Warriors comeback effort falls short in 112-107 loss to Spurs

It was the mother of all trap games on Saturday night. After beating the Phoenix Suns for a big win on Friday, the Golden State Warriors played the second game of a back-to-back in a loss to the San Antonio Spurs with a final score of 107-112.

The Warriors came out firing with a pair of threes from Jordan Poole and Andrew Wiggins. However, after the Warriors got up 7-2, the Spurs went on a 28-4 run fueled by consecutive sloppy possessions by Golden State which led to bad shots and ugly turnovers. It was clear that the Spurs prioritized shutting down Stephen Curry early on as he was held scoreless for the first 11 minutes of the game until hitting a pair of free throws. He finished the first quarter shooting 0/5 with the Warriors trailing 21-36.

Curry’s slump continued in the second quarter as he didn’t hit his first field goal until there were 41 seconds left in the half. However, the attention he attracted did free up the rest of the offense to make plays. The bench gave Golden State some life after being down 47-27 as they would go on a 9-2 run. With the starters back in, the Warriors were able to cut the lead down to 9 points going into halftime with a score of 58-67.

That single digit lead was short-lived as the Spurs combination of defense and open shot-making picked back up in the second half. The lead ballooned back to 18 after they went on an 11-2 run to start the third. After a pass by Gary Payton II that bounced off an unexpecting Nemanja Bjelica, all hope seemed lost. That was until Curry started to catch fire hitting several threes including a deep logo three at the buzzer to finish the third quarter, 88-99.

The Warriors went on a run from there. The difference in energy was obvious with Golden State forcing turnovers defensively and flying for rebounds on offense. A 13-2 run for the Warriors tied the game with 3:14 left on the clock. After a quick basket for the Spurs, Curry hit a deep rainbow three followed by a tough lay-up to put the Warriors up 106-103 — their first lead since the first quarter. Unfortunately, the run stopped there as the Spurs defense shut down the Warriors and capped the game on a 9-1 run. The final score was 112-107, Warriors lose.

Although it was an ugly loss, they fought hard to rally back after being down big in the second half. Look for the team to bounce back for their next game on Monday against the Orlando Magic.

If you want to talk more about the Warriors latest game, hop in the Twitch stream with Marc Delucchi: