Lowell Cohn: Admire the beauty in Warriors playoff basketball

NEW ORLEANS — Steve Kerr was ticked off at his team. He got ticked at shootaround Saturday morning, shootaround being the final dress rehearsal for the game Saturday night.

He called his team together on the floor. He didn't raise his voice — he's not a screamer. But his tone was serious. Listen to Stephen Curry describe that scene. 'Coach got into us at the shootaround because he didn't feel we had a sense of urgency.'

Kerr said the players went through the motions. Like they had it made. Said he didn't like that. Didn't want that. Said they could finish off the Pelicans that very night, but only if they played hard and played right. Only if they played harder and righter than they played at shootaround.

The players listened. Got the message. Ran the New Orleans Pelicans right out of the playoffs 109-98. Ran them out four games in a row. After the game, Shaun Livingston gave the team message, in a sense spoke as Kerr. 'Just knowing what was at stake, we came out on edge,' he said. 'If you have a chance to close out a series, you want to do so. You don't know what's going to happen. We all needed to understand the magnitude of this opportunity. You don't want to give another team life.' The Warriors did not give the gift of life.

When the game ended, when the final buzzer went off and the crowd went silent and Draymond Green hand-slapped Stephen Curry under the basket and then hugged the Pelicans' Eric Gordon — good job, good luck — and when the teams finished milling about and finished talking to each other, well, after all of that, the Warriors walked to their little, frugal, Spartan locker room, certainly too small for giants, and they took off their shoes and grabbed food at a buffet table. It was like the postgame locker room from any old game. Certainly not a playoff game. Certainly not the capper to a sweep.

Not one of the Warriors yelled or gave out a single whoop. Nothing of the sort. Green pulled off the name tags from above his locker and Klay Thompson's. He was doing house cleaning. It was the most demonstrative anyone got.

The Warriors had completed what Shaun Livingston called 'a business trip,' taken care of business in the most businesslike way. They had celebrated after Game 3, coming back from that 20-point deficit, had yelled and whooped from the sheer high of almost losing and then winning in a miracle. 'We celebrated more after last game,' Green said. 'We got that win, we were pretty excited. Today, great win and we're moving on.'

But now the Warriors were quiet. Also were relieved. The Pelicans had cut a 21-point lead to seven with a few minutes remaining. It was tension inducing for the Warriors, although Green said, 'I wouldn't say we were hitting the panic button or nothing like that.' And Klay Thompson said the Warriors never really sweated it.

The Pelicans' run was brave, but it was a last-gasp run. The final courageous run of a dying team. The Pelicans were a mackerel gasping for breath. That's a mixed metaphor, I know. Actually, I'm mixing up my animals. It happens sometimes.

The Warriors expected the Pelicans to make a run. It's what teams do. 'You're in control and then all of a sudden you're not,' Kerr said. 'It was good we were able to respond. We expected that. We knew they were coming.' He meant the Warriors needed to experience the pressure of almost gagging. But they never did gag. 'We had our trouble,' Kerr said. 'We passed the test. We move on.'

Green helped them move on. He scored a driving layup late in the game to shove the Pelicans toward the inevitable. 'Draymond had the biggest hoop of the game when he drove in,' Kerr said. And Curry, who finished with 39 of the sweetest points you ever saw, hit a fall-away jumper over Anthony Davis near the end, Davis with arms as long as an octopus's. Even he couldn't defend Curry. No one can.

'I knew he was crafty, a great shooter,' Davis said later. 'There's nothing you can do. You try to pressure him, run him off the line, he hits incredible shots in the lane. You back off so he won't drive, he's going to hit a 3.'

We've noticed. The world has noticed.

This you should know about the Warriors. Green had another enormous, bigger-than-the-Transamerica-Pyramid game — 22 points, 10 rebounds. We always assume the Warriors have two superstars. You know who they are. But isn't Green also becoming a superstar? He does everything. Plays defense. Leads the fast break. Rebounds. Shoots 3s. Shoots layups. He could even coach the team.

Of course, Curry did the Curry thing. And Thompson scored 25 points. He goes up for a jumper and his form and his release and follow-through are textbook and that jumper falls dead center.

And we know the Warriors are a great defensive team. Bogut blocked a Tyreke Evans layup in the third quarter, poor Evans wondering where that big hand came from on an easy shot — on what should have been an easy shot. The Pelicans suffered from easy-shot shock. OK, we know all that.

But what about the beauty of Warriors' basketball? That's right, beauty. Think about their ball movement on offense. Think about their passing. How Curry drove the hoop in the third quarter and passed backwards over his head to Harrison Barnes for a dunk. The Warriors pass the ball alertly, intelligently, beautifully. Their passing is a Shakespeare sonnet. Old Willie would have loved Warriors passing.

The Warriors now become spectators. No, that's incorrect. They become waiters. They wait for their next opponent. Wait to see what happens between Portland and Memphis as they try to solve their mutual problem. The Warriors won't play before next Sunday at the earliest, probably play Memphis.

Waiting is good. A team gets well waiting. The bruises go away. A team studies film. And sleeps at home while the other guys — Memphis and Portland — struggle and battle and get weary earning the right to play the Warriors.

Something regal about that kind of waiting.

For more on the world of sports in general and the Bay Area in particular, go to the Cohn Zohn at cohn.blogs.pressdemocrat.com. You can reach Staff Columnist Lowell Cohn at lowell.cohn@pressdemocrat.com.