AUBURN HILLS, MI — The Golden State Warriors, sporting a 37-3 record, rolled into Detroit Metro after an easy victory over the Los Angeles Lakers at Oracle Arena, where the fanfare of Kobe Bryant‘s farewell tour seemed to take precedence over the game itself.
The loose nature — definitely too chill — of the team may have spilled over into the game against the Detroit Pistons, which happened to be honoring the retirement of the uniform numbers of Ben Wallace — noted defensive stalwart, by the way, whom Draymond Green himself honored — and Chauncey Billups.
Prior to the start of the game, Green gave himself up to media, which is rare to do before a game, as he was back in his hometown area:
- Draymond pregame Warriors-Pistons: Izzo “means so much to me”
- Draymond pregame Warriors-Pistons on parallels with Ben Wallace
Members of the previous Pistons championship team, including head coach Larry Brown, power forward Rasheed Wallace, and small forward Rip Hamilton were also on hand for the festivities, which stretched the halftime to an unusual 30 or 45 minutes.
The Warriors were already down 16 points by then, and never recovered.
After a two-hour non-weather-related flight delay (United ?) — we were going to miss morning shootaround anyways because The Palace is an hour from the actual city of Detroit — we drove a frigid two hours up to Saginaw High School.
There, we spoke with Mary Babers-Green, Draymond’s mom, and Julian Taylor, current head coach of the Trojans who was an assistant when Draymond led them to two straight state championships.
Here’s our view of the festivities, from the pregame run out of the tunnel, to layup lines, to national anthem, to halftime Pistons tribute, to post-game:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rj2yEWFH9m8&w=420&h=315]Here are some postgame quotes after the poor performance by the Warriors:
- Luke Walton postgame Warriors-Pistons: “They were in a rhythm all night long”
- Green postgame Warriors-Pistons
- Klay postgame Warriors-Pistons: “we just gotta get our mental edge back…maybe we needed that one”
- Stephen Curry postgame Warriors-Pistons: “They kept throwing haymakers”
- Andrew Bogut: getting ready for Cavs. “Our defense has been horrendous”, Harrison Barnes
The next day, the Warriors trekked through the snow and practiced at a nearby high school:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctJJf1qcrQQ&w=420&h=315]One of the highlights of the post-practice shootaround was Curry not only making, but swishing 10 of 15 three-pointers:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEY0moqSotw&w=560&h=315]After that, the team took a two-hour bus ride to Cleveland to face the Cleveland Cavaliers on MLK Day.
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