I remember exactly where I was when Baron Davis threw it down all over Andrei Kirilenko during the 2007 playoffs. I was watching it on one of the smallest TV’s imaginable and I remember thinking, “Is he wearing a back brace?” I knew immediately that I was watching something that would go down as one of the most memorable plays in Warriors history.
It’s been a while since a single play has been able to remain implanted in the minds of Warriors fans. Monta Ellis provided his fair share of highlight plays but nothing to the effect of Baron’s dunk. With no super athletic players on the roster, it looked to be another season of zero eye-popping, jump-out-of-your-chair moments for Golden State.
And then Harrison Barnes decided it was time for a change.
With 2:27 left in the second quarter of last night’s game, Barnes took a nice feed from David Lee and absolutely destroyed Nikola Pekovic with a one-handed monster jam.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjECOakCpt8
Three hilarious events took place after Pekovic’s destruction:
1) Barnes’ staredown of Pekovic
2) Carl Landry’s on-court reaction to the dunk
3) The bench’s reaction where almost everyone ran on to the court in celebration
So where did this dunk rank in Barnes’ career? “Top. Top by far” he said with a chuckle.
How about where Mark Jackson would rank it? “It was right behind Tom Chambers over me.” A little self-deprecation is always a crowd pleaser.
In the grand scheme of things, the dunk was just a small part of another impressive win for the Warriors on the back end of a back-to-back after losing the first game (the third time this season they’ve done that). However, it isn’t every day that this team shows up on the positive end of a highlight play so it’s okay for everyone to sit back and enjoy this probably a little bit more than they should.