golden state warriors 3 point challenge: draymond green brings #dubbracket to its end over mark jackson and his ‘cockiness’ (Photo: Festus Ezeli @fezzyfel Instagram account)
WARRIORS PRACTICE FACILITY, OAKLAND, CA — This past Thursday, the Golden State Warriors held the Elite Eight round of their 3-Point Challenge, a single-elimination 3-point shooting contest mimicking the NCAA Tournament. We dubbed it #DubBracket.
We were at practice and live-tweeted the event on our @LetsGoWarriors Twitter account. First up was Jordan Crawford against Steve Blake, who according to Diamond Leung of the Bay Area News Group, had proclaimed on KNBR that he would win the Challenge:
Steve Blake on KNBR predicted he would win the Warriors' 3-point Championship.
— Diamond Leung (@diamond83) March 21, 2014
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After an intense, closely fought battle, Crawford emerged the victor. But then the matchup that everyone was waiting for, head coach Mark Jackson versus Draymond Green, commenced.
It didn’t start out smoothly. Green argued that some of his initial shots were practice shots. The rest of the matchup wasn’t without controversy as well. In the middle of it all? Why, Stephen Curry, of course!
“I take my first shot, Steph Curry’s dancing and shooting underneath the hoop while I’m shooting,” Jackson claimed afterwards, “I take another shot, Draymond Green gives a defensive slide in the midst of it. That’s not part of the rules.”
Our livetweet seemed to corroborate Coach’s allegations:
Now there's a debate as to how many Mark Jackson has shot at the elbow. Dray attempts to block it to stop and protest. Where's Dick Bavetta?
— LetsGoWarriors (@LetsGoWarriors) March 27, 2014
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And the still picture that is shown for Warriors.com’s video clip seems to indicate that, indeed, Curry was doing something while Jackson was shooting.
Nevertheless, Green won the first station in the right hand corner amidst cheers from players as well as assistant coaches, but Jackson would get his revenge at the right elbow as he banked in a shot.
Moving onto the third station, the straight-away shot, Green won by making three out of the five shots at each station. Jackson walked away towards the other side of the court in disbelief, clearly aggravated by his own missed shots.
At the fourth station, Green eliminated Jackson, who collapsed to the floor as Curry threw a bucket of bubble gum into the air (he and teammates cleaned up shortly thereafter). Festus Ezeli posted this replay:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHh6lgBWRck?list=UUeYc_OjHs3QNxIjti2whKzg&w=560&h=315]
As Draymond had declared, the #DubBracket Challenge would be shut down if he won. Steph Curry seems to have confirmed it: "Tournament over!"
— LetsGoWarriors (@LetsGoWarriors) March 27, 2014
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Jackson told media afterwards, “I’m just disappointed in the way that they conducted themselves and it certainly shows dysfunction.”
“It wasn’t a surprise,” said Andre Iguodala, who would have faced Curry in the next portion of the bracket, “Coach has been bragging for awhile, but the cameras came on, we got deep into the playoffs, got to the Elite Eight. Pressure starts to build up a little bit. Coach burst his pipes with pressure, or gotta make diamonds, so Draymond on the bling.”
“Nice to knock coach out. A lot of the guys weren’t too happy with the cockiness Coach was bringing to the shootout, so it was nice to see him go down,” said center Andrew Bogut, who had been eliminated in the first round by Jackson, “We’ll just crown Draymond as the champion and move on.”
Iguodala’s assessment of Jackson’s “swagger” was a bit more toned down.
“Nah, that’s just him,” Iguodala said, “He played like that. Some guys, it’s good to be cocky. Kind of gets them going.”
“I looked at the footage,” Jackson said, “Some of my coaches were jumping around. They say now that the tournament is overwith, the sole goal was to knock me out. I just can’t believe it. I’m so disappointed right now.”
Jackson said that the 3-Point Challenge was a good way to keep things light in the middle of a hotly contested playoff race in the Western Conference.
“It’s a fun time and I thought it was a great thing for the players and the coaches to get involved with,” Jackson explained, “It keeps it light around here, no matter what team you’re on. This type of year, this time of year, it’s such a grind that it’s important to keep it light. I thought it was mission accomplished.”
Bogut also quipped that he had heard players generally get better as shooters after retiring.
“If I didn’t know any better, I would think that was a compliment, but that was actually shots fired. I’m gonna stick with the ‘no comment’,” Jackson joked in response, “You do become a better shooter later on in your career, the hours and the time you put in, so I started as not a good shooter and improved as time went on many hours of practice. That being said, just like Steph felt when I beat him, I will say when Draymond upsets me — notice the trick with the words right there — I’m still the best guy.”
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