Golden State Warriors' Statement Win Sets Up Push for NBA History
OAKLAND, Calif. — In win No. 70 on the season, a 112-101 home victory over the San Antonio Spurs, the Golden State Warriors didn't find the spellbinding level of play that had been eluding them for weeks.
Instead, they found better things: peace of mind and proof they could win a game played mostly on the Spurs' terms.
Long on emotion and energy but short on focus at the outset, the Dubs clearly appreciated the urgency of the moment. They needed this win—to prove the mental fatigue plaguing them wasn't chronic, to clinch the Western Conference's top seed and to keep the quest for 73 alive.
Though they zeroed in eventually, all of the familiar elements from their recent losses to the Minnesota Timberwolves and Boston Celtics—turnovers, haphazard shot selection and general sloppiness—were present.
On the first offensive possession of the game, Draymond Green threw the ball away on an ill-advised outlet pass, leading to a Tony Parker jumper seconds later. And when Green picked up his second foul (and a technical and a delay-of-game warning for his trouble) with 8:07 left in the first quarter, things looked grim—partly because the Spurs approached the contest in serious fashion.
Any suspicions about San Antonio's commitment to winning faded when head coach Gregg Popovich decided before the game to utilize his full roster. And they disappeared completely less than a minute into the first quarter.
Warriors head coach Steve Kerr, who played for Popovich, admitted after the game that he caught Danny Green before the Spurs coach had a chance to lay into him during the timeout, asking (mostly) in jest, "If you do that again, do you think Pop will actually kill you?"
Fifty-nine seconds in, it was clearly on.
Stars Shining, Spurs Struggling
Stephen Curry led the Warriors in scoring with 27 points on 11-of-19 shooting, but San Antonio forced him off the three-point line effectively. He was only 3-of-7 from long range.
Harrison Barnes played one of his best games of the year, feeding on the drive-and-kicks San Antonio's perimeter pressure invited. He finished with 21 points on 8-of-13 shooting and hit back-to-back treys in a critical closing stretch of the first half, extending a six-point lead to 12.
"I could see it coming before the shooting arrived," Kerr said of Barnes' big game. "Because he was really competing defensively, and he looked a little bouncier."
Andrew Bogut was superb defensively, helping stymie San Antonio's chances at the rim and leading an inspired effort on the boards. The big Aussie hauled in a team-high 11 rebounds, and Golden State out-rebounded the Spurs by a margin of 43-32 on the night.
Green's early foul trouble never hurt him, as he returned from his early benching to score 18 points and hand out seven assists in 34 minutes. He also, of course, led the Warriors in shouting, chest-thumping, lightning-fast defensive switches and pretty much every other highly valuable intangible you'd care to list.
The game was effectively over in the third quarter, as Curry got loose and the Warriors collectively refused to miss the limited supply of threes the Spurs allowed. With Warriors chants booming throughout the arena, Golden State punctuated the decisive period with four point-blank finishes in a row, capped by an Andre Iguodala breakaway slam to push the lead to 20 points.
The Spurs, despite dictating the terms early, couldn't keep up for the duration.
"We started off great, then all of a sudden on the offensive end, the ball didn't move, didn't change sides," Popovich said. "We took quick shots, contested shots along with six turnovers, and they jumped on it."
Tim Duncan simply couldn't stay on the floor, as the Warriors targeted him at every opportunity. Whenever Curry got the chance to attack Duncan on a switch, he torched him.
And as diligent as San Antonio was about keeping the Warriors from high-volume three-point chucking (the Dubs shot 25 threes, notably below their league-leading average of 31.4), Golden State was even stingier, limiting the Spurs to only 16 attempts from deep.
Pitted against the league's best defense, the Warriors' stopping power looked more potent.
This Is Different, Right?
Golden State has had its share of sloppy stretches this year, occasionally running fully aground with losses that feel like they shouldn't have happened. Milwaukee, Detroit, Denver, Boston and, most recently, Minnesota stand out.
The Warriors have habitually snapped themselves out of brief lulls with statement stretches—most notably crushing the Cleveland Cavaliers and Spurs by a combined 64 points in the span of a week after a snoozy 113-95 loss to the Pistons on Jan. 16.
We've done this before, though. The "they've snapped out of it, and everything's fine" lines are now familiar because we've had to use them a handful of times.
Thursday was different.
The stakes were high, and this particular righting of the ship felt more necessary than the others. Not just because of the record chase, but because it came at a time when the team, as a whole, was battling mental fatigue.
"There's been so much attention on the team all year long, so much talk about this record…maybe it wore on us," Kerr said. "It's a tough thing to quantify. I think it was good to come out and have a good game and just be ourselves again."
Though some weight is off, the Warriors are hardly floating. They must win each of their final three games, one of which comes against San Antonio on the road, to secure a record 73 wins. There's still more to do, though Kerr said he'd discuss potential rest with the roster now that the West's top seed is sewn up.
Given the conviction with which the Warriors proved a point Thursday, it's easy to imagine that conversation being a short one.
"We have three games left," Curry said. "You all know what we're chasing. You all know what's out there."
The Dubs feel like a team committed to running down history, fatigue be damned. And Thursday's effort rekindled hope they just might catch it.
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All quotes obtained firsthand.
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