Warriors tune out to own warnings
SAN ANTONIO>> Pride is a powerful force.
So is apathy.
The Spurs played Sunday’s Game 4 with the former. The Warriors started the contest with the latter.
And because of that, the Warriors will have to play at least one more game in a series that they should have wrapped up in drama-free fashion Sunday.
The Warriors started Game 4 with a shot clock violation on their first offensive possession and six additional turnovers in the first four-and-ahalf minutes of the first quarter. Add in the Warriors’ inability to make a shot in the first half and the team’s not-quite-engaged defense, and it was easy to see how San Antonio jumped out to a 17-point first-half lead.
So while the Warriors’ talent eventually took over — the duo of Draymond Green and Kevin Durant willed the Warriors back into the game with incredible defense and a no-pass, high pick-androll offense which cut the Spurs’ lead to two points in the fourth quarter — the initial hole Golden State dug with its poor start proved too deep and the Spurs claimed Game 4, 103-90.
“The first possession of the game, we’re setting (a) tone. … Seven turnovers in the first four or five minutes of a playoff game on the road? Good luck,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said.
Dropping a game to the Spurs is hardly an unforgivable offense, and failing to sweep them isn’t one either. While San Antonio can’t come close to matching the Warriors’ talent — even with Stephen Curry out of the lineup — they’re well-coached and savvy. After going up 3-0 in the series, the Warriors knew that San Antonio wasn’t going to roll over in Game 4. Coaches and players alike spoke at Saturday’s practice about being “professional,” staying focused, and not “messing around.”
Then they went out on Sunday and didn’t show the “appropriate fear” that Kerr (who lifted the term from Spurs coach Gregg Popovich) so often preaches. They weren’t focused. They messed around.
That’s the real transgression of Sunday’s game: the Warriors knew exactly what was going to happen — they knew that the Spurs would come out and play their best
basketball from the opening tip in what could be their final game of the season — and they let it happen.
“When we play the way we played the entire game, that’s where that start catches up to you,” Green said. “You get in such a hole and then you’re playing the right way, you’re doing the right things, you’re doing everything you need to do to get over the hump — one call doesn’t go your way, one bounce doesn’t go your way, one shot doesn’t go your way, and that’s where everything catches up to you. … It’s all good.”
But it isn’t, Draymond. It might be down the line — few will remember that it took the Warriors five games instead of four to dispatch the Spurs in this series — but right now, in this moment, it’s a missed opportunity that puts the Warriors at a disadvantage heading into the second round. (Which is still inevitable — this Spurs team isn’t going to be the first to come back from a 3-0 deficit.)
The Warriors were always going to be on a flight back to Oakland after Sunday’s game, but because they didn’t heed their own warnings, instead of a few days off this week — an opportunity
for injuries to heal and for coaches to start formulating plans to stop the impossible Anthony Davis — the Warriors will now have to engage in at least one more rock fight with a remorseless Spurs team.
There was no benefit to Sunday’s loss, either. It won’t help Stephen Curry get back into the court for Game 1 of the second round — unless the Warriors plan on losing at least one — and probably two — more games in this series, the second-round series against the Pelicans will start next Saturday or Sunday.
No, all the Warriors’ Game 4 loss meant is that Golden State will have to hold another practice they cannot walk through. That
they’ll have to play at least one more game where there are literally thousands of opportunities for bad things to happen.
And Sunday’s outcome — and, in turn, Tuesday’s game — was eminently avoidable.
At the same time, bad habits are hard to break.
Sunday’s Game 4 played out as so many Warriors games have played out this season. The other team — looking to prove a point, even a futile one — would come out and play inspired basketball, while the Warriors — putting out the body language of a teenager dragged to a birthday party for one of his parents’ friends — would coast through the opening
minutes or even the entire first half.
Then the Warriors would make a push of their own push — it always felt like it was a homework assignment they were procrastinating — typically in the third quarter, and often enough, they’d flip the game in their favor.
Sometimes, though, they didn’t.
Add Sunday’s game to that ledger.
“They executed, they came out and played with the force that’s necessary to win a playoff game and we did not,” Kerr said. “It’s a good lesson for us — a good reminder — that you’ve got to bring it. You’ve got to play hard and smart and tough. We’ll do that on Tuesday.”
Perhaps Kerr is right — Sunday’s game is the lesson the Warriors need. After all, Golden State was able to “flip the switch” in Game 1 with such ease and then open up a 3-0 series lead despite playing uninspired basketball over the next two games — it was easy to take a Game 4 victory for granted.
So was the Spurs’ counterpunch a necessary reality check for this Golden State team?
Tuesday’s game will go a long way to answering that question.
But regardless of that outcome, it’s a question we shouldn’t have to be asking about a championship-caliber team.