Golden State Warriors and San Antonio Spurs – the National Basketball Association two best teams this season – will square off in the one of the highly anticipated regular-season games on Saturday night.
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Golden State can now only lose two games if they wish to break the 72-10 regular season win record.
Another magic number that the Warriors are looking at is 32, the amount of consecutive regular season games that the team has last against the Spurs in San Antonio.
LaMarcus Aldridge and Kawhi Leonard, however, produced commanding double-double performances to lead the Spurs.
San Antonio led by as much as 11 points in the second quarter until Golden State reeled off the final five points of the half – three of them on free throws by Curry – and cut its deficit to 43-37 at halftime. Curry came in as the NBA’s leading scorer with 30.3 points per game.
The Golden State Warriors may have fallen to the San Antonio Spurs, but Stephen Curry is not concerned.
“We understand that we’ve got to go through San Antonio to achieve our goal”, said Warriors center Andrew Bogut.
Curry, the reigning NBA MVP, headed into the game averaging a league-best 30.5 points and Thompson (22.2) also has ranked high in scoring throughout the season.
It’s the kind of impact that Aldridge was expected to provide after he was signed by the Spurs in the offseason. We enjoyed it, I think we did a great job, but I don’t think it’s the type of team we’re going to see if we happen to face them in the playoffs.
It will the second of the four-game regular-season series. Curry on one shot got the ball in the corner, saw Dirk Nowitzki in front of him, retreated and banked a 3-pointer off the corner of the backboard.
Many believe that tonight’s Spurs vs Warriors game is a preview of the Western Conference Finals. “I don’t know if many guys in that position would have handled it as well as he did”.
The Spurs normally make opposing teams react to what they are doing, but they have never faced a team like the Warriors. “Being in the league for 15 years, it’s tough to try to get 70 wins, with all the back to backs and all the great teams you have in the league”.
He clearly had something to prove on Saturday and responded well to that pressure, contributing 26 points in a huge San Antonio win.
They escaped the shadows Saturday night by beating the world champions, 87-79, for their 43rd straight home win.
Don’t agree? Just look at how both teams approached Saturday’s game, which had the intensity of a game played in late May or June, as opposed to in the middle of March. The total however, has been bet down a point and a half from 218.5 to 217.
Steve Kerr makes no secret of taking coaching cues from Gregg Popovich. Nonetheless, they still led near the midway point of the fourth quarter, and only trailed by three with 2:23 remaining.
Pair him with excellent teammates like Klay Thompson, Draymond Green and Harrison Barnes and the Warriors are easily the most complete lineup in the league today.
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The Warriors and Spurs hook up for (again) the biggest matchup of the season.
