"Even the dude at Jack in the Box was telling me to be more aggressive," Crawford said after Thursday's practice. "Honestly, we're a better team when I'm aggressive."

Almost lost in the Warriors' 124-112 win over the Phoenix Suns on Wednesday thanks to swingman Stephen Jackson's first career triple-double and the sheer fluidity of Golden State's offensive attack was the return of Crawford. The old Crawford, who, during a seven-game stretch in January, averaged 28 points on 45.9 percent shooting with 5.7 assists.

He finished Wednesday's game with 27 points, six assists and one turnover. It's a far cry from his averages the previous five games: 10.2 points on 10.3 shots with 2.8 assists.

After seeing the two versions of Crawford, the explosive playmaker and the accommodating floor general, it's unanimous which one members of the organization want around.

"He hasn't really had a game like that since he hurt his knee," Nelson said. "I didn't know if it was lack of aggressiveness or his knee was bothering him. So I asked him to be more aggressive."

If the imploring of Crawford to be aggressive sounds familiar, that's because it is. When Crawford was acquired in a trade with the New York Knicks in November, he openly acknowledged taking a back seat to Jackson and forward Corey Maggette.

Crawford gave two reasons for his passive play of late: the return of guard Monta Ellis and the execution of the game plan.

Crawford said when Ellis arrived in late January, he wanted to do everything he could to make sure Ellis was involved in the game.

In other words, he deferred.

"I'm glad he's finally understanding he can't (defer) to Monta," Jackson said. "He has to go out there and be the guy that he is, the guy he's been his whole career. It makes it a lot easier for me because teams don't help as much. They have more than one guy to worry about. When we're so deep like that, it opens up the floor. "

The finger of blame goes to the point guard in Crawford. He said he felt obligated to carry out Nelson's ball movement philosophy. He said he wanted to set the example of sacrifice and be the one to suppress his scoring in favor of the game plan. As a result, he didn't look for his shot but to make the extra pass. He didn't take advantage of his mismatches but focused on exploiting others'.

The problem with that? They need him to be more than a facilitator.

"I appreciate that," Nelson said of Crawford's attention to the game plan. "But we need him to be what he is. He does enough of that. He does move the ball. But he also has the skills to shoot and do other things. So we want him to max out at whatever he does. The worst thing is to take a good player like that and make him one-dimensional when he's got two or three dimensions to his game."

Notes: Maggette was not at practice Thursday. As was the case Wednesday, he flew to Los Angeles to get treatment on his ailing back, which was sore after he played 32 all-out minutes. "He has a tender back," Nelson said. "I'm not sure that we want him diving on the floor with that bad back right now." Maggette returned in time make the team's flight to Phoenix.

Contact Marcus Thompson II at mthomps2@bayareanewsgroup.com