A Press Democrat Blog

Overtime

Ted Sillanpaa looks at the San Francisco Giants, other Bay Area sports and gives a dad's-eye view of Empire prep and youth sports trends

Either 3-pointers fall or Warriors will go down on Thursday

Wednesday, at 1:20 by

By TED SILLANPAA Mark Jackson’s inspired pep talks won’t save the Warriors. The club won’t suddenly develop a low-post offense that allows them to really grind it out in the halfcourt to beat the Spurs with layups and free throws. Harrison Barnes and Klay Thompson can’t defend more than one player apiece so Golden State’s defensive shortcomings aren’t going away, particularly when Jarrett Jack has played brilliantly offensively while offering nothing on the the defensive end. Jackson won’t do it,… Read More »

Warriors turned ball over, shot poorly … still won Game 4 to prove they can make a miracle

Sunday, at 5:27 by

By TED SILLANPAA Magic Johnson spent ABC’s halftime show reading the Warriors postseason obituary. It was hard to imagine Golden State, with Stephen Curry hobbled and foul troubles haunting the bigs, beating the Spurs Sunday or any other day. In fact, Magic said, “The shots aren’t falling for the Warriors. When the shots are falling, they can beat anybody. Jump-shooting teams just don’t win championships.” The Warriors wound up making just 38 percent of their shots in Game 4, and… Read More »

Roaring fans in home arena only helps if Warriors outplay Spurs

Saturday, at 10:40 by

By TED SILLANPAA Much has been understandably made of the Warriors’ crazed, wild, loud home crowd in the Oakland Coliseum Arena. Oddly, though, the capacity crowd that can blow the top of the joint was no advantage at all in Game 3 on Friday night. It turns out, the home crowd really doesn’t help the home team if the visiting team just plays a better game. A loud home crowd didn’t phase the visiting Spurs. Heck, the Warriors rallied from… Read More »

Game 2 win in San Antonio makes Warriors title contender

Wednesday, at 9:35 by

By TED SILLANPAA The Golden State Warriors are no longer that fun, little team that can’t really win in the NBA playoffs. Oh, media types will still mock the notion that they could actually reach the NBA Finals, but they’ve done nothing to show they can do just that. The Warriors went into San Antonio and manhandled the highly-favored Spurs for 3 1/2 quarters before losing Game 1 in double-overtime, then beat them 100-91 to get the game on the… Read More »

Nothing exciting in Warriors-Nuggets getting unnecessarily physical

Thursday, at 1:23 by

By TED SILLANPAA The media and some fans are gleeful at the prospect of the Warriors-Nuggets Game 6 being a knock-down, drag-out battle filled with hard fouls, cheap shots, etc. They think the series got more exciting because the Nuggets started knocking Stephen Curry around and the Warriors responded by, literally, slamming Kenneth Faried into the seats. A hard foul that prevents a layup is good, hard basketball. If things gets even more physical as players try to get rebound… Read More »

NBA, officials have to punish for every cheap shot in Game 6

Wednesday, at 12:59 by

By TED SILLANPAA It’s fairly easy to make sure that Warriors-Nuggets Game 6 doesn’t continue the game-changing physicality that marred Game 5. The NBA needs to make it clear to both coaches that there’s no tolerance for any action they determine to be intended to do physical harm. If Kenneth Faried knows he might be ejected without warning if a game official sees him do what he did in Game 5 and kick at Stephen Curry’s bum ankle, Faried is… Read More »

Warriors’ star pushes way into ranking of NBA’s elite, but …

Tuesday, at 2:47 by

By TED SILLANPAA Twitter @tedsillanpa Golden State Warriors fans and the folks paid to write and talk about the team are drunk on the exploits of guard Stephen Curry. He has turned in an unforgettable performance or two in the postseason against the Denver Nuggets. It could be that those “MVP! MVP!” chants that rocked the arena in Oakland will eventually be declarative statements of fact. On Monday afternoon, a little high myself on the memory of Curry’s 22-point third-quarter… Read More »

Warriors-Nuggets: Crowd noise impacted home team & beating the traps

Sunday, at 6:09 by

From the arena in Oakland, Sunday at 5:55 p.m. By Ted Sillanpaa Warriors’ coach Mark Jackson said that the raucous Oakland crowd for Game 3 actually caused Golden State problems early on Friday. “We had difficulty yelling out the action on the pick and roll,” Jackson said. “Our bigs were calling out the screen like they’re supposed to, but with the crowd noise our guards couldn’t hear it and we got caught a couple times.” The Warriors addressed the problem.… Read More »

Game 3 Warriors’ help defense saved victory

Saturday, at 2:01 by

From the arena in Oakland Ted Sillanpaa The Denver Nuggets won Game One of their NBA playoff series against the Golden State Warriors, in large part, because the Warriors failed to help on defense and allowed Andre Miller easy access to the rim for the game-winning hoop. The Warriors learned from the mistake and used helping team defense to preserve a victory in Game Three on Saturday night. Festus Ezeli’s quick reaction to pick up Ty Lawson when Klay Thompson… Read More »

Warriors found championship formula in Denver

Wednesday, at 1:27 by

By TED SILLANPAA Twitter @tedsillanpa Follow Sillanpaa on Facebook ted.sillanpaa@pressdemocrat.com Woa! Wait! No. I’m not suggesting that a win in Game 2 of the NBA playoffs in Denver means that the Warriors have poven they can win the NBA championship. I’m simply pointing out that they did everything so well in beating the Nuggets that they created a formula that, if followed exactly, would win any team a title. The Warriors made over 60 percent of their field goal attempts and… Read More »