Jackson moving beyond the brawl

OAKLAND, Calif. — For many basketball fans, Stephen Jackson will always be the hotheaded player who followed Ron Artest into the stands at The Palace in 2004 throwing punches at a fan.

Firing shots into the air outside a strip club last October in an apparent attempt to break up a fight only furthered his reputation as a fly-off-the-handle player who personified what was wrong with the modern NBA player.

The emotion that fueled Jackson's temper and got him into so much past trouble is also what makes him so effective on the basketball court. After helping the Golden State Warriors pull off perhaps the biggest upset in NBA history by knocking off the top-seeded Dallas Mavericks, Jackson is now getting attention for his game.

"My teammates know the true me," Jackson said Saturday. "That's what's important to me because I have to work with them every day. I really don't care what people on the outside think as long as I'm respected by the people I work with every day."

In less than four months with the Warriors, Jackson has clearly earned that respect. Baron Davis has called Jackson the leader of the team and his passionate, on-the-edge play is symbolic of the style that has carried Golden State into the second round of the playoffs for the first time in 16 years.

"Once he became a teammate of mine, I saw a whole different side that other people don't see," guard Jason Richardson said. "They just see all the negative things that surround him. He's the glue to this team. He keeps going. He always guards the top scorer on the other team and comes back on the offensive side and gives us something too."

Jackson came to the Warriors on Jan. 17 in an eight-player deal that revitalized Golden State's season and Jackson's career. He was a key contributor to the Warriors' stretch run to their first playoff berth in 13 years, and he averaged 22.8 points and played tough defense on Dirk Nowitzki in the first-round win over Dallas.

The Warriors became just the third eighth seed ever to win a first-round series and the first since the opening round went to a best-of-seven format in 2003.

"It was big for me because I needed a new start," Jackson said. "A lot of people were just judging me by everything that happened in Indiana. They didn't know me as a person or a player. I think the change here has given me an opportunity to put a lot of things behind me and move forward and just be a basketball player, which is what I was born to do. I'm enjoying it."