Barber: Will Warriors-Pelicans be next venue for vulgar fans?

OAKLAND - The last time the Warriors dropped a home game in the postseason was June 19, 2016, in the Game 7 loss to Cleveland that haunted the team for a year. Since then, they have rattled off 14 consecutive playoff wins at Oracle Arena, one short of the NBA record.

Like Stephen Curry's knee and the ability to defend Anthony Davis in the post, Oracle is a competitive factor unto itself. Warriors coach Steve Kerr said Game 1 of the current Western Conference semifinal series might have been the loudest he's heard the arena. And that standard must have been shattered, at least for a moment, when Curry entered Game 2 on Tuesday.

Now the action shifts to New Orleans - Game 3 is Friday night at Smoothie King Center - and the atmosphere will be quite different. Home-court advantage is real in the NBA. It's one of the best things about the league. And sometimes, one of the worst.

Fan behavior is back in the news, courtesy of Oklahoma City guard Russell Westbrook, who confronted a Jazz fanatic and took a swipe at his phone while exiting the court for the final time this season, after an elimination loss at Utah last Friday.

At the podium after that game, Westbrook lashed out.

“They talk about your family, about your kids, and it's just a disrespect to the game and I think it's something that needs to be brought up,” he said. “I'm tired of just going out and playing, and then the fans say what the hell they want to say. I'm not with that, because if I was just on the street they wouldn't say anything crazy because I don't play that (expletive).”

Westbrook was not an ideal messenger, because the man is always ticked off about something.

He once looked ready to trade blows with a teammate who skipped Westbrook's hand when the team was exchanging high-fives in two lines. He perceives slights in every question.

Asked about Westbrook's comments this week, though, several Warriors had his back.

“What Russ says has some truth to it,” guard Shaun Livingston said at practice Monday. “I mean, he's not sitting up here just telling lies.”

Power forward Draymond Green was more adamant.

“I saw Russell's comments,” Green said. “And I heavily, strongly agree with them.”

It's true that these players are public figures, and are lavishly compensated to play their sport. Mockery comes with the territory. They have no basis to complain about that. And really, they weren't.

Green compared the NBA to Premier League soccer, where no chant is too cruel or too provocative. “I never really see Neymar and Messi come out and say, uh, ‘Man, these fans are crazy.' No, that's kind of a way of life,” he added.

As shooting guard Klay Thompson said: “If I was doing it for free, that'd be a problem. But I'm paid to go out there and be yelled at. The NBA is an entertainment entity. So people have long days at work, I understand, and when they come to a basketball game, they want to let out their frustration and root for their team to win. I used to be that kid growing up. So I see both sides.”

It's hard to imagine the placid Thompson ever being that kid. But I'll be honest. I was.

I remember driving with friends from my small hometown to a Monday night Raiders game in Oakland when I was a junior in high school. It was a liberating experience, our first major sporting event without parental supervision. Our seats were low, and close to the Steelers bench, and I remember yelling at Jack Lambert, the fearsome Steelers linebacker, something very early-1980s like, “You're a wimp, Lambert!” A Raiders fan in front of me turned around and grinned and said, “Try saying that to his face.”

Which was Westbrook's point, one that was echoed by Green and Livingston. And yeah, I was an idiot high schooler. But I think my words fell within Thompson's definition of working for “an entertainment entity.”

The problem - more and more frequently, it seems - is the nature of the heckling. As a culture, we are becoming coarser, ruder and less filtered. That's the case on Twitter and Facebook, in print and on TV, on the No. 7 bus and definitely at the basketball game.

“They can attack our character, they can talk mess about us,” Thompson said. “But as long as they don't go out of bounds, using people's children and families - that's just over the line.”

And you just know that line is being crossed with regularity, in arenas and ballparks and football stadiums.

Green, who has a reputation as an on-court wild man but often emerges as a rangy thinker, had an interesting take. He thinks the current culture of vulgarity is linked to the rise of social media, but goes beyond it.

“As on Twitter, as on Instagram, so many people hide behind a computer screen, or hide behind the fact that they know we can't necessarily say this or do that,” Green said. “And … it's the same thing in games. People know we can't go in the stands. People know we almost can't say anything back, without taking a hit in our pockets. And I think people use that to their advantage.”

Social-media anonymity is a shield, and so is arena seating - you're close enough to make your voice heard, but separate enough to feel safe. Shields have value when they protect the vulnerable. But we've reached the point where we're using them as protection while we lob insults and threats.

And celebrities can be as bad as the common folk. After the Cavs-Raptors game Tuesday night, rapper Drake got into a heated shouted match with Kendrick Perkins, the inactive Cleveland center, as players made their way into the tunnel. Drake reportedly called Perkins a (bleeping) (bleep), the latter word an obscene term for a part of the female anatomy.

Perkins is 6-foot-10 and 270 pounds. Drake looks like he works out for 15 minutes a day and drinks a lot of chocolate milk.

And yet the rapper felt free to yell anything he wanted. He, too, had a shield, in the form of his 24-hour bodyguards.

How can you blame the athletes for feeling aggrieved?

It's fitting that Green was the most outspoken Warrior on this topic, because he will almost certainly be the primary recipient of any abuse in New Orleans. He had verbal bouts with several Pelicans in Game 2, and got physically tangled with Davis as they fought for a third-quarter rebound. It looked to me like Davis was the primary aggressor; he put Green's arm in a scissors lock when the Warrior tried to stand up.

But I'm sure the Louisiana fans won't see it that way. Green will be New Orleans' Most Wanted. He will be booed incessantly and jeered with signs and raspy zingers. Will it go further than that? I hope not, but good-natured banter seems to be going the way of the post-up center.

You can reach columnist Phil Barber at 707-521-5263 or phil.barber@pressdemocrat.com. Follow him on Twitter: @Skinny_Post.