The Spurs blew out the Warriors in the most lopsided game of the year. Without the services of Steph Curry, Golden State had to depend on super rookie Yaxel Lendeborg to provide firepower, and Spurs defense simply shut him down, holding him to 3 points on 1-13 shooting. Two way player LJ Cryer led the scoring for the visitors with 20.
The entire roster got into the action as Luke Kornet had one of his best defensive efforts of the season with a couple of blocks and most importantly, giving Victor
Wembanyama plenty of comfortable minutes on the bench resting, playing 20 minutes. Stephon Castle broke out of his mini-slump with 32 points in 25 minutes. Carter Bryant continued his progression to becoming a rotation player with a solid effort on both ends of the court. Tarris Reed played almost the entire fourth quarter. I can’t find anything to complain about the Spurs’ performance in this game. It was just about perfect. And the team keeps getting better. It’s good to be a Spurs fan.
Observations:
- Blake Griffin really seemed kind of like a conceited jerk when he was a player, but as an announcer, he’s insightful and has a good connection to his colleagues in the studio and asks really good questions of the guests and players. I don’t know if I was wrong in my initial assessment of his character, but I kind of like this Blake.
- Draymond is the career leader for the NBA in technical fouls with 166. However many he’s had, he’s earned a lot more. He has a real talent for getting away with an incredible amount of complaining and questionable plays, and he only gets called for a small fraction of them.
- It annoys me when the announcers called the Warriors’ rookie Yaxel LendeNborg. Where did the extra ‘N’ come from? It’s Lendeborg, thank you.
- Congratulations to the Pacers who held off a furious last minute rally from the Knicks to win 106-104 in the lead-game on Prime. I thought that game was going to go to overtime.
- The Spurs started the game on a red-hot 12-0 run, causing an early Steve Kerr timeout. That didn’t help as the Silver and Black kept pouring it on and the Warriors were colder than interstellar space. They didn’t score a single point for the first half of the quarter, finally getting a bucket from Gui Santos just after the midpoint after the Spurs 18-0 start. Luke replaced Victor in the lineup, and the Spurs defense was just good instead of being impenetrable, and Golden State scored an impressive 14 points in the rest of the quarter, trailing 38-14 after one quarter, with two-way player LJ Cryer doing a lot of the damage.
- Lendeborg pretty much believes that he never commits a foul. I think that’s part of the Warriors’ character.
- Victor fell awkwardly early in the second quarter, and it was a little scary when he took some time to get up. Amazingly, he seemed fine after a minute or two. His resilience is unreal.
- Draymond threw Victor the floor a few plays after that, which was clearly not a basketball play, and it was called a flagrant 1 foul, but it should have been an ejection in my opinion. He pushed Vic so hard that he injured his elbow and had to go to the locker room, so there was some poetic justice in the incident. Draymond did return to the game in the third quarter, though.
- The Warriors were more physical in the second quarter, while the Spurs kept their foot on the gas, and led 63-33 going into the locker room. A 30 point lead seems pretty safe, except for that one time that they led by 29 and … it’s just too painful.
- Golden State had a little renaissance at the beginning of the third quarter, as their shot found the hoop and the Spurs went a little cold for a few minutes while the broadcast team of Tobey and Elliott was talking about fried chicken. The visitors were only able to shave the Spurs lead to 24 when they came back with a vengeance and Castle, Wembanyama, and Vassell ballooned the lead back to 33, 35, 40 and more. The Warriors renaissance was over in the blink of an eye.
- I’m happy for Charles Bassey. He’s found a home in Golden State, and he’s really blossoming as a player.
- Jordan McLaughlin entered the game with a couple of minutes left in the third, which is usually a good sign that Mitch is feeling comfortable that the game is under control.
- Tarris Reed got into the game with 11 minutes left, and played all 11 of them, looking like a monster on the boards. Or maybe some kind of bear.
For the opponents’ frame of mind, visit Golden State of Mind. I haven’t read them recently, but I expect to see a lot of Wemby isn’t fair comments on the game thread. I feel bad for them missing their best player, hopefully he won’t miss a lot of the season.
The Spurs play again on Sunday afternoon in Utah against the Jazz. The Jazz are one of three teams in the league who only have one win, and need I say TRAP GAME!?
