Golden State Warriors Bloggers Experience: Upbeat/Humorous Post Game 1 Interviews After Win Over Clippers (Photo: @letsgowarriors Instagram account)
STAPLES CENTER, LOS ANGELES, CA — The Golden State Warriors had just survived a resurgent Chris Paul and the Los Angeles Clippers in the waning moments by the score of 109-105, and the Warriors locker room was naturally upbeat.
After doing some catch up on Twitter and making some final notes, I made my way down the Staples Center elevator from the secondary press row located in the upper deck, along with several other reporters.
We walked quickly to the press conference room, but found it already occupied by Warriors head coach Mark Jackson. Some of it was covered by Bay Area and national beatwriters.
NBA.com’s David Aldridge was one of the many writers with a question. I decided to pan the video around so that our fans could see what the interview room looked like in an NBA Playoffs atmosphere — far more of a zoo than the regular season, of course.
Aldridge asked about the frontline rotation of David Lee, Jermaine O’Neal and Marreese Speights, with Andrew Bogut out of the lineup. Jackson gave his familiar praise of everyone stepping up when called upon.
“I thought Mo gave us great minutes in the first half, rebounding, making plays, unselfishness,” Jackson said, “Jermaine, I’m trying to make conscious of the fact that, obviously he’s got a lot of miles on his body.”
“We’re balanced, so I thought when you look at the fact that we had 21 turnovers, the fact we gave up 16 offensive rebounds, we just had a tremendous will and a tremendous competitive spirit tonight and a Game 1 victory,” Jackson said, “but this series is far from over.”
When Jackson was done, it was Doc Rivers‘s turn. I decided to head on over to the Warriors locker room because it was sure to be an upbeat atmosphere, plus it is a rare opportunity to witness the Dubs in an opposing locker room.
Media were already surrounding Klay Thompson when I arrived. Maybe it was just because of the nice win, but Klay started what seemed to be a chain of off-the-beaten path responses. You’ll see.
Scott Howard-Cooper of NBA.com Hangtime Blogs asked Thompson about the if it was easier to be in the role of spoiler, but Klay interpreted the question as comparing Staples to #Roaracle, so he started out as he usually does, showing his love of Oracle, but then laughed it off when he realized the question wasn’t about that.
It was naturally a noisy little cozy place and my first experience in an playoff atmosphere after a win in the opposing locker room. There were many interviews going on at once and I had a little bit of an overload. I decided to try and catch players that weren’t already being videotaped.
Next up was Jermaine O’Neal, who can be very lengthy, introspective, and soft-spoken with his responses. He gave the answers you’d expect when asked about how he and the frontline tried to limit Griffin and DeAndre Jordan. It was good to see him reference the two as one of the most athletic frontlines in the history of the NBA, which is a topic Monte Poole and I shared over lunch during the roadtrip against the Portland Trail Blazers last week.
“You have to try to get to their bodies because if you get off their bodies, they’re the most athletic tandem this league has ever seen,” J.O. explained, “So you gotta put your body on them and put a lot of pressure on them.”
Shortly thereafter, Warriors PR spread the buzz that Stephen Curry and David Lee were next up at the podium back in the conference room, and I literally saw them leave for it through a back entrance.
On the way out, I ran into Hilton Armstrong as he reached down and pulled a drink out of a cooler, and said, “Nice pass!”, which led to a Speights slam dunk in the second quarter, and Armstrong and I exchanged fist bumps.
Back in the press conference room, the Curry/Lee interviews were underway. The questions and answers to Curry were pretty much par-for-the-course. Then Lee mentioned how the team wanted to make the Clippers adjust to them from the get-go.
“Our goal tonight was to come out aggressive and to come out and hit first,” Lee said, but immediately remembered that the Warriors had actually come out flat, trailing by as much as 12-1.
Lee, as he normally does in interviews, quickly recovered with a self-effacing quip.
“That didn’t mean get down 10-1 or whatever happened, but that’s the way it worked,” Lee sidetracked, as he drew laughter from not only the audience, but also Curry.
I made one last trip back to the locker room after that and found Andre Iguodala — fashionably dressed, mind you — talking to a handful of reporters. Again, because they had just won, Iguodala showed a little more personality than usual. His eyes widened big as he discussed something that I didn’t quite catch, something about someone being wide open.
80% of the time, Iguodala doesn’t say a whole lot that’s quotable, but he followed that up with comparing a bench player playing in Jackson’s culture to perhaps a malcontent playing for a vanilla coaching regime on another NBA team.
“You always hear or somebody with a great speech says, ‘No matter who you are whether you’re playing or not playing, you can a make a difference,’ and you’re like, ‘Yeah right, pile of crap,'” said Andre.
It turned out that he was talking about Hilton finding Speights for a cutting dunk. Diamond Leung of the Bay Area News Group had the full report.
Just to the right of Andre, Draymond Green was putting on his shirt while in the middle of a religiously based response to a question from Ethan Sherwood Strauss.
It’s good to win. Players are a lot looser and off the cuff about stuff. #DubNation will hope this continues through to the end of Game 2.
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