#DubNation Diary: Warriors Post Game Interview Sights & Sounds – The Sting Of Losing Game 7 vs Clippers (Photo: @letsgowarriors)
STAPLES CENTER, LOS ANGELES, CA — After the Los Angeles Clippers eliminated the Golden State Warriors, 126-121, I headed down from the third-deck auxiliary press row to the locker rooms.
The press conference room was overflowed and so I re-directed to the Warriors locker room, where we waited a bit before they let us in. There was a huddle around Draymond Green‘s locker room, where Green was still sitting, answering questions.
“This group has a lot to be proud of,” Green said, “We had built-in excuses. We had all the reasons and excuses to lay it down throughout the year. We never laid it down.”
Every player fielded questions about head coach Mark Jackson‘s future with the team, but I will cover that in a separate post.
To the right of Green on the adjacent side of the room, a solemn Andre Iguodala also was still sitting down in his chair by his locker. A reporter asked him to reflect on the game, how it unraveled at the end.
“An offensive foul call, a carrying call — might’ve been the first one of the series,” Iguodala said, “Just little things threw us out of rhythm and got them right back in the game.”
To the right of Iguodala was Klay Thompson, who had dressed quickly. As usual, it was difficult to hear the soft-spoken Thompson, especially in a cramped locker room. However, he had that usual look of pain on his face after a loss.
“It stinks, especially when you thought you did everything to win the game. We’re still going to be proud of what we’ve done,” Thompson said, “This organization’s trending upward, but it’s going to be hard to watch playoff games.”
David Lee was next up, to the right of Thompson’s locker, and was asked about how the Clippers seized control of the game towards the end.
“They had a couple times where they were able to finish and get out in transition there in the 4th quarter,” Lee said, “Blake (Griffin) had a couple tough moves. I think their size wore on us a little bit as the game went on.”
Asked to summarize his performance this series, Lee said, “I would, of course, like to think I could have done better.
“It was a different sort of series,” Lee added, “Played a lot out of the pick-and-roll instead of isos. Weren’t a lot of post-ups with a guy like DeAndre (Jordan) guarding me at the five — a lot of pick-and-roll play. Defensively, my main job was to keep him off the glass, so I did the best I could in that category and, like I said, it was a different kind of matchup and I just tried to do my best.”
Once Jermaine O’Neal got dressed, he graciously addressed media as he always does. This time, it took awhile for him to realize that this might be his last time addressing media in the locker room.
“It really is going to depend on my wife and my kids, especially my little boy,” O’Neal said, “Being a kid that was raised without his father, I know how hard these last few years have been for my son.
“I’m going to sit down and have another conversation with my seven-year-old, an eight-year-old, again, and see where the blessings are for me, but I can say this,” O’Neal added, “I appreciate what my teammates be done for me this year, interjecting life back into my soul. I appreciate what our organization has done for me. I appreciate what our fan base has done for me giving me love for basketball again.”
The average post-game interview post that I put on our Instagram account garners over 300 “likes”, but this particular post attracted over 450 this time, with several very appreciative comments by #DubNation fans.
During this whole time, Stephen Curry had been getting dressed quietly in the corner, to the right of Lee’s (the sequence on that side went Marreese Speights in the corner, Hilton Armstrong, Iguodala, Harrison Barnes, Thompson, Lee, and Curry). After getting spiffed up, he answered some questions from a foreign reporter, then staff led him to the podium in the press conference room down the hall. Another beatwriter and I followed him in.
Curry was asked to categorize the season as a success or failure.
“It’s hard to put it into black-and-white terms,” Curry said, “Obviously, making the playoffs is a checkpoint in what we were trying to do this year, and looking at the matchup, we felt like we had a chance to win this series, if we played like we were supposed to.
“It comes down to the last two minutes of a seven-game series, so it’s hard to say it’s a failure of a season,” Curry added, “Obviously we had our eyes set on bigger goals, but we fought and we left it all on the floor. I don’t feel like we had any regrets as to how the series unfolded. A couple of plays here and there down the stretch of this game and we could be in a different situation, so we’ll be alright.”
Just building up his playoff resume, Curry reflected on last year’s playoff experience.
“You’ve tasted a little bit of success and you want more,” Curry explained, “So it definitely stings a little more. Last year we were kind of on a joyride.”
After that, I took one last venture into the Warriors locker room, where I found Barnes talking to just a couple reporters.
Barnes said that the Warriors thought they had the game won.
“Not one person before the game, at halftime, at the start of the 4th quarter thought we were going be out tonight (eliminated),” Barnes remarked, “I think everyone believed we were gonna win, thought we were going to win. We were prepared to win. Give them credit, they made the right plays.”
Back in the media room, well past 1:00AM after uploading these interviews, I later learned of the altercation outside the locker rooms, as reported by Marc Spears of Yahoo Sports and Sam Amick of USA Today, which apparently happened right after the game and well before reporters arrived.
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