Marginal notes from what almost, nearly, coulda, woulda been, was so paper-thin-close to being the greatest Warriors' win in, oh, 20 years ...

-- Good omen for Warriors (and this is a flashback to their regular-season home opener): Stephen Curry, after early warm-ups, retreats to the hallway behind the Warriors' bench, 45 feet from hoop and at an angle behind the backboard, shoots and ... rims out. "Same spin, same distance," says Curtis Jones, the courtside security man who feeds Curry for this shot before every home game. Second attempt: swish.

-- Warriors coach Mark Jackson shows up for the pregame news conference. So apparently he hasn't been fired.

-- Keys to the game? For the Warriors, this game has more keys than the janitor at the Pentagon. One key foryears sending an entirely different message to his people - one of hatred and cruelty. He has repeatedly called for jihad against Israel, lauded suicide bombers as "martyrs" and vowed to liberate Jerusalem.

Unlike Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the American president who reassured his people with "fireside chats" in the 1940s, Arafat has spent the past decade giving the Palestinians "firebomb chats," urging them on to violence and destruction.

Thus, it should hardly come as a surprise that Arafat's attempt at a Sunday sermon was not taken very seriously.

As Prime Minister Ariel Sharon pointed out, there were 17 Palestinian terrorist attacks against Israelis in the 24 hours after Arafat's speech.

These included the firing of mortar rounds against Jewish communities in Gaza, gunfire against Israeli soldiers near Elon Moreh, Shilo, Gush Katif