The Warriors are now 5-0 on the road trip. They are 8 games above .500. They are on the lips of NBA buzz. All thanks to Wednesday’s 97-95 win over the defending champs.

In the final seconds, and with the game tied at 95, Warriors guard Jarrett Jack dribbled away the clock as guards Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson maneuvered off screens to get open. All game long, Miami focused on limiting Curry. Thompson became their focus in the second half too after Thompson lit the Heat up for 21 first-half points.

Paying so much attention to the Warriors’ shooters, Miami forgot about Green.Miami’s Shane Battier, helping out Wade, jumped out on Thompson, leaving Green wide open. Jack saw it and zipped a jump pass inside. Green, in one motion while in mid-air, caught it and banked in the layup with nine-tenths of a second remaining.

Here is the final play in the words of those who experienced it.

Stephen Curry 

“Off the first (cut) I thought I was open. Then I looked back and Wade was on my backside. I tried to come off the other side but by the time I looked at JJack, he had already zeroed in on Draymond. Great playcall by coach to realize we had two threats to come off screen.”

Jarrett Jack 

“They helped a little bit too hard on Klay and Draymond was able to set the screen. Something that we’ve talked about all week because we know they’re a big-time show team. I saw him down low. He did the hard part: making the basket.”

Draymond Green 

“With the last shot, the coach didn’t point out who specifically was going to be taking the shot. He said we’re going to find who’s open and we’r egoing to make the best play. … Of course guys are going to go with Klay and Steph.“I just happened to be wide open.” 

Mark Jackson 

“I give Jarrett Jack a lot of credit. He nursed it, milked it, and Draymond Green did a good job of flashing and finishing.”

Ray Allen 

“Typically, there is always weak-side healp. They occupied that weak side and nobody saw it. Shane (Battier) made a read, but as a team we didn’t make up for that mishap. We just have to have each other’s back down the stretch.” 

Stephen Curry 

“Big play. Big time”

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MIAMI — For those who didn’t believe the Warriors were for real, perhaps a win over the defending NBA champs will change some minds.

“This is who we are,” Warriors coach Mark Jackson said. “We’re a different team. Everybody knows it.”

Golden State celebrated on the floor of AmericanAirlines Arena after surviving with a 97-95 win over the Miami Heat on Wednesday night. And, fittingly for such an improbable victory, the game-winning basket was made by someone nobody expected: rookie forward Draymond Green.

“Of course guys are going to go with Klay and Steph,” Green said. “I just happened to be wide open.”

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If you think for a moment Miami is sleep on this game, you’d better think again.

The Warriors have won 7 of their last 8 games. Point guard Stephen Curry is playing at a level where people are mentioning his name in the MVP race. Forward David Lee is garnering All-Star buzz and silencing his steadfast critics. Golden State is playing defense like never before.

And Miami is aware of it all. So if the Warriors do pull off the upset, they will have to earn it. Here is a transcript from today’s Heat shootaround.

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Coming into this road trip, most would’ve said a 4-3 trip was a success. A 3-4 road trip would have been understandable.

After the Warriors’ 101-97 win at Washington on Saturday, they reached understandable. Now they go into Monday’s game at Charlotte (7-12) looking to make this trip a success.

It was an ugly game. Both team traveled into Washington after Friday night games, and the play looked like it.

Still, Golden State escaped unscathed. They won a game they should have, preserving the value of Friday’s upset at Brooklyn.
Golden State is 13-7, their best start since the 1991-92 season. The Warriors haven’t won the first three games of abroad trip since 1993.

STEPHEN CURRY: “We’ve got good momentum now. The team’s playing well. We’re finding all sorts of different ways to win.”

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At the end of the day, Golden State walked out of Detroit with a win.

Yes, they nearly blew a 20-point fourth-quarter lead. Yes, they missed a valuable opportunity to rest their key players, who just began a seven-games-in-11-days road trip. But starting the road trip 1-0 outweighs any concerns their road to victory may have caused.

MARK JACKSON: “We had some breakdowns at the end but, ultimately, we left here with a victory. I would rather learn in winning than learn in losing.”

To be sure, the 104-97 victory did produce concerns. You could pass the end of the game off as every-team-makes-a-run, but that would be a disservice to Golden State’s developing squad.

Multiple reasons led a 17-point lead with just over five minutes left becoming a three-point lead with just over a minute left. The Warriors got too comfortable taking jumpers. Detroit got hot (and the Warriors’ frantic scrambling on defense played right into that). And Golden State went small, again, and had no protection.

The Warriors made just enough plays to hang on. But that was against a pretty bad Detroit squad. What happens when they play good teams, like Brooklyn on Friday, Miami next Wednesday, Atlanta on Saturday. Even Charlotte on Monday won’t be easy in their own building.

So, the question is how do you view the win. Is it a good thing that the Warriors were able to hang on and tough one out, something they’ll probably have to do on the road a lot? Or was the victory overshadowed that the Warriors needed to survive a game they led by 20 points in the fourth quarter?

JARRETT JACK: “We just did not do a good job of putting the final nail in the coffin. There are teams that are going to be able to come back when we let them linger around and give them confidence. So when you are able to put away a team, especially in their building, you have to end it however you can.”

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The Warriors’ 103-92 win over visiting Indiana was of a different breed.

It wasn’t the same résumé highlight as their victory at the Los Angeles Clippers, or last week’s win over visiting Brooklyn. Nor was it the emotional, revenge victory they scored over Denver on Friday or in the season opener at Phoenix. And it certainly wasn’t the dominating performance the Warriors are still looking to put together.

Saturday’s win was of the mundane-yet-difficult kind Golden State (10-6) will need to pile up as they matriculate the season. An under-the-radar victory on a forgettable December night that failed to lure a sell-out crowd at Oracle. An earned triumph over a sturdy Indiana squad all-too-easy to overlook yet good enough to make the Warriors pay if they had.

DAVID LEE: “We knew this was going to be a grind-it-out game. This wasn’t going to be a flashy game. … “It’s great. It’s just a huge thing. You talk about winning and losing in the NBA and rarely are you going to win or lose by 25 points, usually it comes down to the little plays. I think a lot of times the team that comes out with the victory is the team with the better chemistry. Last year we were awful in games that were close and this year we’ve been pretty good so we have to keep improving on the little teams.”

Golden State has won three straight and five of its last six for the first time since 2008. Monday, the Warriors host Orlando with a chance to move five games above .500 as they head on a seven-game trip.

The schedule gets brutal in January and February when the Warriors start taking on the league’s top teams on a regular basis. But for now, they are doing exactly what they need to do — keep plugging along, storing up victories like squirrels hoard nuts for the winter.

MARK JACKSON: “We’ve got a group of guys that are just invested in each other.”

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