Warriors’ Davis shows true grit against Mavericks
OAKLAND >> Once upon a time, in a large metropolitan city on the East Coast, there lived a man named Willis Reed.
Reed, who played for a basketball team called the New York Knicks, hurt his knee during a tense playoff series against the Los Angeles Lakers. Against all odds and most medical advice, Reed came limping out of the locker room to lead ...
You don’t remember Willis Reed, do you? And if you do, you no longer care, right?
We’re wasting our time with this Reed character. Because on Thursday night in an unfairly maligned city on the shores of San Francisco Bay, a man named Baron Davis helped a team called the Golden State Warriors write a basketball story that beats anything you can find in a dusty old book.
Here’s the Cliffsnotes version:
The Warriors, the Bay Area’s newest favorite team, ran the mighty Dallas Mavericks out of Oracle Arena, the NBA playoffs and all the way back to Texas in front of a screeching, yellow-shirted crowd of 20,677. They did it against all logic and every bookmaker worth his over/under. And they did it with this Davis character playing pretty much on one leg.
If you’re new to this story — don’t be shy; actor Owen Wilson was in attendance, so you know crashers
are welcome here — Davis is the Warriors’ point guard and emotional leader. He’s always been good. In these playoffs he has become the elite player that new/old Warriors coach Don Nelson thought he could be.
Davis’ inspired play got the Warriors to Thursday night — a 3-2 lead in a best-of-7 series and a chance to close it out on their home floor. The Warriors got off to a fast start. But early in the first quarter, Davis took off on one of his reckless missions to the hoop. He disappeared in a crowd and came out the other side clutching the back of his right leg.
The crowd issued an audible groan. For something like this to happen after 13 years of unceasingly miserable basketball? It didn’t seem fair. Davis retired to the locker room, followed by the team doctor. He remained there for the rest of the first quarter.
He returned in the second quarter, not nearly as mobile but twice as inspiring. He didn’t leave for good until 2:19 remained in the game and the Warriors led by 26 points.
This is a great basketball story, but it’s not all about basketball. It’s about the Yoda-like wisdom of Nelson, whose contentious departure in 1995 plunged the Warriors into a competitive ice age, and whose return in the summer occasioned a great thaw. It’s about Davis discovering how good he can be.
It’s about Jason Richardson, for years the best player on a bad team, who until this month had spent every May of his pro career at home on his sofa.
And it’s about how a sports team can, by its very spirit, electrify a populace.
We’ve heard it firsthand. The question of the hour, for the past couple of hundred hours, has been, “Where do these Warriors play, and how do I get tickets?” But the question of the hour after that has been, “When was the last time something like this happened here?”
Not during the past 12 years, that’s for sure. The last time the Warriors won a playoff series was in 1991, when they upset San Antonio. The final two victories came at home. But that was the third time in five seasons the Warriors had made the playoffs. It wasn’t stunningly, wonderfully, pulse-quickening new as it is now. So, no.
The Warriors swept Utah in the first round in 1989. We were too preoccupied with 49ers minicamp to pay it much mind.
The 1987 postseason came close. Returning to the playoffs after nine seasons, the Warriors rallied from 2-0 down to upset Utah in five games in the first round. The second round featured Sleepy Floyd’s 29-point fourth quarter in a Game 5 win over the Lakers, a top-10 event for anyone who saw it live. But it was wholly unanticipated, a thunderbolt from the blue. There wasn’t the buildup of the past couple of weeks, or anything approaching the crescendo that was reached Thursday night.
You have to go back to the astonishing championship run of 1975 for anything comparable to what is happening now. It was upon us before we could comprehend its meaning, a fantasy come to life. The Warriors reached the finals and swept the Washington Bullets, winning games 2 and 3 at the Cow Palace. The crowd rocked the old barn from start to finish in both games, the best basketball times the Bay Area has ever known.
Until now. Once upon a time, attending a Warriors game was like going to a bad party. When a timeout was called with 4:02 left in the third quarter and the Warriors leading 75-57, it was like this — music thrumming so loud you could feel it in your eyes; the Warrior girls dancing about the floor all sassy and saucy, as if they’d just been admitted to the hottest club in town; 20,000 yellow shirts clapping their hands in rhythm to the music; highlights running on the video boards, a dream come true to life.
Welcome to once upon a time. The usher will show you to your seat.