a bind.

The Astros were involved in a cheating scandal, having sent illegal signals, and in the midst of firing various individuals, including the manager.

What to do to restore honesty and confidence to the sport? Bring in reliable, proven, honest Johnnie Baker, better known as Dusty.

It would be only poetic justice if the guy who very much is the man in manager would get the title. He has more managerial victories, 2,093, than anyone without a Series win.

People often ask sporting journalists whether they root for the teams they cover. In most cases, the answer is no. You want to cheer? Go find a seat in the stands.

But we often root for individuals, those who understand our jobs, and through that understanding make the work and the relationships more professional.

Dusty belongs in that category. The door to his office always was open when he managed the Giants, and presumably it has been with other teams.

True, nobody forces you to manage, but managing is a test of a person. He decides which athletes to play and if they fail, well, somebody has to be the target. As you know, they fire the manager, not the centerfielder.

Baker has handled himself and situations with control, which is the most one can demand of a leader. He’s been there — won a playoff MVP award — and done virtually everything.

Except managed a World Series champion. And that could be rectified in a matter of days.

"We love going out there every single day and competing for him,” Astros third baseman Alex Bregman told Paul Newberry of the Associated Press. “He loves this team. He loves winning. He loves the game of baseball. And a hundred percent we want to win for him.” It’s a cliché, but Baker has nothing to prove, not even to himself. Sometimes things work out — and sometimes, as with the sixth game in 2002, they don’t.

“You can’t rush it before it gets here," he said in an analogy about winning, “because it isn’t here yet. You’ve just gotta put yourself in a position to do it.”

Dusty Baker has been in that position for too long.

Shanahan: ‘Players just need to play better’

You say the Niners might need something more than Christian McCaffrey? Not a bad guess.

You could start with a defense, except as we were reminded on the telecast the Niners have the No. 1 defense in the NFL. And defense wins, right?  

Unless it is defenseless.

What do you call it? A reality check? A surprise? It certainly was a downer to close a week that had seemed perfect for the Niners.

They had out-snookered the others, we were advised, by trading a few draft picks for Christian McCaffrey, who could run and receive, do everything except leap tall buildings in a single bound.

He did play Sunday, but the Niners did not, at least to what was supposed to be their capability, getting overwhelmed, 44-23, by the Chiefs.

You want a word to describe the way the 49ers looked? How about terrible? They gave up a first down when the Chiefs had a third-and-20.

“We have good players,” said head coach Kyle Shanahan, notably bewildered. “They just have to play better.”

So simple. And so mystifying. Maybe the Niners on Sunday played as well as they are able. After all, they have a 3-4 record, and much of the perception of their power comes from that huge victory over the Rams.

That’s when the defense embellished a reputation that soon may be far less than it was. The D that day contributed six quarterback sacks. In this game they had just one, although KC’s Patrick Mahomes is particularly elusive.

Indeed, so is the Super Bowl, in which only a few winters past, Super Bowl LIV, the Niners faced the Chiefs. The chance for a repeat of that game was good. No longer.

The Chiefs looked every bit as strong as promised, running and passing for 529 yards. They are confident and well programmed.  

They grabbed the game, which fell far short of being competitive as the 1½-point spread would indicate.

Strange things happen in pro football, where nobody (except the 1972 Dolphins) wins them all. Virtually nobody loses them all, and the popular slogan is: “On any given Sunday.” 

Still, you don’t get outclassed as the Niners were if there is to be more than a thimbleful of hope. It isn’t so much about what went wrong but what didn’t go wrong.

It wasn’t wrong for Shanahan to pull quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo in the closing minutes, the game decided. It was an act of mercy. Something the Niners needed.

“Our defense prides itself on eliminating explosive plays,” said linebacker Fred Warner. “And that’s what the game felt like, explosive plays, one after another.”

But only for one team and against one team.  

“That was just general frustration,” said Warner. “Knowing that we are better than that. And I felt they were marching down the field.”

He felt that way because that’s what the Chiefs were doing. The numbers are depressing as well as shocking. The Chiefs scored on six of their first eight possessions and didn’t punt until it didn’t matter, with only minutes remaining.

The 44 points were the most allowed in a home game since a 45-10 loss to Atlanta on Oct. 11, 2009. That’s before Shanahan arrived, the days when the Niners were as inefficient as they were on Sunday.

McCaffrey in a limited role was responsible for 62 yards on 10 touches. Wonder if he would be willing to try defense?

McCaffrey trade means the future is now for the Niners

First question: Do the 49ers have any draft picks in the next century or so? Second question: Who cares? As a football coach named George Allen used to tell us so often, the words became the title of his autobiography: the future is now.

There’s little doubt that the San Francisco 49ers are a better team than they were two days ago when wisely they embraced the opportunity to grab running back Christian McCaffrey, who leads in all sorts of stats and whom they hope will lead them to a championship.

The NFL is a league of missed chances and second guesses, so when the time arises, if it ever does, you better take advantage. The Niners did exactly that.

This is the way you have to think when giving up draft picks for real live people: One guy has been out there doing what you’re only believing some other guy might do or never do.

So let’s go forth, real live people.

True, it’s going to be boring around the Niners for the next few drafts. The picks they didn’t swap for Trey Lance, they swapped for McCaffrey.

Indeed, McCaffrey’s pro career since he came out of Stanford has been beset by injuries. All the more reason in the big picture to make a deal for him now.

As the Niners have been reminded this season, NFL players get hurt virtually every play. If you have more than a few talented healthy ones, it makes sense to add another who is quite talented and not infrequently quite healthy.

This is sports, right? It’s a form of entertainment. It isn’t that the Niners haven’t been at least mildly entertaining (and more than mildly frustrating), winning three of their first six games.

It’s that’s the acquisition makes them must-see stuff, right up with those Dallas Cowboys and New England Patriots. Plus there’s the backstory for a team wanting to be the front-runner. In 2017, drafting third overall, the Niners could have chosen McCaffrey. And didn’t.

General manager John Lynch, a Stanford guy himself, made the ultimate decision on trading three high draft picks for a 26-year-old running back. But Kyle Shanahan, the Niners’ head coach, and surely a few others in the organization had opinions.

On Sunday at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, the 49ers play the Kansas City Chiefs, the team that beat the Niners two and a half years ago in Super Bowl LIV.

Whether McCaffrey, so quickly after joining the Niners, gets into this game is problematic, but he’ll be getting into other games and perhaps getting San Francisco into another Super Bowl.

Lynch called the trade a gamble, if a well thought-out one. Isn’t every play a gamble, the offense trying to outsmart the defense, which in turn is trying to outsmart the offense?

For certain, with McCaffrey running and receiving, the Niners’ offense will be more productive, giving a balance to a team whose strength has been on defense.

Perfection is rare in pro football, where are there are too many moving parts and bizarre bounces. The game essentially is one of persistence and survival.

Often it’s a case of hanging in until somebody makes the big play. That somebody might be Christian McCaffrey.

We’ll find out soon enough.

It's all different now with these champion Warriors

If you were around then, waiting for the disappointment, just knowing that no matter how well the Warriors had stayed in the game, how many times the crowd had chanted “Beat L.A.,” you remember Kareem or Magic or Kobe making those shots down the stretch. Unstoppable, and for Golden State fans, unbearable.

But as we — and the Lakers, and indeed all of pro basketball — know, it’s all different now. The power, the once-haunting sense of inevitability, has shifted. It’s the Warriors who somehow will get the win. It’s the Lakers who are trying to come to grips with their inadequacies.

The NBA season opener on Tuesday night at Chase Center was where we were supposed to find out if the Warriors’ Draymond Green and Jordan Poole could play together, two weeks after Green punched Poole in practice. They could and did, and the Dubs, to no one’s surprise after receiving their championship rings, defeated the Lakers, 123-109.

Yes, the Draymond-Poole — dare we call it an incident — was mentioned during postgame comments, but almost parenthetically. The big issue seemed to be whether this Warriors team was as deep as the team of  2014-15 that overwhelmed the Cavaliers in the finals.

That season, LeBron James played for the Cavs. Now, of course, he’s with the Lakers and echoing words of Warriors fans, when in the 1990s the Dubs were the patsies.

“The Warriors are who they are, it goes without saying,” was the observation of LeBron, who didn’t go without saying. “I don’t need to harp on the the greatness they possess every night.”

Hard to imagine anyone from the Lakers franchise, which used to own the Warriors, ever saying that, much less LeBron, the acknowledged best all-around player in the game. When the greats from other teams hold that opinion, well, you may be better than you hope you are.

“They’re the best third-quarter,” James conceded about the way the Warriors gain control after halftime.

This was only one game out of the 82 on the schedule. Perhaps the Draymond-Poole truce comes apart, although winning teams manage to survive internal troubles, which is why they are winning teams. When you’re based in New York or L.A., the nation’s two largest metropolitan areas as well as its two major media centers, you get attention that’s not always deserved. Skepticism is legitimate product.

But those Lakers teams of the 1980s and 90s, labeled by a copyrighted nickname, “Showtime,” earned all the headlines and TV promos they were allotted. Warriors fans may have despised those Lakers as much they respected them. Now the view has been altered.

“The postgame chatter,” wrote Dan Woike of the Los Angeles Times about the opener, “came after the Lakers didn’t look in the same class as the defending (NBA) champs.” If there’s one thing you never would expect to read, it’s that the Lakers, who have the second most championships, are not in the same league as the Warriors.

That’s not about to happen to the Warriors, where the front office is preparing for the future with players such as Poole and James Wiseman as it carefully enjoys the present with Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, Kevon Looney and, yes, Draymond Green.

“I’m thrilled with the win,” said Steve Kerr, the Warriors’ coach. “Ring night is never an easy game, and the first game of the season is usually filled with some nerves early on.”

But later on, this one was also filled with a win.

Draymond: Off the hook, on the radar

So, Draymond Green, where have you been? Oh, never mind. It’s all on that tape, which is as big a story as your brief absence. You know how when people leave work they call it punching out? Sorry, which is what you said you are about your recent contretemps.

Some people thought you should have been suspended, but fortunately for you they don’t coach or work as executives for the Warriors. Besides, if you didn’t already know, nobody is supposed to hit anyone, much less a teammate.

Nobody wonders if you’ll play hard. That’s in your DNA. You’d never have made it in the NBA without your passion and intensity.

What has some worried is a few players, one being Jordan Poole, whom you punched in practice, will not feel comfortable playing the season with you. But teammates have battled physically and still won titles. Think of those Oakland A’s.

Then again, that was in the 1970s, before cell phones, items that would provide a literal picture of an event. And before a news service (?) like TMZ, which has sources seemingly everywhere. Somebody at the Warriors facility took that video. On ESPN, Tony Kornheiser called it sabotage.

What Warriors coach Steve Kerr called the punch and subsequent reaction was “the greatest crisis” of his coaching career.

When during that career you won four championships in a span of several years, there haven’t been many crises, great or small.

For certain, Draymond and the Dubs accomplished the near impossible, knocking the 49ers out of the top spot of the TV sports reports, a difficult task indeed.

Kerr, who once was slugged by Michael Jordan when they were teammates on the Chicago Bulls, went about his well-scrutinized business with the determination and irritation of an individual who’s been there and had that done to him.

Basketball is the sport of least privacy. Baseball has dugouts in which to hide; football has helmets to be worn. Basketball is a T-shirt and shorts. Insults — trash talk — are constant. You handle it, or you try another activity.

What the Warriors tried, however, was honesty.

No denials, no attempts at cover-ups. Let’s get this fixed and, as Kerr said, move forward.

Yet if what’s in the news is any indication, that journey will not be an easy one.

The media (blush) isn’t going to let this go quickly. Whatever the Warriors do to keep the team strong on the court, there will be a reference to Draymond Green and his punch.

Either they’ll have overcome that mammoth crisis or they’ll have fallen victim to it.

Draymond insisted when he made his apology several days ago that the punch and still unknown problem between him and Poole was embarrassing.

Both players are lucky it wasn’t injurious, one or both ending with a broken bone, Now apparently all we’ll get is hurt pride.

The punch and the TMZ video jolted the Warriors, a franchise where everything invariably runs so smoothly — or so it seems — like, well, a punch to the jaw. They had to do the right thing as much as they had to do what would keep them winners.

“It’s been been an exhaustive process,” Kerr said of the discussion on how to to proceed. “Everything was on the table.”

Now Green effectively may be off the hook, although definitely he’ll be on everyone’s radar.