https://www.sfchronicle.com/sports/ostler/article/warriors-worry-game-lakers-gaming-nba-refs-18084477.php

The Golden State Warriors’ formula for climbing back into this series? Skip the drama, and play.

We’re talking poise under pressure, and we have to, because the Warriors and the NBA both embarrassed themselves Saturday night in the Warriors’ ghastly 127-97 loss in Game 3 to the Los Angeles Lakers. That gave the Lakers a 2-1 lead in the Western Conference semis, with Game 4 Monday night in Los Angeles.

The Warriors have a chance to reclaim their pride and their soul Monday. The NBA will take longer, and don’t hold your breath.

If Steve Kerr’s crew has any hope of getting back into this thing, they might want to take a look at the second quarter of Saturday’s game and do what Klay Thompson is known to advise: Do that same thing next game, only the exact opposite.

With all of Hollywood preening courtside, the Warriors played their worst quarter ever, with an assist from the NBA.

I don’t know what a good hangover cure is, but I know what’s not: Re-watching that second quarter the next morning. If the Warriors don’t regroup, that quarter will go down as the moment when the Good Ship Dynasty hit the iceberg. If they do rally and win the series, that quarter will be the tragedy they rose above, burnishing their legacy.

To be clear, the refs weren’t the cause of the mess. They didn’t help, but they were simply calling the game the way the NBA wants it called, which is a problem for the NBA.

Mistakes were made in that quarter. Jordan Poole, Thompson and Kevon Looney, all fumbled and bumbled the ball. It fell apart for good when Stephen Curry threw a fast-break lead pass to Thompson, who had a step on LeBron James, but Thompson had decided to curl out towards the 3-point line and never saw the pass.

And away we go. A minute later, Moses Moody, knocked down under the hoop on a shot attempt, grabbed the leg of Anthony Davis and pulled him down, an easy-call flagrant foul. Moody, more usually saluted for his maturity, had just given the Lakers a huge lift.

Then Draymond Green, playing stout defense, took a charge on an Anthony Davis drive, but the Lakers challenged the call and the league upheld the challenge. The three TV announcers loved the overturn, but basketball coaches the world over hated it.

That led to a Green technical. As the quarter closed, two telling moments.

Thompson was called for fouling Austin Reaves on a jump shot. It was a classic James Harden signature rip-through, where the shooter initiates the contact against the defender’s arm and then sells the hell out of it.

“Just a really smart move from Reaves,” said the TV play-by-play man Mike Breen, referencing Harden.

It was smart, because the NBA has decreed it so.

Then, Thompson was called for driving into defender Dennis Schröder, who took Thompson’s mild pushoff and crumpled to the floor in agony and disarray. That led to a technical foul on JaMychal Green from the Warriors’ bench.

The Lakers outflop the Warriors by a wide margin. Poole will flop, Curry will occasionally try to sell a foul, but if you present Oscars for dramatic stuntwork in this series, the Lakers will win ’em all.

That’s partly what Kerr was talking about between Games 1 and 2, on a KNBR interview. Kerr, never a ref-blaming whiner, said:

“We’ve gotta understand this team that we’re playing against uses a lot of gamesmanship. They’re smart, they’re going to try to manipulate the game a little bit, and do the little things that draw fouls, and you can’t buy into that.”

The contrasting styles of the Lakers and Warriors are conducive to a foul disparity. But the free-throw disparity after three games — 83 attempts for the Lakers, 39 for the Warriors — is symptomatic of a league problem. Acting is honored and rewarded. Hunting for fouls is smart strategy.

“The free-throw line is a huge, huge component when it comes to the success or failure of basketball games in the NBA,” Lakers head coach Darvin Ham explained before Game 3. “We came in, it was a system I helped build in other places. There are drills that we do, we have film that we watch. We have numbers that we show the guys. Knowing how tightly the games are officiated now, that’s beyond our control. You don’t want to disrupt a player because your hand can be the cause of the whistle being blown.

“We work feverishly on showing our hand (on defense), contesting at the rim, we preach constantly and harp on showing your hands. Playing with force in the paint, loving to live in the paint. That’s how we get that disparity, if there is one, going in our favor. Not getting discouraged. Constantly exploring, constantly attacking.”

On Sunday, Kerr was asked about Ham’s “system,” and the Warriors’ coach offered a pragmatic, non-accusatory explanation.

“I think everybody teaches the importance of not fouling and not reaching and going vertical,” Kerr said. “Anthony Davis is obviously a great rim protector and he does a good job of not reaching. But that’s part of their DNA as a team. They’re really big, they’re physical, but they do a good job of defending without fouling.

“Part of the issue for us last night was when we lost our poise a little bit in the second quarter, that's when they started going to the line because they were playing in transition. Tough to guard in transition. Tough to guard anybody in transition, but especially LeBron coming downhill at you and that's where we started to pick up a lot of fouls.”

So the “system” isn’t about acting, per se, but that can be part of it, as in those two Thompson fouls.

It wasn’t the fault of this referee crew. The NBA dictates how the game will be reffed, and the refs ref accordingly. In the playoffs, officials let the fellas play a bit rougher. The reasoning, apparently, is that fans don’t want to see a paint-off between Picasso and Van Gogh, they want to see two teams in a paintball war.

That’s the way it is, and it’s not going to change, so the Warriors have only one option for survival: Stop crying, stop melting down on an unfriendly court, and rise above.

The Warriors, at this point, can’t get one technical foul, let alone three in one quarter.

Draymond Green has to step up and shut up. His dogging of the refs is a waste of energy, and a gift to the Lakers. Green is the team’s emotional leader, and he must lead them into the eye of the hurricane, from where they can operate efficiently.

It can be done. The Warriors have beaten “the system” before, by playing their own system of beautiful basketball.

This series isn’t bad guys vs. good guys. It’s two contrasting styles, and so far, the Lakers are working their style better than the Warriors are working theirs.

The Warriors might find a way to escape the hole they’re in, but they’re not going to whine their way out of it.