Season 49, Game 80
San Antonio 86, Golden State 92
65-15, 2nd in the West
The Golden State Warriors are the best team in the NBA, and it’s not nearly as close as we all hope it is.
They’re just a flat out much better team than the Spurs, which is scary, considering how good the Spurs are. But you have to play a nearly flawless game to beat them, or catch them unfocused. The problem is, they will never be unfocused against a team like San Antonio. So the Spurs have to be perfect to beat them.
It just might be too tall of a task. The Spurs’ defense has actually played the Warriors really well this season. It’s the offense that has let them down. The Spurs’ defense isn’t as good as the offense is bad.
Through 17 minutes of this game, the Spurs had held the Warriors to a ridiculous 20 points. The problem? The Spurs had only scored 25. To play that well on defense and hold this explosive offense down and not capitalize on it is demoralizing. The Warriors’ offense will break out eventually; you have to take advantage of the lulls.
Playing top-level defense, you’ll still probably need about 100 points to beat the Warriors, or 25 points per quarter. In 16 quarters this season, the Spurs have scored 25 or more points exactly 6 times. In Game 2 (the sole win), they won the 2nd quarter 26-19. In Game 3, they scored 25 in the 2nd quarter, 29 in the 3rd quarter, and 32 in the 4th quarter. Easily their best scoring game. The Warriors, however, scored 32, 35, and 25 points in those respective quarters. So the Spurs only ‘won’ one of those quarters, and that was in semi-garbage time.
In this final game, the Spurs scored 26 in the 3rd and 25 in the 4th. The Warriors? 27 in the 3rd and 30 in the 4th.
I think you’re seeing the pattern here. In the quarters that the Spurs have scored enough to beat the Warriors, they are actually being outscored 168-163. Take away the garbage time quarter and the quarter in the game they won and it’s 124-105.
Why take away the quarter in the game they won? Because that’s the only quarter (out of 16) that represents how the Spurs must beat the Warriors: control pace and score on the Warriors’ defense. In every other quarter when they’ve been able to score, it’s not because they ‘cracked’ the Warriors’ defense; it’s because they let the Warriors control the pace and allowed the game to get away from them.
Therein lies the problem with slowing the game down, the most critical step to actually beating the Warriors: their defense is really, really good, too. And its particularly suited to stifling the Spurs’ offense. We know the formula; it just has a 6% success rate. That’s not ideal.
Of course, one way to score points is to make wide open jump shots, especially of the 3-point variety. While the season-long numbers will show that the Spurs are near the top of the league in this regard, the eye test begs to differ. The reliability of shooters like Green and Mills and Manu is spotty, and our other wings (like Anderson and Simmons) don’t trust the shot yet, and prefer to dribble into the paint, often effectively resetting the offense. (NBA blogger Nate Duncan refers to these as ‘record scratches’ – a wonderfully descriptive term).
In the 4 games played in this regular season, the Spurs are 23-of-68 from 3, a respectable 34%. But ‘respectable’ won’t get it done against this Warriors team, especially when the 3-point shot is needed to loosen up the paint and the midrange. Take away the third meeting between these two teams (the one game San Antonio scored respectably), and the 3-point shooting drops to 31%.
To beat the Warriors, you also have to take advantage of the non-Curry minutes. Despite the Spurs’ bench being so dominant this season, they have not been able to do much against the Warriors bench. They often look uncharacteristically sloppy and out of sync against the opposing bench. In Sunday’s game, the Warriors were able to extend the lead in Curry’s absence, an absolute death knell to any chance of beating Golden State.
If these two teams meet in the Western Conference Finals, the Warriors would have to be heavily favored. The Spurs have shown very little evidence that they can keep up with the Warriors or that they have any significant advantages to exploit. While it seemed like the retooling in the off-season was in large part a reaction to this Warriors team, it appears that the Spurs aren’t any closer than the rest of the league to figuring them out and beating them. Forget 4 times in 7 games; I’d settle for twice, full stop.
(AP Photo/Darren Abate)
It’s a bit disheartening to be so good, yet so far away from being the best. Thankfully, they still have to prove it on the court, in May and June.
It’s also disheartening to end the season on a losing skid, even if the games hold no meaning. Still, I’d like to get at least one more win this regular season. The Thunder come to town tonight. Like the Spurs, Oklahoma City is locked into their seed with nothing really to play for. With a huge potential second round match-up between these two teams looming, it will be interesting to see how both sides play this one. Oklahoma City played on Monday night, so I reckon they might rest a few key players.
Go Spurs Go.
