Spurs’ Defense Grinds Warriors to a Halt

By Travis Atkinson

Playoff level basketball was on display in the Alamo City Saturday night, as the San Antonio Spurs defense shut down Stephen Curry and the Golden State Warriors offense in route to a 79-87 victory.

In an impressive defensive performance, San Antonio held Golden State to its lowest scoring output of the season, improving the Spurs home win streak to 44, and handing the Warriors their 33 consecutive regular-season loss in San Antonio.

With Spurs defenders contesting nearly every Golden State look at the basket, the Warriors shot just 37% from the field and went 9-36 from behind the arc. San Antonio kept Curry frustrated all night with physical play and multiple defenders. In Curry’s worst performance of the season, he had just 14 points on just 4-18 from the field, including 1-12 from 3point range.

Spurs’ guard Danny Green focused on the defense’s teamwork as the key ingredient in stopping Curry. “Our bigs had a great night stepping up on him and not letting him go off,” Green said.

Also crucial to the Spurs victory was their interior play. San Antonio dominated Golden State down low, outrebounding the Warriors 53-37.

With Andrew Bogut out of the game, Golden State had no interior presence and no answer for Lamarcus Aldridge.  In perhaps his finest performance of the season, Aldridge had 26 points and 13 rebounds, continually battling in the post to give the Spurs second chance attempts with rebounds and tip-outs. Aldridge was particularly effective late in the game, helping to close out the Warriors with a pair of face up jumpers. It was a drastic improvement on Aldridge’s 5 point, 3 rebound performance in January when the teams last met.

Aldridge talked about what led to the improvement after the game. “Just being confident,” he said. “Earlier in the year I think I was just trying to find my way and I think now I’m just more comfortable.”

The Spurs commitment to the post game was evident from tip-off. Boris Diaw got the start at center in place of Tim Duncan and San Antonio looked to him early. Diaw made his first 3 shots and helped the Spurs get out to an 8-5 lead. Diaw continued his strong play throughout the game, scoring 14 points on 6-7 shooting and gathering 8 rebounds.

San Antonio’s performance was far from perfect though. With the exception of Aldridge and Diaw the Spurs offense struggled to find its rhythm for much of the game. The Spurs were unable to take advantage of Golden States’ offensive woes early and as a result this game was a lot closer than it should have been. The Warriors’ offense prowess often outshines the team’s defensive abilities, but the Warriors commitment to defense was on display Saturday night and kept this game from getting out of hand. Golden State forced the Spurs to commit 18 turnovers and shoot just 41%. Though Aldridge was impressive, his 26 points came on 25 shot attempts. Rising star Kawhi Leonard was held in check by Draymond Green and scored only 14 points on 5-14 shooting. The Warriors showed they have the defensive ability to grind out a physical game. With the way the Warriors played defense, this game really could have gone either way. Golden State missed a lot of shots they normally make. It’s hard to imagine Curry going 1-12 from 3point land in their next meeting.

Curry seemed unfazed by his team’s performance. “We’ll be all right,” Curry said after the game. “It doesn’t change our vision of how were going to end the season.”

San Antonio improved to 59-10 on the season and moved to within three games of the Warriors (62-7). With April 7th and April 10th matchups between the teams still remaining, the race for 1st place in the Western Conference remains open. The Spurs will be back in action Monday night in Charlotte versus the Hornets.