Warriors, Clippers carrying hostility
SEASON SERIES
The Thunder have the 3-1 advantage this season, but it’s hard to put too much stock in those games. Gasol and Tony Allen both missed the first game. Westbrook missed the second (the Grizzlies’ win). Westbrook and Conley both missed the third. The fourth game, on Feb. 28, featured the most intact rosters. The Thunder won it 113107, with the Grizzlies bench (Miller had 19 in the fourth) leading a late comeback to make it close. Not a lot of predictive value here.
DOES HOME COURT MATTER?
Maybe not. Over 27 games in four seasons between these teams, both have shown an ability to win on the road. Six of the Grizzlies’ 14 wins over the Thunder came in OKC. Four of the Thunder’s 13 victories over the Grizzlies came in FedExForum.
LOS ANGELES — As much as the Los Angeles Clippers and Golden State Warriors don’t like each other, they’re a lot alike in some ways.
There’s an All-Star point guard on each side, they’re both young and athletic, and each franchise is trying to distance itself from an inglorious past that cast it as an afterthought in the NBA.
The dislike between the teams, which open their Western Conference series Saturday (WATN Channel 24, 2:30 p.m.), goes beyond Southern California vs. Northern California. They’ve tangled while splitting their four games this season, most famously on Christmas, when Clippers forward Blake Griffin was elbowed by Warriors forward Draymond Green.
In March, Griffin and Warriors backup center Jermaine O’Neal squabbled in a Clippers victory and it carried over after the game.
“I don’t have Jermaine’s number so I don’t really talk to him,” Griffin said Friday. “I don’t know if there’s a lingering issue or but designing your lineupsnot.”based on defensive matchups will leave With both teams having been you with a dearth of shooting. down so long and now competAnd if Brooks is smart or bold ing for playoff success, Clippers enough to go small more often, forward Matt Barnes said there’s with Durant at the four, then that going to be “some hostility and will make Joerger’s decisions even animosity and hatred.” more difficult. Do you stay big? If “It’ll be an entertaining seso, do you try to hide Randolph ries just because how the reguon a perimeter player like Fisher lar season went,” Warriors star or Thabo Sefolosha? And if you’re Stephen Curry said. “You’ve got already trying to hide Randolph, to be prepared for anything.” can you really have Mike Miller Some of the Clippers, includon the floor too? Whom does he ing Griffin and Barnes, got into guard? No matter what each team a playoff mindset by watching does to try to create or mitigate an “Bad Boys,” an ESPN documenadvantage, it’ll create problems tary about the Detroit Pistons elsewhere. This whole series is goteams of the 1980s and ’90s that ing to be a matchup/lineup chess premiered on Thursday. match. Barnes said he wishes today’s players could be as physical as the Pistons. He joked that if he fouled as hard as Isiah Thomas did back in the day, he’d be tossed out of the NBA and need to find a new job.
Warriors guard Klay Thompson added some heat to the fire this week when he said Griffin flopped a lot in games. Griffin is averaging 24.1 points and shooting 53 percent.
“If he’s flopping, keep doing it because those numbers look awful good to me, so flop on,” first-year Clippers coach Doc Rivers said. “Blake’s kicking a lot of people’s butt and they need something to say about him.”
One late injury might be important: Warriors center Andrew Bogut is out indefinitely with a broken rib, leaving O’Neal to start in his place. The 35-yearold veteran averaged 7.9 points and 5.5 rebounds when healthy this season. “I’ve been through a lot of battles in the playoff field and I know how intense it is and I have great experience in that,” O’Neal said.