Lowell Cohn: Warriors suffer through an unexpected reversal of roles

OAKLAND - Bad. Bad. Bad.

The Warriors were not supposed to lose Game 1 of this series. They were supposed - expected - to beat the Oklahoma City Thunder. They lost 108-102.

Gut punch.

The Warriors lost even though they had a 14-point lead in the third quarter. Even though the Thunder constantly threw away the ball in the first half - like guys carelessly tossing a beach ball in a pool. Even though the Warriors had home court, and almost never lose on their home court. Never surrender home-court advantage.

Even though the Warriors won those 73 regular-season games and had the best record in the league. The usual stuff. Their marks of distinction. Their pedigree.

Instead, something unusual happened. The Warriors scored 14 pitiful points in the fourth quarter. Panicked. Use any phrase you want. Try the old standbys. They lost their composure. Didn't show their customary poise. Oh, don't use those vague, useless phrases. Don't sugarcoat it. They couldn't seal the deal. Panicked.

They had the game won. And then they didn't have the game won. Didn't know how to close it out. The Warriors are a closeout team, and the Thunder are a fold team - they have folded in fourth quarters. And the Thunder came from behind, ran down the Warriors, took the lead and held it.

So strange. So uncharacteristic of the Warriors. So weird to see them fail. Not supposed to happen. In their place. In this century. In this universe.

The Thunder had more poise than the Warriors - more poise when it counted. The Warriors, who are dazzlers, tried to dazzle the Thunder in the first half. Run them off the court. It's what the Warriors do. But the Thunder refused to be dazzled. And they sure refused to panic.

They won even though one of their two superstars, Kevin Durant, went into a coma in the fourth quarter, missed nine of 12 shots. At one point, he missed seven in a row before he finally hit a key jumper at the end. He may have a raisin for a heart.

But even with Raisin Heart begging the Warriors to take the game, the Warriors couldn't take it. Wouldn't take it.

And there's something else. More like someone else.

I'm talking about Andre Roberson, the Thunder's “other” guard. The not-Russell-Westbrook guard. Roberson started the game. The Warriors did not guard him. No exaggeration here. They literally did not guard him. Left him alone to wander around like some fan who bought a hot dog, took a wrong turn, and ended up on the hardwood blinking his astonished eyes. He would find a faraway place in 3-point-shot territory and hang out there while the Warriors left him alone and put two men on the ball.

Roberson ended up with seven points. He took - get this - three shots. A team that starts a player like Roberson, a team that plays four-man offense has no business beating the Warriors. But the Thunder made it their business.

After the game, Stephen Curry came to the interview room and talked calmly, politely and rationally. Talked about the Warriors “losing their composure,” a euphemism for what really happened.

“Sometimes, those shots go in and it's a good feeling and you keep the crowd into it,” he said. “And tonight it didn't happen. When two or three possessions end up that way, you've to change it up a little bit and grind it out on the offensive end for better shots. We weren't able to do it.”

Because they got rattled. They hurried. Blew their cool against a team unimpressed by who they are and what they've done.

FYI, Curry sank one of six shots in the fourth quarter. There was lots of clanking and clunking as his balls bounced off the rim.

“I do think we lost our poise a little bit,” Steve Kerr said. “And that had a lot to do with the quick shots. I think we were trying to rectify the situation in one or two plays instead of letting it play out.”

Before the game, I asked Kerr why a first game is different from all other games in a playoff series.

“There is a little bit of a feeling out process in a Game 1 that goes away after Game 1,” he said. “As soon as Game 1 is over, one team is going to be desperate and, as each game comes along, you have a different approach for each one based on where you stand in the series, what's been happening. Sometimes, you're frustrated. Sometimes, you've got guys who get tired of guarding each other by Game 3 or 4 and you get some dustups. Game 1 you're trying to get a feel for what the other team is doing, and that seems to change dramatically after the first game.”

I picked up the subject with Kerr afterward. “I asked you about first games and you said the coach who loses the first game feels desperate. Do you?”

“Sure, we're down 1-0 at home, so, yeah, we need to play better. You can use whatever word you want. But we'd like to win Game 2.”

I'll use desperate. The word Kerr introduced.

Someone followed up. Said it's the first time the Warriors trailed in a series this season. Does Kerr want his players desperate or to think they've been through this before?

“It's a long series,” Kerr said. “Our players know that to win the next one would be good. We don't want to go down 2-0. I don't need to tell our players, ‘Hey, get desperate because we've got to win Game 2.' They feel it.”

Synonyms for desperate are frantic, anxious, distressed and fraught.

It's fraught that gets great teams going. Or it kills them.

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.