Forward fails to deliver in crunch time
LaMarcus Aldridge finished with 28 points and eight rebounds Sunday, but his stat line rang hollow after he struggled to score down the stretch of the Spurs’ gut-wrenching 113-111 loss to Golden State.
Aldridge finished the fourth quarter with six points on 2-of-9 shooting from the field. In the final eight minutes, he missed 7 of 8 shots and also had a turnover that Kevin Durant converted into a threepoint basket that cut the Warriors’ deficit to 94-88 with 7:53 left.
“I just missed shots,” Aldridge said. “I made a couple down the stretch and I missed some. They mixed up some double-teams, which threw me off guard a little bit. But I missed shots. I missed shots that I’ll take again. Those are my shots. You can’t make them all.”
The Spurs looked to Aldridge to pick up the scoring slack after they lost Kawhi Leonard to another injury to his left ankle. The Warriors, who trailed by 23 points when Leonard went to the locker room with 7:53 left in the third, capitalized with an 18-0 run.
Aldridge didn’t deliver. He missed 3 of 11 shots after Leonard left to finish 11-for-24 from the field.
Aldridge also committed a game-high six turnovers, including five after Leonard exited.
“Of course, I (felt) I had to do more, try to be more dominant down there,” Aldridge said. “And that’s why they mixed in some double-teams, and I turned it over because I was trying to score rather than pass.
“I have to do a better job next game of just playing through double-teams and making reads out there.”
The Warriors made it a point to zero in on Aldridge even before Leonard went out. Aldridge had 17 points on 7-for-11 shooting in the first half.
“Our activity level on him was better in the second half,” acting Golden State head coach Mike Brown said. “He’s a tough player to guard in a one-on-one situation.”
Brown said the key to throwing Aldridge off his rhythm was to give him different looks.
“We mixed it up with Zaza (Pachulia) on him with Draymond (Green), and then mixed up our double-teams,” Brown said. “You can’t give him a steady diet. If you give him a steady diet, he’s going to get a great rhythm because he’s a great player.”
Brown talked before Game 1 about the need to harass Aldridge after he scored 34 points in the series-clinching 114-75 win over Houston in Game 6 without Leonard, who missed that game after he originally injured his ankle in Game 5.
“You know, it’s almost like he’s a safety valve,” Brown said of Aldridge. “They can throw him the ball at any time and get a great look. If he gets doubled, he’s done a fantastic job of kicking the ball out and getting the ball to three-point shooters that make you pay another way.”
But none of that happened in crunch time against the Warriors.
Aldridge said it was tough to recover from the loss of Leonard because they were so much in sync. Leonard scored 26 points on 7-for-13 shooting.
“We had a good offensive rhythm going with him and myself,” Aldridge said. After Leonard left, “we just had to change it up. He’s our go-to-guy, so it was tough.”
Aldridge wasn’t the only San Antonio player who struggled in the fourth quarter. Patty Mills was 0-for-3 (all from three-point range) en route to finishing the period with three points.
It was a tough day all the way around for Mills, who finished with five points on 1-for-8 shooting.
“Their defensive pressure took me out of a lot of stuff,” said Mills, who entered the game averaging 11.2 points in the playoffs. “They obviously didn’t give me a lot of open shots, and that was it.”