Warriors try hard but run out of talent versus Spurs, 126-113

The outclassed Warriors surprised the Spurs out of the gate but faded down the stretch as the first half comes to an end.

Editor’s Note: Hey there Dub Nation HQ, we hope you’re enjoying your evening. That Spurs game was really somethin’ to watch, eh? Now it’s time to sit back, relax and check out a poignant piece from a real ball knower and Dub Nation supporter in our guy Duncan. He’s written just the kind of thing to mull over as the team heads into one of the most fascinating All-Star breaks of the late dynasty era Warriors. Enjoy!

When Jimmy Butler’s knee gave out against the Miami Heat, all expectations for this team went out the window. A team with at least fringe championship contentions found itself in the NBA’s dreaded middle zone, much too good (and too late) to tank, but without the realistic hope that the team could hold up to four rounds in the playoffs. No chance for a ring, no chance for Darryn Peterson. Suddenly, one of the proudest franchises and most rabid fanbases in the NBA was stuck in Chicago Bulls style purgatory, at least for a season.

The trade deadline brought an end to one of the NBA’s most exhausting and annoying sideshows (well, after one last ridiculous controversy about catering etiquette), but only in exchange for Kristaps Porzingis – a fine player when he plays, but not a destiny changer even in the best case scenario. What does success look like in these dire circumstances?

With no incentive for the Warriors to take a page from the Utah Jazz and bottom out, the Warriors are playing for the sake of next season and personal honor. First priority is for the young players to establish themselves, learn from playing heavy minutes, see if they can contribute to winning basketball. Second priority is to not be an embarrassment to the fanbase and the vaunted legacy of the past 15 years.

There’s real value in fielding a competitive team when there’s no championship ceiling, if only for the fact that millions of Warriors fans can come home on a Wednesday night and watch an entertaining game of basketball.

I think of this year’s Suns team when I think about what the Warriors will look like going forward. Even with a bonafide star in Devin Booker, their championship hopes are nonexistent, limited by a roster that just isn’t talented enough to compete with the big boys. But since they were so far stuck in the mud after selling out the future, that team is a blessing for a fanbase that expected nothing other than running out the clock for a half-decade. They play hard, they compete on a nightly basis, they have a chance to have some real, meaningful, playoff moments. Young overlooked players who may not have gotten a chance otherwise are emerging and establishing careers. It may not be where you want to be for an extended period of time, but there’s still joy and fun to be had.

Dub Nation hasn’t had to root for a “scrappy little team” in a minute, and it takes some readjusting once those expectations come down. But when the choice is made for you, it’s more fun to embrace it than get bitter about what the team isn’t.

So what are you rooting for? You’re rooting for young players who wouldn’t get a chance otherwise. You’re rooting for overlooked players to start looking like future building blocks. You’re rooting for veterans to look like they have a little more juice left to squeeze.

And you’re rooting to put some fear into legitimate contenders – remind them that, hey, this was a pretty formidable team two weeks ago. And of course, you’re rooting to not get embarrassed on national TV.

The Spurs are ahead of schedule, ascending. Their season is already a massive success regardless of what they do in the playoffs: becoming one of the three or four best teams in the league a year after getting the second overall pick is not the typical arc for a team. But this team spent years in the gutter, and as a result are completely overflowing with talent. That talent hasn’t come together into a playoff run quite yet, and we’ll see how it looks when the games really matter. But the end result of six years of non-contention is an incredibly young, ridiculously athletic team with draft pedigree up and down the roster.

The Warriors’ current collection of low draft picks, undrafted players, and buy-low vets were simply not in a position where they could realistically match the full-strength Spurs without some Steph Curry magic. Draft position isn’t everything, but it is something, and no matter how much of a competitive demon Pat Spencer is, when you have to make a layup over Victor Wembanyama, mentality and effort matters a little bit less. Steph Curry is the great equalizer, but with him nursing his runner’s knee these teams were not on the same level.

That talent disparity is why it was so satisfying to see the Warriors absolutely punk the Spurs for the first half of this game. Part of the fun of not being perceived as a threat in the league is being able to take advantage of a team overlooking you, wanting to take a half-day off and beat up on some lesser competition. A well-coached team with enough spark can really take advantage of that. The Warriors showed that spark for much of the first half of the game, playing with much more effort than the frustrated-looking Spurs.

Draymond Green is known for having wildly-swinging levels of effort throughout a regular season. Sometimes, if he can find a narrative to hang onto, he’s showing up like it’s Game 7 in February, looking to bite the heads off any European big man in his reach. Sometimes (if Steph’s out, usually) he decides to sit in a corner and maybe toss some inexcusable turnovers as a treat. Yesterday was a rare Steph-out high-effort Draymond game – but nothing gets him out of bed more than defending a young big man everyone’s hailing as the next big thing.

Draymond was tremendous as always on Wemby, fronting him, leveraging his strength, keeping him out of plays as much as possible for someone a full foot shorter than his defensive matchup. If there’s a better Wemby defender in the league, I haven’t seen it. On offense, he played the point-forward role maybe better than he has all year, throwing passes that were both creative and safe.

This level of effort and execution gave the motley crew of squirrelly role players that is the Golden State Warriors a foundation on which to rest. Moses Moody and Gary Payton II hit threes, Quinten Post escaped from the bench to hit a couple threes and a surprising blow-by layup, Pat Spencer threaded layups around Wemby’s spiderlike arms, Gui Santos continued his hot steak by playing initiator on offense and filling up the stat sheet. The Warriors would push the lead to 11, putting the Spurs on their back foot and forcing them to play catchup.

The only problem in the first half was a tendency to foul, which in retrospect was a warning sign. Even the most athletic players on the Warriors – Gui Santos, Moses Moody, Gary Payton II, De’Anthony Melton – could not keep in front of the supremely athletic Spurs guards (typing out those players as examples of the Warriors’ peak athleticism felt terrible). The Spurs were in the bonus four minutes into the second quarter, and the Warriors’ best players would be playing with foul trouble for most of the game.

In the third quarter, those fouls turned into lightly contested drives, and the 16 point cushion the Warriors had built evaporated after a Keldon Johnson flurry. The Warriors, exhausted from the effort of guarding elite athletes, just ran out of gas as the Spurs started to realize they may actually lose this game. You could see the effort they put up wear on them over the course of the quarter, as the jump shots started coming up short and the drives became less punchy. The Spurs would go on a 24-8 run to end the third, and the game was essentially over minutes into the fourth.

But this game was always going to be a loss barring a miracle – a decimated team against an elite team. Gui Santos, De’Anthony Melton, and Draymond Green against Victor Wembanyama and De’Aaron Fox. You knew what you were getting into when you turned on the TV. In a lost season, I’m proud of the effort the Warriors played with in the first half. I can’t get mad at them for being limited. They showed up and played their hearts out and almost won. In a year where certain teams are just going to outclass the Warriors in terms of talent, athleticism, and star power, that means something.