Recap: Warriors Engineer Reverse Collapse Vs Spurs to Tie Series 2-2

Here's my recap in the form of a fake post-game interview with Gregg Popovich.

EZ: How did the Warriors win this game?

Pop: They made more shots than we did.

EZ: What did you think about Stephen Curry?

Pop: Is that really your question? I think the same thing about him as everyone else. I don't have any great insight that any other observer of basketball watching him doesn't have already. He's a great shooter. He made tough shots basically on one leg. He's a great shooter. Is that what you want me to say? Great shooter. There. I said it again. You can quote me even. Heck of a shooter. And he can pass. But everyone knows that. We did a pretty good job limiting the number of good looks he got though.

EZ: How does it make you feel that you held Klay Thompson and Stephen Curry to 32 points total, yet Jarrett Jack and Harrison Barnes go out and combine for 50 points?

Pop: How do you think that makes me feel? It's not a great feeling. Do you think I should feel good about that? (looking around the room) Who asked that question?

EZ: How did Harrison Barnes have such a big game?

Pop: He took a lot of shots. That's usually a pre-requisite for scoring a lot of points. But give the kid credit. For a young kid like that...what is he, 19? 20? Yeah, not the most efficient game, but that's the kind of game it was all around. Shot better than most of our guys, to be honest. Got to give it to the kid, it was a nice game the kid had. But we can live with that kid taking a lot of shots. We'll live with that. He had some mis-matches. It could've been worse for us actually. I've been impressed with that kid.

EZ: Manu was really hot in the first half, but cooled off in the second half. Any thoughts on that?

Pop: Yeah, same thoughts as you obviously. He was hitting shots in the first half, but then not hitting shots in the second half. (laughter) I thought that was fairly obvious. No great insight there. Maybe his legs got a little tired late in the game. But yeah. Just hit more shots early on. That's just basketball. Sometimes shots go in. Sometimes shots don't go in.

EZ: Why didn't you go to Tim Duncan more when Bogut picked up his fourth foul?

Pop: (Looks down at his stat sheet.) Tim had 22 shots and only hit 7 of them. Am I right about that? How many more times should we have gone to him? Bogut is one of the few guys in the league that can play Tim straight up. It was a good defensive effort on his part to keep Tim from getting a lot of good looks without fouling. Obviously it would've been nice if Bogut picked up another foul. But he didn't.

EZ: Are there any adjustments you can make for Game 5 to get the Spurs offense back to what it was during the regular season?

Pop: Is that a serious question? We just need to make shots. When you don't make shots, it's tough to win basketball games. We got to figure out a way to make more shots than they do. That's the adjustment we'll try to make. Any other questions? Ok, thanks, folks. See you in a couple days.

Warrior Wonder

I love that this team can be tied 2-2 with the vaunted San Antonio Spurs in Round 2 with Jarrett Jack being the Warrior Wonder. Eventually I'll get used to stuff like this, I suppose.

Parting Thoughts

I know Jarrett Jack dribble-dribble-dribble-yep-still-dribbling can sometimes be frustrating, but I think there's some method to the madness. The Warriors obviously have significant turnover issues (18 tonight, for example). It would be great to pass the ball around more, but with Lee out of action, that's easier said than done. Pretty much every time Klay or Barnes takes the ball up the floor, I'm biting my nails worried about them turning the ball over. So while many among you and fans elsewhere have expressed serious consternation about Jack's Rube Goldbergian dribbling tendencies, I blame it on counterfactuals relating to turnover minimization that the coaching staff has thought deeply about. At least, this is what I tell myself.