Learning curve can come with rewards
PHOENIX — With time ticking away in the third quarter Saturday, a player who to that point had misfired on 14 of his 18 shots loaded up a Hail Mary heave from 38 feet.
As Stephen Curry’s buzzerbeater found the bottom of the net, Spurs coach Gregg Popovich railed at his team for not defending the Chase Center logo better.
“Forty-five feet (away) with only four seconds left, you might want to get up the court,” Popovich said later. “Because you know he’s got range.”
Popovich chalked the miscue up as another teachable moment in a season full of them for his young team.
Throughout a four-game winning streak that continued with a 112-107 victory over Curry and the mighty Warriors, the Spurs are finding that learning and winning beats learning and losing.
“There’s a lot of mistakes we made we can learn from, watch the film and grow from,” guard Derrick White said. “It’s good to get a win and learn from it.”
The Spurs touched down in Phoenix for Monday’s game against the defending Western Conference champions with a chance to close out of a three-game road trip that appeared daunting when they departed San Antonio last week.
The Spurs have been catching breaks, to be sure.
After handling a Damian Lillard-less Portland team 114-83, they Spurs got Golden State on the second night of a back-to-back with an unconventional early tipoff of 5:30 in San Francisco.
“I wish they had played the game at noon,” Popovich joked. “Make it even tougher for them.”
The quick turnaround from the Warriors’ emotional 118-96 win over the Suns the night before helped explain what the Spurs saw from Curry on Saturday.
The Warriors star went 1 of 11 in the first half, and was 2 of 16 at one point in the second.
Aside from a brief flurry at the end of the third quarter — which he closed with 10 points in the final 3:06 in
cluding a midcourt toss at the horn —Curry had trouble making much of anything.
Curry finished with a gamehigh 27 points, but was 7 of 28 from the field.
“It just looked like fatigue to me,” Golden State coach Steve Kerr said. “It looked to me like our whole team, not just Steph, was a step behind, a step slow.”
Whatever the reason, Curry’s sudden bout of mortality helped the Spurs roll out to a 24-point lead in the first half.
It marked the fourth game in a row they have led by at least 18 points.
White paced the Spurs with 25 points. Dejounte Murrray had 23 points and 12 rebounds. Lonnie Walker provided a season-best 21 points off the bench.
It was the first time those three guards topped at least 20 points in the same game for the Spurs.
Even ahead by 18 late in the third quarter, the Spurs knew bet ter than to relax.
“We knew they were going to go on a run,” White said. “They’re the Warriors. They’ve been doing it for years.”
The fourth quarter provided the Spurs an object lesson in the value of continuing to plug away.
Ten minutes into the closing frame, the Spurs had managed only four points. The Warriors closed in fast.
With 2:39 left, Curry swished a step-back 3-pointer over Jakob Poeltl to give Golden State its first lead since the first quarter at 104-103.
Moments later, Curry glided for a layup to put the Warriors ahead by three. To the Chase Center crowd, it was as if order had been restored to the universe.
“It’s definitely a great learning lesson for us, win or lose,” Murray said. “We knew with Golden State, a lead is not safe. That’s a team that don’t quit. We had to keep our composure and just fight, fight.”
Yet another takeaway the Spurs can internalize from Saturday: Sometimes good things happen for teams that keep ha nging around.
Instead of allowing the Golden
State avalanche to overwhelm them, the Spurs kept composure.
Their big break came in the form of a missed free throw.
With 1:47 to play and the Spurs down by three, Keldon Johnson went to the foul lin. Johnson made his first attempt but missed his second so badly the ball caromed to Walker at the 3-point line.
Walker shipped it to a wide open White, who buried the go-ahead 3-pointer.
Suddenly, the team that had mustered four points in 10 minutes scored four in four seconds to regain the lead.
“We didn’t panic,” White said. “We just answered and found a way to get a win.”
It was the second time in eight days the Spurs squandered a huge early lead, fell behind in the fourth quarter then reversed course to win.
They followed a similar script in a 96-88 victory over Boston at the AT&T Center to kickstart their streak.
“It’s not a recipe for success,” White said. “We’d like to keep the leads we have. But if we stay with it and compete, good things can happen.”
Still, there’s no denying the Spurs (8-13) are figuring some things out as their record is improving. A game such as Saturday’s was one they might not have won in October.
In the weeks since, the Spurs have grown up, gained confidence and learned how to function in the crucible of the fourth quarter, even on the road.
The signs of progress have been plentiful.
Popovich being Popovich, he was eager to fire up film from the victory at Golden State on the plane flight to Phoenix and get to nitpicking.
“There was so much in that game to learn for our young guys,” Popovich said. “It’s going to be fun to go back and pick out the things we did well and the things we did poorly.”
Who knows? Popovich might even institute new drills aimed at defending shooters 40 feet from the basket.
In the meantime, Spurs players can enjoy a new phase of the growing process.
Earlier in the season, they tried learning lessons the hard way. It turns out that learning them the easy way is far more fun.