<div class="quote_poster">Quoting "San Jose Mercury: Geoff Lepper":</div><div class="quote_post">Staying loose off the court suits Warriors Team chemistry is a key to success for Golden State By Geoff Lepper MediaNews San Jose Mercury News Article Launched:04/25/2007 01:52:31 AM PDT DALLAS - When Jimi Hendrix sang "I'm gonna wave my freak flag high" in 1967, the Warriors were still playing in San Francisco. But four decades and one move across the bay later, that line from "If 6 Was 9" pretty well sums up what is likely the loosest locker room in the NBA playoffs. Compared to the corporate, professional atmosphere fostered by the Dallas Mavericks, the Warriors head into tonight's Game 2 of their first-round Western Conference series with the Mavs looking and feeling like a high school team set free to roam in an NBA arena. Anything is fair game for belittlement from teammates, or even Coach Don Nelson: guard Monta Ellis' dancing skills, guard Baron Davis' fashion statements, center Adonal Foyle's penchant for taking an extra helping of complimentary player tickets, forward Matt Barnes' Mohawk haircut, Nelson's propensity to issue more fines when he's low on cigars, even swingman Stephen Jackson's brush with the law in October. If there's a sacred cow when it comes to the Warriors' banter, it's yet to be located. "This is the funnest team I've been on," Davis said. "You can be yourself." No wonder Nelson's ship makes several Golden State players hearken back to their teenage years. "It makes you love your job, instead of making it be work," guard Jason Richardson said of the Warriors' off-the-court atmosphere. "That's how we all feel right now. We're just having fun, like a whole bunch of guys playing high school basketball. That's one of the reasons you want the season to continue, is because there's so much togetherness on this team." Of course, it's easy to generate togetherness when you've won 17 of your past 22 games and have a 1-0 edge on the top-seeded team in the playoffs. Victories are often used to spackle over any holes in a team's unity, because it's so much easier to overlook the things a teammate does that drive you nuts when you're riding high. But the equation also works the other way - good chemistry leading to better play on the court - and Jackson feels that is what's at work in the Warriors' situation. "I think it goes to the way we play. I think since we're so free on the court that it's easy for us to be free in the locker room," Jackson said. "We want to win for each other. A lot of times you'd be on teams where guys have different agendas and they don't get along, so some guys play harder for certain people." Said Richardson: "I think (chemistry) is where it starts at. You have guys on the team that don't like each other or don't think a guy's playing hard, it carries over on the floor. If you've got guys liking each other, like hanging around each other, you go out on the floor and you can see that. You can see guys having each other's back when things are against a team. Everybody bonds together and finds a way to win the game." </div> One example of the bolded quote: The difference of Mike Dunleavy deciding to be invisible even when the team is depending on him vs. Stephen Jackson and Al Harrington who are gamers and are going to do what's necessary to win. You gotta like the Warriors chemistry right now. This seems like the first time where management, coach, and players have been on the same page for this franchise in a very, very long time.
<div class="quote_poster">AnimeFANatic Wrote</div><div class="quote_post">In other news... Murphleavy have managed to get Rick Carlisle fired. These guys are coach killers!</div> lol! i blame them for everything too! throw fisher in the mix
<div class="quote_poster">AnimeFANatic Wrote</div><div class="quote_post">In other news... Murphleavy have managed to get Rick Carlisle fired. These guys are coach killers!</div> Haha. That's a good nickname for the Dunmurphy/Murphleavy sisters. "Coach Killers" I mean. I think those two players + Adonal Foyle + Derek Fisher in place of constantly injured Baron Davis prove that the Warriors could not win if they did not have the talent first. That's why I can't blame the coaching too much. It just needed a guy like Don Nelson to tell the GM, listen I tried your signings, but they just freakin' suck! That Indiana trade was probably the result of pressure from Don Nelson telling the media that those guys just plain suck. It really forced Mullin to do something about it and he got lucky because of the timing and Larry Bird/Donnie Walsh overrating the "Coach Killers". That's a big burden to take on if he just wanted the draft rights to Ike Diogu. Foyle + Murphy + Dunleavy frontline had to be the weakest in the entire western conference. No coach can work with that crap... and who signed them all in the beginning? Man... I hope Mullin recognizes what weaknesses a player has that can't be masked. Dunleavy was so mediocre and inconsistent he couldn't even argue intangibles or high basketball I.Q. every game to even be a starter. His shooting was not that great and the only reason we probably tolerated him was because his backups (Mickael Pietrus/Calbert Cheaney) had their share of huge flaws as well.
