Recap: Warriors 89, Spurs 113

Ouch. That one hurts. The Warriors were never really in this one. The first quarter ended 36-24 and that was about the closest the Warriors were the rest of the night. The Spurs even pushed the lead to as high as 36. This loss drops the Warriors to 7-6 while the Spurs up their record to 10-2. If this game is supposed to be a measuring stick of where the Warriors are, put away the yard stick and break out the tape measure. The Spurs showed the Warriors what a championship team is all about with excellent defense, precision passing, and board control.

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So what went right? Not much.
1) Troy Murphy. He's been solid the whole season and last nigh was no different.

2) Monty was able to give some burn to Miles and Cabarkapa. Miles played a season high 16 minutes, so it was nice to see him get some significant playing time with a chance to run the offense. Zarko was able to play a season high 20 minutes after a few DNP CD's. He finished the game with 8 points and 5 boards.

3) It was a pleasure to see Ike Diogu down low and banging. His 11 points and 3 boards in 14 minutes showed that he's efficient with his shot (4-7) and should be able to contribute big time to the Warriors soft frontline.

4) Lots of free throws. The Warriors were able to draw fouls and hit their free throws. They went 29-31 (94%) from the line. This kept the game "respectable." If the Warriors shot their usual percentage from the line they would have lost by 30+.

A lot went wrong.

Let's start with the shooting. This has been a problem all season especially with the Warriors falling in love with the 3. Last night was different though, shooting the 3 ball did not doom the Warriors as they shot only 9 from the arc. The 2 point field goals just didn't drop as the Spurs defense shut down Baron and JRich holding them to a combined 16 points. The Warriors shot 38% from the field compared to the Spurs 55%.

The Spurs absolutely dominated the boards. Duncan and co. outrebounded the Warriors by 25, 52-27. The Warrior with the most boards was Zarko with 5, Murphy and Taft had 4. Even more alarming were the 6 offensive boards the Warriors got. The Warriors shot poorly and were not given any second chance opportunities. A sure recipe for disaster.

Additionally, the Spurs are a great passing team and showed this off with lots of screen rolls, backdoors, and precise off the ball movement to record 31 assists (the Warriors had 16).

Here's what Pop had to say, "A good all-around game," Popovich said. "At both ends of the court, I thought we probably played our finest game of the season so far. It was a bad combination for Golden State because I think they just had a bad night."

Let's try to forget this one and go get Utah on Friday.

Warrior Wonder
Have to give this one to TMurph. He was the only Warrior who showed up to play with 27 points on 8-13 shooting and 10-10 free throws. He was second on the team with 4 boards behind Zarko's 5, and led the team with 2 steals.