Golden State Warriors Bloggers Experience: Team Practice At UCLA For Los Angeles Clippers Game 2 (Photo: @letsgowarriors Instagram account)
UCLA CAMPUS, LOS ANGELES, CA — Sunny SoCal lived up to its billing yesterday as the Golden State Warriors convened for team practice at UCLA, the day before Game 2 against the Los Angeles Clippers in the first round of the 2014 NBA Playoffs.
Once we were let in, all of the players’ shoes were laid out next the chairs lining the wall.
Festus Ezeli, Ognjen Kuzmic, Steve Blake, Nemanja Nedovic, and Jordan Crawford were there first.
The remaining players had attended coach Mark Jackson‘s church for Easter Sunday.
Ezeli started shooting around from about fifteen feet, with an assistant coach rebounding. With fifteen feet about the extent of Festus’s range, he muttered, “Klay!” as he did so, although the results weren’t as fruitful as what Klay would’ve had.
Kuzmic started shooting around and airballed his first three, badly, before hitting three in a row. That evolved into a shooting contest between he, Nedovic, and Blake, as Crawford was busy shooting by himself on the other court.
Kuzmic banked in a halfcourt shot, so the next round was to go to three-quarters court. After about five minutes, Blake won that.
So the contest moved to full court and that’s when Rusty Simmons of the San Francisco Chronicle observed that Ezeli’s shot attempts looked more like full-court chest pass heaves.
After a lot of bricks, the guys that attended church arrived and media was told to step outside for a few minutes while they got dressed. The full-court contest, which had further evolved into a running start through the front doors of the gym, never had a winner.
When we got back in, it was time to start media availability, first with Coach Jackson, of course, then Stephen Curry then David Lee were made available and stood next to the padded walls.
Jackson recalled Lee’s tough first start, which began with four consecutive turnovers.
“He came over to me early on and we talked about that exactly,” Jackson said, “That is part of the process. People take it for granted.”
Tim Kawakami of the Bay Area News Group had the full report:
Turnover, turnover, turnover, turnover (in the Warriors’ first four possessions), got his shot blocked, was whistled for a free-throw lane violation, then got pulled from the game after less than three minutes had elapsed and the Warriors trailing 8-1.
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Along the way, Lee took a deep breath and offered a heartfelt apology to coach Mark Jackson.
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“I just said, ‘Sorry for a few early mistakes, I’m kind of going a million miles an hour right now,’ ” Lee recalled Sunday before the Warriors’ practice at UCLA. “I said, ‘I’ll settle in.’ He said, ‘I have no doubt about that.’ And then I was able to settle in and play one of my better halves of the year, I think, in the second half, against a tough opponent.”
Jackson also talked about the Clippers’ trapping strategy on Curry and Diamond Leung, who had the opportunity to attend the Clippers practice earlier in the day, of the Bay Area News Group also filed this report:
“One thing about Steph is he’s going to make the right decisions, so he’s not going to think he’s got to score 30 or 40 for us to win the game,” coach Mark Jackson said Sunday. “Great players, they’re going to defend you, force you to get rid of the basketball, trapping you. And you’ve got to be willing to sacrifice your game.
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“I trust he’s going to make the right decisions. And his ability to read and react has been spectacular, and it makes us a dangerous team that’s tough to guard.”
Sam Amick of USA Today also attended the Clippers’ practice earlier in the day and provided this report:
As Warriors coach Mark Jackson so duly noted, though, it’s not as if Rivers took over the Bad News Bears here. These Clippers may not have pushed for a title before, but they’re not without gritty playoff memories. They came back on the road from 27 points down against the Grizzlies in Game 1 of the first round two years ago, then finished the series on Memphis’ home floor with a Game 7 win that led to a second-round sweep courtesy of the San Antonio Spurs.
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They’ve been good — just not good enough.
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“They’ve got guys who are experienced,” Jackson said. “It’s not their first merry-go-round, so they’re going to be prepared. They’ve got guys — not just Doc but a lead assistant in (former Phoenix Suns and Clippers head coach Alvin Gentry) — who have been there and done that. They’re going to be prepared, and we understand we’re going to face a better Clipper team tomorrow night.”
Next up was Curry, who said, among other things, that the Warriors needed to get to their spots quicker in anticipation of the trap.
I also managed to get a close-up shot of Curry’s new kicks.
Leung filed a second report in regards to how the players have rallied around Coach Jackson:
Stephen Curry supported the notion that the Warriors have taken it upon themselves as players to take care of business in the playoffs so that talk about Jackson’s job security would subside.
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“It was more the message along those lines that we as players can control the vibe of what’s going on,” Curry said before practice at UCLA. “If we’re losing and not playing the way we’re supposed to, obviously people will start looking for answers and the head coach will get most of that blame. But if we go out and play 100 percent every night, take advantage of every opportunity out in front of us, there’s nothing they can say about it.”
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On the eve of Game 2 at Staples Center, Curry was among a majority of Warriors players who attended Easter service at Jackson’s Southern California church and heard their coach preach. Curry said doing so helped team unity and that Jackson’s faith has allowed the coach to keep perspective.
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“All the while, we’re just trying to win, and our record’s gotten better every year,” Curry said. “That’s the standard of good coaching to me. I don’t know what else you’d want from him. It’s just kind of unfortunate that that’s the tone that this season has taken when he’s done so much good.
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“He’s been able to deal with all this negative talk and criticism … for so long this season because of where his focus is and where his faith’s at, so I think that’s huge.”
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Said Jackson: “Like I said before, I’m going to be fine. It’s going to turn out fine.”
Finally, it was Lee’s turn to address the media. He talked about how Game 1 wasn’t as physical, but it wasn’t finesse, either. He thought that it was an extension of the regular season, but that the four regular season matchups all had playoff intensity.
Simmons and Lowell Cohn also asked Lee about his matchup with Blake Griffin.
From Simmons in the San Francisco Chronicle:
The Clippers’ All-Star power forward was limited to 19 minutes, producing 16 points and only three rebounds before fouling out in the fourth quarter’s final minute. The power forward matchup is going to be one of the keys to this best-of-seven series, and Lee knows it.
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“Me being aggressive on the offensive end helps us guard him defensively, because we’re making him work on both ends,” Lee said. “He’s a very good player, who is probably going to be a First-Team All-NBA guy this year, and he’s a guy that they go to a lot, in a variety of ways. My goal is to try to take away as many of his easy baskets as possible, because I think his easy baskets – specifically his dunks and fastbreak points – not only ignite his game, but it also ignites the games (of his teammates). They really feed off of him getting those easy buckets.”
From Cohn in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat:
Someone asked if Lee was surprised at how closely the refs called game?
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“I wasn’t surprised by that at all,” he said.
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Oh, please stop the presses again. David Lee was not surprised the whistle blowers blew a million whistles. He expected it. Why? Because he thought about it in advance.
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Did you hear that, Blake?
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“It’s what I somewhat expected,” Lee continued. “I didn’t think foul trouble would be as big a problem as it was. I expected them (the refs) to try to get a hold of that early so it didn’t get out of hand, so you’re not looking at Game 3 or at Game 4 with five, six guys suspended.”
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Duh.
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Did Lee adjust his game to the refs and play with more care?
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“I got two quick ones (fouls), so I had to be a little more careful. It’s our job as players to adjust to that as the game goes on.”
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Please understand. Lee adjusted during the game, but Griffin still hadn’t adjusted the morning after. Lee never fouled out. He played a monster second half, ended up with 20 points and 13 rebounds.
During the media availability, while most of us congregated towards Curry and Lee, Monte Poole of CSN Bay Area also got a chance to step aside with Andre Iguodala:
The Warriors would like a bit more from Iguodala than 20 minutes of action and locking up one of the best shooters in the league. They need him to run the offense at times, to pitch in with scoring and to lead.
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“I’ve had a lot of postseason experience, played against a lot of great teams,” Iguodala said before Sunday’s practice. “Most of the teams I’ve lost to in the postseason made it to the finals, so I’ve had a chance to play a lot of series against championship-caliber teams
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“I want to bring that experience to this team, to help us understand the importance of every possession and point out some of the little, minute things that might get overlooked.”
As Warriors PR personnel shepherded the members of the media outside of the gym, Curry engaged Ezeli in a little one-on-one. After using his seven-inch height advantage for some jump hooks, Festus went out to the perimeter a little and Curry showed him a few crossover moves he could try.
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