Golden State Warriors Basketball Team

Suddenly and swiftly, the question in Clipperland on Wednesday became: What will Elton Brand do? In a whirlwind that amounted to "who has the salary cap space now?" the Golden State Warriors reached deep down the coastline and even deeper into their pocketbooks, offering free-agent forward Brand a five-year, $90-million contract, according to multiple NBA sources who requested anonymity because they are not authorized to speak publicly about player movements.

Reaching the playoffs for the first time since 1994, the Golden State Warriors beat the Portland Trail Blazers, 120-98, Wednesday night to earn the eighth and final Western Conference postseason berth. Baron Davis had 12 points, 10 rebounds and 14 assists and the Warriors made sure the Clippers' game against the New Orleans Hornets didn't matter. It was decided early, with the Warriors going ahead, 64-46, at halftime and leading by as many as 28 points.

Now it's a basketball series too? Feud angles didn't get any better than Golden State Coach Don Nelson versus his old boss, Dallas owner Mark Cuban, the problem being the series didn't figure to last long. That was before Game 1 when the Warriors, once 26-35, shocked the 67-win Mavericks as cameras zoomed in on Cuban, slumped in his courtside seat, glowering at the action or jumping up to yell at the referees.

Royalty everywhere else, a pinata here. Already wobbling in this series, the Dallas Mavericks found themselves with worse problems Friday night, swallowed up by a folk movement celebrating the first local playoff game since 1994 and run over by the Warriors, 109-91, before 20,629 in Oracle Arena, the largest crowd to see a basketball game in California. The Warriors, a No. 8-seeded team whose coach, Don Nelson, counted them out in March when they were 26-35, now lead the No.

Out of nowhere, a socko first round ... Well, up here, anyway. Talk about your tale of two regions. Half of California is out of its gourd -- just not the usual half. If the Golden State Warriors are the NBA's new darlings, however briefly, things must have changed. However hopefully, the team now features a new anthem during warmups: the Beatles' "Revolution." Of course, the old order started changing a while back.

A funny thing happened on the way to the choke of the ages. Having just blown a 21-point lead, about to become the winningest No. 1 seed to lose in the first round of the NBA playoffs, the Dallas Mavericks' fallen star, Dirk Nowitzki, rallied his teammates from a nine-point deficit in the final 3:02 as they scored the last 15 points to beat the Golden State Warriors, 118-112.

What a lovely first-round war. It doesn't get any better than the Dallas-Golden State series, which resumes tonight with the Warriors, who were three minutes from shocking the world in Game 5, still ahead, 3-2, and one elusive win away from dumping the Mavericks on their big reputation. A series with the ultimate David and the ultimate Goliath just had the ultimate comeback in Game 5 with the Mavericks rallying from nine points down in the final 3:02.

If mere pride goes before a fall, far worse awaited the Dallas Mavericks and owner Mark Cuban, whose bombast set them up for a pratfall for the ages that arrived with a splat Thursday night. In an upset as improbable as the dead-end kids who pulled it off, the Golden State Warriors buried the team that finished 25 games ahead of them, 111-86, taking the series, 4-2. The Mavericks, who went 67-15 this season, became the winningest No.

So, after taking eight years of his career, carving up his body and sullying his good name, the gods gave Baron Davis this postseason. What followed is now called the greatest upset in NBA history, the Warriors slaying the mighty Dallas Mavericks as Davis personally trampled the best-laid plans of Dallas Coach Avery Johnson and Johnson's guards. \o7Welcome back to Mt. Olympus, kid, where did you go?\f7 "Ooh, is he good," said Nuggets Coach George Karl, watching from Denver.