San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Warriors playoff games are a rarity in San Francisco
Bob Williams at Menlo Country Club’s driving range. Williams, 100, stays active, has plenty left to do on his plate and finds time to golf regularly.
Bob Williams walks slowly from his cart to the practice range on a sunny March day at Menlo Country Club in Woodside. He carefully takes his club back and smacks some shots. He’s mostly frustrated by the results, muttering like any golfer tortured by this maddening game.
Williams faces the same challenge other recreational players do — life is
It’s Warriors playoff time in San Francisco, and even if you’re familiar with Wilt Chamberlain, Al Attles and other storied figures of the past, you might not realize how rare this is.
Saturday night, Game 1 of the series against Denver at Chase Center marked only the second time it has happened at all.
We’re talking about the strict designations of city limits, and the Cow Palace — home to many classic Warriors moments, including the triumphant 1975 Finals — does not qualify. It’s right on the edge of the border, and although a sliver of the parking lot is technically in San Francisco, the actual building is in Daly City.
And thus, the distinction: The Warriors’ only other playoff game in San Francisco was Game 1 of the 1964 Western Conference finals against the St. Louis Hawks. It was played at USF’s War Memorial Gymnasium, while the rest of that series — one of the franchise’s greatest ever, with Games 2, 5 and 7 leading to a trip to the Finals against Boston — took place in the province of cows.
Perhaps this strikes you as a bit of a nitpick, but it resonates here. In my mind, Candlestick Park had to do with San Francisco beyond a stiff cool breeze. Once the 49ers departed Kezar Stadium, in the heart of the HaightAshbury,
busy. He spends most of his time on various projects, including promoting sportsmanship in college athletics and speaking at schools on the Peninsula. Another not-so-incidental detail worth noting: Williams is 100 years old. He grew up in Sausalito, living nearly 16 years the Golden Gate Bridge opened in May 1937. Williams was in the first row of cars on the Marin County side of the bridge on that landmark day.
The San Francisco Warriors’ Gary Phillips shoots against the St. Louis Hawks in the ’64 Western Conference finals.
The Warriors are No. 3 in the West. Recent history shows No. 3 seeds can win a title.
they left the city for good — and now they might as well be in Bakersfield.
Similarly, Chase Center is all about the city. Heading to
He attended the Naval Academy (future astronaut Alan Shepard was his roommate at one point), served in World War II and enjoyed a prosperous career as an insurance executive. Then, upon retirement, he really became active. Williams enjoys golf and still plays nine holes at Menlo nearly every Sunday morning, a staggering feat when you’ve lived an entire century.
the Cow Palace, fans left behind that downtown feel, the spectacular vistas and sophistication. Chase Center is an urban masterpiece, and it must be a dream for the Warriors’ executives to watch this series unfold after two years of pandemic disruption.
As for that USF gym, it was built in 1958, meaning the school’s greatest moments — along the way to winning the 1949 NIT at Madison Square Garden and back-to-back NCAA championships in the Bill Russell years (1955-56) — took place largely at Kezar Pavilion. The late Pete Newell, who coached the ’49 team, once recalled that there a USF gym on Page Street, “but you might say it was a bit run-down. There was a cathouse in the apartment complex above it. Drunks would wander in and out, walking right by us while we were practicing. When it rained, we couldn’t use one end of it because kids had thrown bricks through the windows.”
Graced with a new facility, USF welcomed occasional visits from the Warriors after they moved to San Francisco from Philadelphia in 1962. Such was the case on April 1, 1964, the Game 1 playoff loss to St. Louis that featured future Hall of Famers: Chamberlain, Attles, Nate Thurmond (his rookie season, playing about 26 minutes per game at power forward) and the entire Hawks starting lineup: Bob Pettit, Cliff Hagan, Richie Guerin, Zelmo Beaty and Lenny Wilkens — plus former USF star Mike Farmer and a future Warrior, Bill Bridges (key member of the ’75 champs) coming off the bench.
Chamberlain was a dominant figure in dispatching those Hawks, scoring 50 points in
Game 5 and 39 in Game 7, before Russell’s Celtics prevailed in the Finals. He was something, big Wilt. He left the Warriors, and this Earth, much too soon.
The big unusual
Denver center Nikola Jokic
doesn’t have to worry about a Chamberlain-like presence, that’s for sure, as he leans back and shoots those awkwardlooking (and often deadly) 3pointers off his right foot. “That’s a playground-park shot,” Mark Jackson once said on ABC. “Old guy with a cigarette in his mouth.” … Stories abound about Jokic’s two brothers, each a massive presence of his own. “I’m pretty calm,” Jokic told ESPN. “My brothers get crazy pretty quick. They look like serial killers, but they’re actually nice people when you meet them.” … The Warriors have hit rock bottom as people look back on the 2020 draft: James Wiseman (doesn’t play) ahead of LaMelo Ball
(spectacular, scores from anywhere, feels like he owns the court). You wonder, though, how the showtime-minded Ball would fit into a backcourt of Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson and Jordan Poole. You just don’t with that; at this very moment I’d take Poole over Ball, whose disappointing performance typified Charlotte’s lifeless exit from the play-in tournament Wednesday night. For the future, maybe that’s another question. … So Philadelphia’s James Harden told Complex he has “nothing to prove” with Brooklyn about to start its playoff run. Right. Just forget how he ticked off Kevin Durant by showing up badly out of shape for training camp. Just ignore the 1-7 record in his team’s last eight elimination games, or his borderline disgraceful shooting so often when it mattered against the Warriors. He has left impression on the postseason landscape, and he really needs to change that.
On the diamond: Dodgers manager Dave Roberts removed pitcher Clayton Kershaw after seven perfect innings (and only 80 pitches) against the Twins on Wednesday afternoon, and the soul of baseball took another crushing hit. Kershaw’s such a good guy, he said he could understand the long-term logic. “To what end?” Roberts responded to critics who wanted Kershaw to finish the job. “At what cost?” How about the fans’ love of the game they remember, not the one dictated by a pile of data? How about the immeasurable satisfaction for a pitcher who richly deserves it? Logic may work perfectly in your standard office building, but for baseball’s paying customers — either in attendance or signing up for their cable packages — baseball is for dreams, the imagination, the blessed unlikely. And they’re speaking up, disgusted over a decision so typical of an era defined by cowardice. … In 1965, at a time Dodgers legend Sandy Koufax was worried about the constant pain in his elbow, he had a perfect game through seven innings against the Cubs and thought of taking him out. He finished it off, at 113 pitches, one of many reasons he is considered the greatest of all time. Today, baseball’s key phrase is “an abundance of caution.” You grudgingly expect a pitcher’s gem to vanish into the clubhouse. And each time, a little bit of the romance dies.