"Something had to change.

The Warriors brutalized the first two segments of a very favorable schedule and seemed well on their way to wasting a third.

They opened the season with seven home games among their first 10, and went 3-7. They split a four-game trip that included three of the league's worst teams. And they returned to Oakland, going 1-3 at the start of a season-long six-game homestand.

Sitting at 6-12, coach Mark Jackson strolled into the locker room and scribbled "8-12" on a dry-erase board.

"I believe the Good Word says, 'Write the vision and make it be plain,' " Jackson said. "We don't want to minimize small goals, because they can propel something huge."

When Jackson wrote "9-12" on the board before Friday's practice, after his team fulfilled his prophecy by beating Sacramento and Utah at home, his players knew exactly what the message meant. No longer was the talk about a culture that had already changed, an identity that had already taken hold or a losing history that had been erased.

The Warriors are a work in progress, and while Jackson wasn't backing down from his guarantee that the Warriors will make the playoffs for the second time in 18 seasons, he is now taking the metamorphosis one dry-erase board at a time."