Well, it took a while to get here, but the 2015 NBA Playoffs arrived in Oakland on Tuesday night. I’m not sure what it was we were watching through four games with New Orleans and Game 1 of the Memphis series, but it wasn’t the NBA playoffs.
Even I, a grizzled veteran of many NBA campaigns, was fooled, as evidenced by my ridiculous column on this site a couple of days ago.
Don’t get me wrong, I still feel very strongly that this series is the Warriors’ to lose, but how they respond to the punch in the mouth they got Tuesday night will be very interesting.
There are a lot of very compelling Memphis storylines to Game 2, and you’ll see them all over the internet. Mike Conley was brilliant in his return. Tony Allen played great. Zach Randolph hit big shot after big shot. The Warriors were harassed into 20 turnovers and countless missed shots, and didn’t look like themselves at all.
I do think there’s one element of this game that has been overlooked, however, partially because it’s not acceptable to complain about officiating in a playoff game, especially one in which a team trailed by double digits most of the game. I’m not saying the refs cost Golden State this game, but I think there’s a call in this game that made things much more difficult for the Warriors.
Three minutes and nine seconds into the game, Dramond Green was whistled for his second foul, both called by referee Scott Foster. This second foul was a bad call, shown clearly on replay, and the result for the Warriors was catastrophic. First, Green reacted to the call by punching the air, and Foster hit him with a T.
Then, Green sat out the entire quarter. If you’ve been watching Warriors games carefully, you would have noticed that Green’s recent first-quarter performances have been incredible. In Game 1 of this series, he scored 11 points, had 3 assists and 2 rebounds in the opening quarter. He finished the game with 15 points, those 3 assists, and 5 rebounds. Well over half of his statistical production was in that first quarter.
In Game 4 against New Orleans, Green posted 13 points in the first quarter, 3 assists, and 2 rebounds. Two of the assists came on Curry 3-pointers, so Green contributed to 21 of the Warriors’ 31 first-quarter points.
When he left the game on Tuesday night, the Warriors looked rudderless. They had lost the floor balance that has been their hallmark, and the Grizzlies were able to slow the game down. By the time Green came back in the second quarter, the game was on a track that the Warriors could not change, no matter how hard they tried.
It’s crazy to say that they lost that game because of that call, but I think it deserves to be listed among the factors leading to the series being tied, and I think ultimately it’s a point in the Warriors’ favor going forward, for this reason: The Grizzlies have very little margin for error in this series. I haven’t watched them enough to say that this was their best game of the year, but it’s hard to imagine them playing much better. Still, the Warriors were never more than a mini-run away from tying the game. The Warriors played one of their worst games, and we’ll find out this upcoming weekend whether that was because of the Grizzlies’ pressure or just “one of those nights.”
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Another thing I’d like to mention: At the very end of his Game 1 press conference, Steve Kerr was about to get up when he was asked a question about whether it was different not having to play against Mike Conley.
I have been watching Kerr talk on television for a long time, and I am rarely surprised, but the look on his face was one I hadn’t seen before. It was like, “I can’t believe you asked such a stupid question, but I’m a nice guy, and so instead of calling you out for it, I’m going to just answer.” He smiled broadly, like someone had told a joke, and said, “Yes. He’s a great player.” And he left.
Kerr indicated Monday that he felt his players had a lot of headwind facing them in Game 2. The Curry MVP thing and Conley’s return were two major events that boosted Memphis emotionally, all while providing a distraction for the Warriors. The juxtaposition of the two was part of the storyline Tuesday night.
I wrote a couple of weeks ago that the Warriors used losses very well this season. Whether they can do that on Saturday will set the direction of their season. I’m on the record that they will still win this series.
