Warriors top Spurs for 70th win; chase for 73 still alive
OAKLAND, Calif. — Early, way before beating the San Antonio Spurs 112-101 to secure the No. 1 seed in the playoffs, the Golden State Warriors appeared out of sorts in their bid to join the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls as the second team in NBA history to win 70 games in a season.
The game began off kilter, with Golden State firing up quick shots. Draymond Green picked up his second foul and dropped a liter of vitriol on the refs as he collected a technical foul. Green and the Warriors looked out of control and now Harrison Barnes had the tall task of guarding LaMarcus Aldridge.
This looked like a vulnerable team, one ripe for a loss to the wise old Spurs, the NBA’s stable, staid tortoise, forever beating the league’s impetuous hares.
The Spurs have been pacing themselves while drubbing the NBA, leisurely jogging to a historically great record. In their youthful zeal, the Warriors were gunning for greater, sprinting toward 73 wins in the short term, leaving the long term increasingly in doubt. Majority owner Joe Lacob’s quote about Golden State being “light-years ahead,” combined with their 1-2 record since its publication in the New York Times Magazines, has amplified certain rumblings. Were the Warriors about to be, finally, humbled?
In the meantime, San Antonio had to grapple with a more tangible question, albeit one carrying less narrative appeal: Can they score? It sounds sacrilegious considering the Spurs’ vaunted ball movement. Doubly so considering they claim the superior defense this season. And yet, in the two games heading into this one, the Spurs had yet to score consistently against the Warriors. The Warriors’ defensive switches have so far confounded San Antonio’s attack.
And again, in the third matchup, the Warriors’ defense afforded the Spurs little airspace. After their shaky start to the first, Golden State held strong, squeezing the Spurs into 15 points in the quarter. Barnes did passably enough, even adding scoring punch (21 points, 13 shots) as his team surged ahead.
Curry had a quiet first half, but was in the process of making an adjustment from his awful last game against this team. In that Spurs win, Curry was strafed along the 3-point line, and succumbed to shooting 4-of-18 (1-of-12 from deep). After that nadir of a performance, he indicated that he knew the fix: He had to drive against that defense.
On Thursday, Curry did indeed change his approach, driving to a middle that got only more open after Tim Duncan was run off the floor. By the third, he was in a rhythm, continually slashing through the Spurs and creating offense below the arc. He finished with 29 points on 19 shots, with nine assists.
On the other side, San Antonio eventually hit a scoring stride against Golden State’s subs, but have yet to find their answer. That search becomes all the more pressing after Curry found a way to crack their defensive approach. Briefly, the Spurs had Curry figured out — and then he adjusted. It remains to be seen if the Spurs have another effective counter in them.
