KIHEI, HAWAII — Don Nelson doesn’t get up when you barge into his poker room, above the garage of his beachfront compound. He is locked in the powerful embrace of his massive massage chair, Nellie’s throne.

At least I think that’s Nelson, behind the cigar haze and sea-captain beard.

On vacation in Maui, I have invited myself to watch Game 5 of the series with Nelson. “Sure!” said the man who has embraced the aloha spirit at a higher level than any non-native of the islands.

Nelson, 78, coached the Warriors for 11 seasons, over two separate stints, starting in 1988 and ending in 2007, and he never misses a game. It’s been 11 years since Nelson’s finest Warriors hour, his We Believe crew upsetting Dallas in the first round. He won five championship rings as a Celtics player, but Nelson still bleeds whatever color the Warriors are rocking.

As the game starts, Nelson is quietly concerned. His Warriors teams were the prototype for the small ball that now drives the Warriors, but he notices they’ve lost some of their ball movement in the playoffs.

As Kevin Durant goes one-on-one, Nelson says, “On my teams, (if guys started going one-on-one) I’d demand that they pass five times before they shot, or dump it into the low post at least once before anyone took a shot.”

It’s a casual experience, watching with Nelson. He makes occasional comments, and clearly is locked in, but in an aloha way. During timeouts, he switches over to MSNBC. But no political ranting, other than to say solemnly, “I’m very worried.”

Sometimes he’s late switching back to the game, but what’s the rush?

“Have some weed if you want,” Nelson offers his guests. “Help yourself. It’s on the (poker) table.”

The Nellie of old was a beer-and-wine guy. I’ve heard tales of him knocking back a six-pack on the bus from the arena to the airport.

“I don’t drink much anymore,” Nelson says. “I’m more into weed now.”

He started smoking weed a few years ago and now grows his own, a strain of sativa called Nellie Kush, which he says is more of an upper than a downer.

Nelson played 14 NBA seasons and has aches and pains from ancient battles.

“When you get old, you start to feel every nick. (The weed) helps a lot with the pain.”

So does his big chair.

“Try the chair,” Nellie offers at halftime, as he gets up to have a puff.

I sink like a small child into the massive leather recliner. Nelson dials up a program on the control board and my forearms and calves are locked down. I can only hope the governor calls in time to save me.

The chair’s machinery is truly wondrous. Nelson says he submits to it several times a day, another way to ease the aches.

Nelson fell in love with Maui when he visited here as a player, bought some property, bought some more, and never really left. Now he and wife Joy own a lot of stuff on Maui, including farmland, a mini-mall, and two large beachfront homes. The other is across the island, in Paia.

“I like property,” says Nelson, who was raised on a farm in Iowa. “Being a farmer, I guess.”

The heart of any Nellie home is the poker room. This one, manfully cluttered, features a bar, poker table, pool table, shuffleboard table and chess table.

For the second half, Nelson kicks back, bare feet propped on poker table amidst chips. This is the home of famed and frequent all-night poker games with island neighbors Willie Nelson, Woody Harrelson and Owen Wilson. Willie Nelson is on tour now, but any time he’s in town, it’s game on.

Don Nelson? He’s always in town. He and Joy used to split their time between here and Texas, but “I never leave the island now,” Nelson says.

As the game returns, TNT’s Chris Webber makes a comment.

“Your old buddy,” I say. Nelson and Webber had a cataclysmic clash when Webber was a Warriors rookie.

“He’s no buddy of mine,” Nelson growls.

I mention that Stephen Jackson is now an ESPN analyst.

“That must be interesting,” Nelson says.

Jackson was a key component of the We Believe crew, a Nelson rescue pup obtained on the cheap because Jackson was facing gun charges. Later, Nelson would trade Jackson to open a starting spot for a young Stephen Curry.

On the screen, the Warriors pass to Durant and he goes to work on his man.

“I thought they were getting some movement going,” Nelson says, “but they’re back to one-on-one.”

Miss Joy pops in to say hi, bringing snacks and lemonade. She notices my son’s old We Believe T-shirt, a purely random wardrobe choice.

“I still wear mine,” Nelson says. “But they won’t let me wear it on the golf course. No collar.”

The game ends in a flurry of frustration for the Warriors.

“Well,” Nelson shrugs, “I predicted it was going to go seven.”

However many it goes, Nelson will be watching.

Scott Ostler is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist. Email: sostler@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @scottostler