Warriors at Spurs
The San Antonio Spurs still own the best record in the NBA. But in the Southwest Division, even one loss can push them back into second place.
The Spurs will be looking to avoid that loss when they host the struggling Golden State Warriors on Wednesday.
The New Orleans Hornets hung with them in the division for the first month of the season and now it’s the Dallas Mavericks – winners of 10 straight – nipping at their heels nearly a quarter of the way through the season.
San Antonio had gotten in a nasty habit of falling behind teams and having to come back, overcoming deficits of 15 points or more to earn wins four times this season and twice in the past two weeks. No longer content with that strategy, Spurs coach Gregg Popovich emphasized getting off to a strong start on Sunday against the Hornets and his team responded.
San Antonio put 34 points on the board in both the first and second quarters and coasted to the finish, resting the stars for the entire fourth quarter in a 109-84 triumph. The Spurs hit their first seven 3-point attempts in the contest and Tony Parker led seven players in double figures with 19 points.
Winners of four NBA championships in the last 12 years, San Antonio’s current 17-3 record matches the franchise’s best 20-game start and has put to rest questions at the beginning of the season of whether Tim Duncan and company had become too old to seriously compete. Duncan’s stats are down across the board, but the supporting cast has stepped up including Richard Jefferson and rookie Gary Neal, who had 11 points, five rebounds and five assists against the Hornets.
There is good reason to believe that the Spurs’ run of success will continue past Wednesday, as they have beaten the Warriors nine consecutive times. More impressively, Golden State has not won in San Antonio since February 14, 1997 – a span of 26 games.
If that history isn’t enough, there is also the fact that the Warriors aren’t playing very good basketball right now. Losers of four straight, they are coming off a 105-100 setback at Dallas in which they allowed 34 points in the fourth quarter to squander a small lead.
Golden State got 21 points from Stephen Curry in the contest and 20 from David Lee but could not get a stop when it needed one, something that has become more of a problem recently. The Warriors have allowed more than 100 points in nine of their last 10 games – dropping all nine.
The Spurs burned them in their last meeting on November 30, 118-98. Duncan recorded a triple-double in that one with 15 points, 18 rebounds and 11 assists and Manu Ginobili scored 27 points.