ORACLE ARENA, OAKLAND, CA — When you play the reigning world champions of basketball and they play like the reigning world champs, chances are, you’re going to lose. Such was the case tonight as the San Antonio Spurs played a near-perfect game in defeat of the favored Golden State Warriors on their home crowd.
“It’s tough,” said Klay Thompson post-game in the locker room, “They’re the champs for a reason. Our energy needed to be better. We were in the game, only down eight, six points, but other than that, they didn’t really miss tonight. You have to give them credit because they played their best game of the season.”
Thompson said his hand feels fine, “like (the training staff) instantly healed it.” That certainly was apparent as he led the Warriors with 29 points and was a key part of a couple of late-but-futile pushes to come back against the Spurs.
Warriors coach Steve Kerr echoed the sentiment.
“They played their best of the year tonight,” Kerr said, pointing to game tape that he had watched last night in San Antonio’s defeat of the Los Angeles Clippers and noticing that the Spurs “looked like the Spurs again”.
Kerr also joked that he wished the Spurs would “go away” and that it’s the same trio of Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili, and Tim Duncan as it was when Kerr retired a good twelve years ago.
“It’s one of those things that when they come to your building, there is just no way that’s going to keep going and sure enough, they made ten threes,” Kerr added, “I’m not disappointed at all. I think our guys fought, we did some good things. I thought we got better with our execution. We lost to a great team, but we learn, keep improving, and move on.”
“We know what they’re about,” said point guard Stephen Curry, who was held to just 16 points on 7-for-18 shooting and zero made three-pointers, “Obviously, they’re the reigning world champs and they have the same team back and hadn’t been playing great up to this point, so you’d assume eventually they’d find it.”
“It never got to a point where we really had full momentum,” Curry added.
Three other major themes were brought up: the resurgence of Harrison Barnes and the slump of Andre Iguodala, and the turnovers.
“It’s not that easy for a guy that spent his entire career starting,” Kerr said, “I’ve asked him to come off the bench and he’s accepted that and he’s been great…I understand what he’s feeling and it’s tough, but you have to bounce back.”
Curry defended Iguodala.
“It’s still early. There’s no reason to rush to reactions on how anybody’s playing, really.”
Said Kerr on Barnes’ production, “Good to see him getting going early. I tried to go to him a couple of times early and get him going. He responded well.”
Kerr also praised Marreese Speights, who had 11 points on 5-for-5 from the field in 12 minutes of play, all in the 4th quarter.
On Barnes, Curry said, “If we didn’t have him in the first quarter, it would’ve been a blowout.”
As for the turnovers, the Warriors “only” committed 20 this time and Kerr was pleased. “We didn’t have any turnovers of ‘insanity’, as I called them.”
Still, the Spurs only committed 8 turnovers and enjoyed 23 more shot attempts than the Warriors as a direct result of that disparity.
“There is no way you can win in the NBA getting 23 fewer field goal attempts,” Kerr said.
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