The Golden State Warriors were eliminated in the first round. It was sooner than expected, but the Western Conference is really that good. Now, the blame will fall on the coach-Mark Jackson may get the axe!

It's rather ironic that Golden State's win in their first round match-up with the Denver Nuggets resulted in the sacking of George Karl. Now, the Warriors went out the first round, although it was a gallant, uphill fight as they missed Andrew Bogut, their starting center.

Now, the question was posed to their superstar: Was this season a success or a failure?

Stephen Curry told ESPN: "It's hard to put it in black-and-white terms like that. It's hard to say it's a failure of a season. Obviously we had our eyes set on bigger goals." 

There were many off-court controversies that led to Jackson being at the crossroads. The news was all around the league-Jackson is coaching for his job. And when he lost the series-it was all a matter of time.

The off-court issues aside, let's concentrate on what the job is all about-did Mark Jackson make the best out of his roster?

ESPN's Ethan Strauss observed:

"Jackson's "hockey substitutions" of five bench players at once created bad stretches on offense. The Warriors played too much isolation ball, relied on post-ups as though the team were playing in Jackson's era. Curry's an elite pick-and-roll weapon, though you couldn't tell on the possessions when Jermaine O'Neal burned a shot clock going to work on the block."

Isolation plays were big in the 90s, when Jackson was still a star point guard. The Warriors do not have an isolation type player-not Curry, not Iguodala and certainly not their centers.

Jackson is a master motivator, and he made Jermaine O'Neal a solid producer. But that is not what the team is about.

Strauss continues: "For a second straight season, they eschewed small ball till the playoffs, when again it worked famously. There's much talk of how big a mistake it'd be for the Warriors to fire Jackson. That could well be true, but here's a question that's posed less often: Why didn't Jackson learn from his mistake? Why did it take another playoff injury for the Warriors to discover floor-spread potency?"

Relying on a 35 year old center on near-dead legs when you have the best shooting tandem in the league and a horde of quick and athletic wingmen is indeed an error in judgment that may have cost them the season.