Golden State Warriors Still Have 1 Giant Left to Slay
A lot has changed for the Golden State Warriors since they fell to the San Antonio Spurs, their decades-long NBA overlords, on Nov. 11.
The Dubs have gone from being a pleasant early surprise to a stretch-run juggernaut, from a questionable fringe contender to a title favorite, from probably good to undoubtedly great.
But one thing remains the same: The Spurs still have the Warriors' number.
It's been that way for a very, very long time.
Since the Warriors last won a regular-season road game in San Antonio on Feb. 14, 1997, the Spurs have run up a 55-10 record against Golden State for a winning percentage of .846, their best mark against any team during that span.
Consider it a small piece of good fortune their Feb. 20 meeting will be in Oakland.
The Dubs haven't won a regular-season road game against the Spurs since Stephen Curry was 8 years old.
More recently, San Antonio bounced the Warriors from the 2013 playoffs, proving its dominance wasn't limited to the regular season. Notably, though, the Warriors managed to win a postseason game at San Antonio in that series. All that victory did was provide an asterisk to go alongside that 18-year regular-season road losing streak.
Past iterations of the Warriors were content to take the predictable beatings from the Spurs and wait, subdued, for the next one.
Not so for these Dubs.
This year, the Warriors have used their failures against the Spurs as motivation, which signals a major change in the franchise's self-image and long-term goals. Losing to the Spurs isn't a given anymore. It's an opportunity to improve ahead of the next meeting.
Consider the way Golden State corrected its principal flaw after seeing how it cost them that Nov. 11 contest against the Spurs, per Ron Kroichick of SFGate.com:
"San Antonio’s 113-100 win had an enduring impact, in Kerr’s mind, because it showed his team the importance of taking care of the ball. The Warriors committed 19 turnovers against the Spurs, one night after compiling 26 in a loss at Phoenix. They have since become more careful.
'From that game forward, we turned around our turnover situation,' Kerr said. 'That was sort of when the light bulb went on for our players. They got it: We can’t be crazy with the ball.'
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After falling to San Antonio, the Warriors' turnover ratio sat at 21.7 percent, the highest in the league, per NBA.com.
In the 44 games since, they've posted the sixth-lowest turnover ratio in the NBA. And the figure is still trending in the right direction. Since Jan. 1, Golden State's turnover ratio of 13.1 is fourth best in the association.
The need to look after the basketball isn't the only thing the Dubs have taken from the Spurs. Far from it, actually.
Head coach Steve Kerr, who played for Gregg Popovich in two championship seasons (1999 and 2003), has unabashedly borrowed from his former coach.
According to Andrew Keh of The New York Times: "Kerr mentioned that he watched the 2014 NBA Finals over and over last summer, marveling at how Popovich’s Spurs dominated the Miami Heat on the way to winning their fifth title. He said the ball movement and poise San Antonio had showed was a model for the system he was trying to install with the Warriors."
Mission accomplished.
The Warriors currently rank second in offensive efficiency, up from 12th a year ago, on the strength of league-high assists (27.1) and secondary assists (8.1) per game. The ball moves in Golden State these days, and the success that has followed is tied directly to San Antonio's stylistic influence.
That's what makes knocking off the Spurs so important for the Warriors. Beating San Antonio isn't just about defeating a tough foe or making a tiny dent in that 18-year record of futility.
It's about replacing the Spurs as the NBA's exemplary franchise, taking up a position as the league's most highly functional, perfectly calibrated machine.
It's about the student besting the schoolmaster.
The Warriors, statistically, have been the NBA's most dominant team this season. They're a hair's breadth away from having the top offensive- and defensive-efficiency marks in the league, something that hasn't happened since the 72-win Chicago Bulls pulled it off in the 1995-96 season.
In some ways, the Warriors have no peers. In others—because the Spurs are still there, still wielding their big-brother powers—they remain second best.
Certainly, the Atlanta Hawks (coached by another Popovich disciple, Mike Budenholzer) would have something to say about the Warriors being the only team close to usurping the Spurs' throne. In fact, the league as a whole has incorporated many of San Antonio's core offensive principles.
Good teams everywhere are looking for floor-spacing shooters, unselfish ball-movers and team-oriented thinkers. We should only expect to see more clubs employing Spurs-ian tenets going forward. It's a copycat league, after all.
But the Warriors are the best imitation we've seen in a very long time—both in style of play and philosophy. Statistically, they are better than the Spurs this season—better than the Spurs have been in any season.
Ideologically, they operate without ego, and they constantly find (or manufacture) faults that need repair, even in victory.
The Warriors' greatest fault, the one they haven't been able to rectify, is an inability to beat the Spurs.
If they manage to break through Saturday, that will still only be half the battle. The other half will come in the minutes and hours afterward, and then in the following days and weeks, during which there should be no celebration whatsoever from Golden State.
That's because becoming the Spurs isn't only about beating them. That's just where it starts.
To slay the giant, to truly step to the vanguard of sustainable NBA dominance, the spot occupied by the Spurs for so many years, the Warriors must prove they've learned the final, totally ironic lesson: that no single game matters.
The Spurs have been great for so long because they know success is measured only in championships, and that succeeding on those terms means never becoming comfortable with victories along the way—no matter how seemingly significant they are in the moment.
If the Warriors crush the Spurs by 30, it won't tell us anything.
If they quietly walk off the floor afterward, acting like nothing meaningful has just happened, it'll tell us everything.
Stats courtesy of NBA.com unless otherwise indicated.
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