The Warriors ‘messed around’ against Spurs and found themselves on the play-in bubble

SAN FRANCISCO — Draymond Green bit his fingernails between one-sentence answers, stewing over what could be the most significant loss of the Warriors’ regular season. 

Golden State took a 12-point lead into the fourth quarter and blew it. The Spurs outscored the Warriors 38-23 in the final frame, driving past defenders at will and spraying out to ready 3-point shooters. The last of those willing shooters, former Warrior Harrison Barnes, sank the game-winning three over an outstretched Jimmy Butler as time expired. 

A string of late turnovers in crunch time, including two from Green, prevented the Warriors from escaping. Instead, they dropped to seventh in the standings and will need help — even if they win their final two games — to capture a coveted top-six seed. 

“Don’t mess around with games,” Green said. “Mess around with games in this league and you lose.” 

Golden State (47-33) couldn’t get enough stops against an energetic yet lottery-bound Spurs team in a 114-111 loss. The Spurs targeted some of the Warriors’ weaker defenders on the perimeter and dominated the minutes Steph Curry sat. This was one of the team’s last four games they knew they had to win in a playoff-like sprint to the postseason, and they tricked it. 

“There was a lack of grit,” Green said. “Sometimes it doesn’t take focus. Sometimes it takes grit…It’s upsetting.” 

The Warriors had no excuses for the loss on the second night of a back-to-back, only dejection. Curry delayed his normal postgame workout and hung at his locker to gather his thoughts before addressing the media. Players tapped on their phones more than usual. The team was told to stew on the result now, but quickly shift attention to Friday’s matchup in Portland. 

The Nuggets and Clippers both won on Wednesday. The Timberwolves and Grizzlies match up Thursday night, and Golden State will be cheering for Minnesota. The Warriors’ regular-season finale at Chase Center against the Clippers looms as a potential seed-stirrer. 

They’re 22-7 since the deadline — third-best in the league — and have risen as high as fifth after falling below .500 in the pre-Butler era. But because of the loss to San Antonio, the Warriors’ fate won’t be only left to them. 

“We know where we’re at,” Curry said. “We know that every game is important. It’s been important for the last two weeks. We’ve done a lot to give ourselves a chance to climb ourselves pretty high considering where we were before the trade deadline. And then these last two home games, it sucks. For different reasons — Houston and tonight, we feel like games that were winnable and we should’ve won. I don’t know how it’ll impact where we end up after Sunday, but we still got two games. We’ve got to win both of them. We’ll see what happens, just made it a little harder on ourselves.” 

Curry scored 30 points on 50% shooting, and the Warriors won his minutes by 13. That means they lost when he rested by 16. Butler dropped 28 — his high as a Warrior — but couldn’t prop up the bench units like he has since joining the team as young players Brandin Podziemski, Moses Moody, Jonathan Kuminga, and Gui Santos struggled. 

The Spurs went on a 19-3 run to start the second quarter with Curry on the bench and begun the fourth on a 12-4 blitz in a similar circumstance. 

“We’re all in this together,” Curry said. “It’s not two teams out there. It’s one team that has different combinations, no matter who’s on the floor. If we want to reach the heights we say we want to and really believe that we can get to, it doesn’t matter if you make or miss shots. The stuff that you can control — the defensive effort, the attention to detail, the game plan, discipline, all that stuff has to stay at a high level. And they didn’t tonight.” 

San Antonio’s five-out attack gave the Warriors issues. Stephon Castle, Devin Vassell, and Chris Paul consistently broke the paint and either scored or kicked out to open shooters, putting the Warriors in rotation. The Nuggets did something similar a few weeks ago when Aaron Gordon played small-ball center in lieu of Nikola Jokic. 

The Warriors felt the absences of Quinten Post (illness) and Gary Payton II (knee inflammation), but they shouldn’t have felt them that much— especially against an opponent like the Spurs. 

In the fourth quarter, the Spurs shot 7-for-10 from behind the arc; Golden State went 1-for-10. Add in the late turnovers — “Sloppy execution,” head coach Steve Kerr said — and the door opened for Barnes’ heroics. 

If the Warriors enter the postseason in the play-in round, and if their season ends prematurely, Barnes’ shot will be a defining image: 3.1 seconds left, catch, fade, fire, horn, swish. Nail-biter.

“A good team will bounce back from it, take care of business these next two and go from there,” Curry said. “We have to prove that we’re a good team.”