Warriors, Sharks slap LA around

Being a San Francisco-born Northern Californian, I’ve kept no secret about my feelings on the Los Angeles Dodgers – I very much don’t like (I don’t like to use the hate word) the “bums.”

But it’s not just the Dodgers who irk the heck out of me, it’s any team from Southern California, putting “Beat LA” at the top of my sports vernacular.

Actually, let me clarify that with it’s not only being SoCal teams that I dislike, it’s also about some SoCal political issues that raise my ire, along with a majority of fellow NorCalites, like water – keep your greedy paws of power off our H2O.

But back to the less real-life-affecting world of sports and rooting for your teams, it’s pretty obvious that I’m so far thoroughly enjoying the pro basketball and ice hockey postseason playoffs.

In the opening round game of the much superior Western Conference eight-team playoffs – sorry Eastern Conference’s eight playoff teams, but, except for a few teams, parity with the West isn’t happening – the supposed to be overmatched and overwhelmed Golden State Warriors took the swagger out of the LA Clippers.

At just a little past high noon on Saturday at LA’s over-the-top Staples Center, the series was practically declared over before it started for the Warriors by the national and SoCal media because they were without big, tough man Andrew Bogut in the middle.

Without Bogut protecting sensational Steph Curry and his Warrior mates, the lip-licking Clippers would lob-dunk their way into the second round.

But under negative-swamped coach Mark Jackson – which doesn’t make sense when you look at what he’s accomplished with the team in the past two years, whose players are totally in his corner, and he should be in the thick for coach-of-the-year honors – the Warriors are a truly tight and delightful team to watch. And when their backs are to the wall, they’re even more dangerous and exciting to follow.

After being the manhandlers in Saturday’s foul-infested opening-round game – the league office and refs were fearful of a two-team brawl – the winning Warriors grabbed home court advantage and an edge in the seven-game series despite last night’s second-game outcome at Staples – results weren’t available at presstime.

I don’t want to say I told you so to some Warrior doubters, but our Bay Area cagers have the coach and team chemistry for a fun playoff run at the expense of LA, and they are being joined by NorCal’s icemen, the San Jose Sharks.

The Sharkees “zambonied” their home rink with the LA Kings in two first-round NHL Stanley Cup matches and will now take their turn in disrupting SoCal’s Staples Center fun house on their way to, hopefully, the playoff finals and will bring the treasured Stanley Cup to the South Bay.

Ciao!