Much-hyped Warriors season opens with 129-100 loss to Spurs
Much-hyped Warriors season opens with 129-100 loss to Spurs
The debut of one of the most prized offseason additions in NBA history ended inconspicuously with 3:41 left on the game clock Tuesday night.
With his Warriors team down 23 points to the Spurs, Steve Kerr subbed Kevon Looney in for seven-time NBA All-Star Kevin Durant during a timeout.
Golden State’s reserves polished off its 129-100 loss in front of mostly vacant seats at Oracle Arena.
A team that relies on ball movement and made jumpers, Golden State piled up 16 giveaways and missed 26 of its 33 three-point attempts.
The Warriors’ two most glaring weaknesses, interior defense and sloppy passing, were exposed by a San Antonio team eager to prove that there will be suspense in the race for the Western Conference’s top seed.
Golden State players missed two early layups, made sloppy passes that led to turnovers, and nobody outside of Durant and Stephen Curry could find an offensive rhythm in the first half.
The exclamation point came when Durant sliced through the key for a tomahawk dunk that sent fans to their feet.
Many teams might have folded under the collective pressure of a national TV audience and a raucous road arena.
The rest of Golden State, the odds-on favorite to win its second NBA title in three seasons, was shooting 7-of-24 from the field (0-for-10 from three-point range).
In a season with such hype, each Warriors loss will be nitpicked and analyzed on sports talk radio shows throughout the country.
After an exhibition slate marked by so much promise gave way to a clunker of a regular-season debut, Golden State is surely glad that it has at least 81 more opportunities to exorcise the memory.