Warriors may be back in driver's seat by tonight

OAKLAND, Calif.

The Warriors beat the L.A. Clippers, 122-116, Saturday night, but you can’t exactly say the Warriors took care of business. If they wanted to take care of business, they would have defeated the Denver Nuggets on Thursday. But that’s blood under the bridge, as they say.

And now Golden State gets to deal with the available reality — which isn’t all bad. You see, as the Warriors were defeating the perpetually horrible Clippers, Denver was getting eviscerated by the Jazz in Utah. Most teams lose to the Jazz in Utah. It’s like a genie put a magic spell on that arena, and visiting teams lose the ability to perform even the basics.

The combination of a Warriors win and a Nuggets loss leads to an interesting state of affairs. It means the Warriors and Nuggets are once again tied, each with two games remaining. Of course, you know this being tied business is not the real truth. Because the Nuggets own the tiebreaker, the Warriors must finish one game ahead of them to qualify for the playoffs. Sometimes life can be highly complicated.

So, get this. Denver plays Houston tonight in Denver. Houston is very good. Houston is better than Denver. Houston did not play Saturday night. The Rockets were hanging around Denver waiting for the Nuggets to return from Salt Lake City and, assuming the Rockets players stayed out of trouble and got to bed early, they should be the better-rested team. By far.

There’s more. The Warriors don’t play tonight. They watch. They watch the Denver-Houston game. Let’s say, just for the heck of it, that Houston wins — not a lock but a distinct possibility. Then the Warriors are in the driver’s seat. It’s weird to think about, but there it is — the driver’s seat. That means if the Warriors win their final two games, they go to the playoffs and the Nuggets don’t. The mind reels.

Can the Warriors win their final two games? Well, that’s the key question. Here’s the optimistic thinking. The Warriors will win in Phoenix on Monday night because the Suns pretty much will have their postseason position fixed and have nothing to play for and will rest their starters — certainly Steve Nash and Shaq — for significant minutes. In other words, if you’re being optimistic, the Suns won’t try hard.

That brings us to the Warriors’ final game of the season on Wednesday night in Oakland against the Seattle Supersonics, a mediocre group. The Warriors ought to defeat Seattle at home in a game that means everything, a game that defines the season, a game that is do or die.

As I say, this is the optimistic scenario. It is an entirely possible scenario, but remember the Warriors have a million different personalities. They are the undersized scrappers, the dynamic fast-breakers, the no-defense underachievers, the 3-point-shot lunatics who live and die by the 3. And they are the team that, for no apparent reason, loses the easy games, loses games they absolutely should win, loses the games that break hearts.

That means there are no guarantees, no way. But the Warriors, who seemed on the point of death a few days ago, certainly are breathing more vigorously. It helps that they played the Clippers, a team going nowhere. And yet, the Warriors were in trouble throughout the fourth quarter. They allowed the Clippers to slow down the game, to make it a half-court game, and the Warriors do not excel at slow and half-court. At this time last season, the Warriors were peaking. Now they are pooped and they are hanging on and they are hoping Denver collapses.

Baron Davis saved them on Saturday. In my fourth quarter notes, I wrote: “Baron drive,” and then, “Baron running hook,” and then “Baron lay-up.”

At the end, Davis took the game to the Clippers and he did not shoot 3-pointers. He played smart. He played real basketball and he made his team a winner.

He scored nine points, had three assists in the fourth quarter. And with 14 seconds left, in a gesture of pure joy — or relief — he ripped off his headband and threw it into the crowd.

Afterward, Don Nelson was exhausted, his sweat-wet hair plastered to his head. This was a marked difference from his pregame performance, which was lighthearted and whimsical. Before the game he had walked into the interview room. The writers sat mute.

“You don’t know what to ask,” he said, “and I don’t know what to say. I’ll talk to you later.”

He was in and out of there in two minutes — it’s unusual to see the big guy move that quickly.

Now that the Warriors had won, he complained. He complains in good situations — maybe he’s superstitious.

“We’re going to have to play an awful lot better in Phoenix if we want to win that game,” he grumbled. “I keep telling you our team isn’t that deep because of the youth we’re waiting for. When I have my starters off the floor, things happen negatively.”

You would have thought the Warriors lost, the way he was going on. He was in that grumpy mood until someone asked what he’ll do tonight. He smiled, giggled actually.

“I’m going to watch the (Denver-Houston) game and have a few cocktails,” he said. “What else am I going to do, bite my fingernails? I don’t have any left.”

You can reach Staff Columnist Lowell Cohn at 521-5486 or lowell.cohn@pressdemocrat.com.