Season 49, Game 25
San Antonio 103, Atlanta 78
20-5, 2nd in the West

The Golden State Warriors finally lost.

The Warriors have been the story of the NBA season; hell, they’ve been the dominant story of the entire sports universe. I don’t say this with envy or malice. They deserve it. The team is playing amazing basketball, led by an improbably great player who has a skill that transcends sport. Steph Curry might be the single greatest shooter of a basketball that this world has ever seen.

To not lose a game in your first 24 defies belief. The team plays with a passion and purpose each night, fueled by a (mostly imaginary) chip on their shoulder that they are slighted and disrespected by the NBA world at large. Every game has become an event. For large chunks of Friday night’s nationally televised game against the Lakers, the Spurs were relegated to a tiny box in the corner of the screen while ESPN showed the end of the Warriors-Celitcs game. The Spurs stayed tiny even when the Warriors were in timeout! For Saturday’s game against Atlanta, they were bumped from NBATV in favor of the Warriors-Bucks.

Again, no envy here. I actually love that the Warriors are sucking up all the attention, draining the room of oxygen. I want the Spurs’ historic start to go unnoticed, out shined by the more historic start.

Let’s put this into a little perspective, though, shall we? The Spurs are on pace for a 60+ win season, playing the best defense of the modern NBA era. While projecting a few games shy, this season’s Spurs actually have better metrics than last year’s Warriors, who also had a historically great season.

Point differential is a popular metric to gauge how dominant a team is: winning games easily and by a lot of points is a better indicator for future success than winning close games. Right now, after a historic start, the Warriors have an unbelievable +13.1 point differential, meaning they’re beating these teams by an average of about 13 points each night. That’s crazy. Anything above 10 is typically championship-level. The Spurs? They are sitting at a tidy +12.2. Ho hum.

This number gets even more impressive when you adjust it for pace. The Warriors play a lot faster than the Spurs, so there are more possessions in a game. The Warriors point differential per 100 possessions is +12.8. The Spurs is +12.7.

One final number: 4. The Warriors, winners of 24 straight, a staggering 24-1 on the season, find themselves just 4 games up on the Spurs in the standings. The next closest team in the West is the Thunder, who sit 4 games behind the Spurs. The Warriors have the same lead over the Spurs as the Spurs do over the next best team in the West. (The Cavs are 1/2 game better than the Thunder right now).

How frustrating it must be, to be off to the best start in history, almost lapping the competition… only to look back and see the Spurs right there, just plodding along, the Tortoise to the Golden State Warrior’s Hare.

Golden State’s season is so interesting that I’m eight paragraphs into this recap and haven’t even mentioned the Atlanta Hawks yet!


(AP Photo/Brett Davis)

That might be for the best. Since Coach Bud took over, the Hawks have played Little Brothers to the Spurs Big Brother. The teams play similar systems, with similar success. The games are often choppy and ugly and feel like scrimmages, yet the Spurs always prevail. Always. (Big brothers always beat little brothers, regardless of talent.)

This season, though, the Spurs have routed the Hawks twice. I don’t think the Hawks are appreciably worse than last year. The Spurs are better, for sure. I think the main difference in these games is that the Spurs have changed their style of play while the Hawks haven’t. So the Spurs are still familiar with the Hawks’ plays and tendencies, but the Hawks less so with the Spurs.

Saturday night’s game was sloppy, frenetic, and disjointed. I’m willing to forgive the Spurs 23 turnovers and general carelessness with the ball. The team played a late game in San Antonio the night before and flew into a later timezone, nearly 1000 miles away. These athletes are the best in the world, but they are still people, affected by the same things as you and I.

So let’s focus on the good stuff. First and foremost, that defense. Holy heck, is this a good defensive team when locked in. The Hawks had no reason to be tired or careless. They only managed 25 points in the first half. 25. That’s crazy. Even crazier, it’s the third time this season the Spurs have held a team under 30 points for a half.

By contrast, the 53 points scored in the second half by the Hawks seems huge. Yet they only finished with 78 points total. The Spurs had 79 points after three quarters.

The other offensive indicators (besides TOs) were positive. My favorite: 26 assists on 36 made field goals. After a slow start, the Spurs offense is really starting to round into form. It may never resemble what we saw in the 2014 Finals, but it doesn’t need to. This team’s talent has evolved. But the ball is still moving for the right reasons: to create holes in the offense and produce high-efficiency opportunities for the right players in the right positions.

Aldridge has looked really good and really comfortable for a few games now. He feels confident taking the wide open shot when it comes to him. He’s also still doing a lot of dirty work down low and at the rim, often creating second and third scoring opportunities on possessions.

Other good numbers: 50% shooting on threes (10 of 20), 48.6% shooting overall. You wouldn’t know it by watching it, but the Spurs have a Top-5 offense in the NBA and are one of the best shooting teams in the league. The 3-pt% is particularly nice to see after a really slow team-wide start. Now if we can just get Danny back on track.

A few more thoughts from Saturday’s win:

• Jonathon Simmons is really showing something. Considering the path he took to the league (he made the Austin Spurs on an open tryout a few seasons ago), he is fearless. In a good way. When he’s on the court, he’s all energy and aggression, but never sacrificing intelligence or the team. I like seeing his development: it gives this team another dangerous weapon, a look it doesn’t have anywhere else on the roster.

The best thing I saw on Saturday, though, was the simplest: a made corner 3 off a normal rotation in the offense. To be a long-term fit on this team, Simmons needs to be able to take (and hit) that shot with confidence when it comes to him. Often times he’ll pull a Cory Joseph and dribble attack instead, resetting the offense. I was happy to see him understand the offense and take that shot.

• Parker had the night off on Friday, so it would make sense that he would be the freshest. His jumper was money, as it has been all season. His defense was really good, too. Don’t tell anybody, though. I prefer the national narrative to be that Parker has taken a step back and will be the weak link on this team moving forward.

• Danny Green hit some shots! Is there a better shooter in the league whose misses look as bad as Danny’s? His shot is either pure, or clanging off the side of the rim and threatening to knock another player out.

• We talk a lot about Tim’s agelessness and how he’s probably an alien. If that’s the case, Manu is probably a wizard. He scored 17 points in 19 minutes, and shot 3-for-3 on 3s. He hasn’t looked this consistently good in 3-5 years. He is 38 years old.

• The Hawks defense was ready for Kawhi, showing him some looks he’s never seen before. He was often doubled, and when he wasn’t, the closest big was always shading towards him, creating a sort of half court trap. This is a good learning experience for him. He mostly handled it well. I think this is the first time I’ve seen Kawhi treated with this first-option respect. I expect it won’t be the last.

The Spurs start a four game home stand Monday night against the Jazz.

Go Spurs Go.