Stephen Curry and the Warriors may have been stifled by the Spurs at the AT&T Center in San Antonio on Saturday; but, after the game, both the players and the coaches seem to have unusually high spirits.
In a post-game interview, Curry told the San Antonio Express-News , “There is no panic at all. We’ll be fine. It’s a good learning experience.”
Curry even tweeted later that night about his performance.
I don’t know about y’all, but I thought I played my best game of the year ?. Live and Learn. On to the next!
— Stephen Curry (@StephenCurry30) March 20, 2016
That’s important, because Curry and company will have two more shots at the Spurs — one at Oracle Arena on April 7 and one again at the AT&T Center on April 10 — before any potential meeting in the playoffs. So far, the two teams have met twice this season, with the Spurs winning by 8 points last night and Golden State demolishing the Spurs by 30 points back in January.
Each team was missing key players for both of those meetings. Spurs center Tim Duncan sat out of the first matchup on January 25 and the Warriors were missing starting center Andrew Bogut, backup center Festus Ezeli, and one of their most important players off of the bench, Andre Iguodala.
Curry: “There is no panic at all…We’ll be fine. It’s a good learning experience.” #Spurs
— Tom Orsborn (@tom_orsborn) March 20, 2016
Warriors head coach Steve Kerr echoed Curry’s positivity during his post-game interviews even though he was furious at the referees for most of the game, even picking up a technical foul in the very first quarter after a no-call by Danny Crawford.
“I couldn’t be prouder of our guys,” Kerr said, via CSN Bay Area . “What an effort. Incredible. All the odds were stacked against us. Ninth game in 14 days. Back-to-back, obviously. Tough game last night. Down three guys, three important rotation guys, and we hung in there right till the end. So it wasn’t our night. The Spurs played great, they deserved to win. But I’m really, really proud of the way we fought tonight. It was awesome.”
Kerr has a point. Curry had only 14 points, less than half of his season average, on 4-for-18 shot attempts including 1 for 12 from behind the arc. Klay Thompson, who usually picks up the slack when Curry is off of his game, went 1 for 7 on 3-point attempts, yet actually led the Warriors in scoring with 15 points. Their 3rd best player, Draymond Green, had an off night too with 11 points on 5 for 10 shooting.
It’s not likely that Stephen Curry will be completely shut down in the remaining two games versus the Spurs like he was on Saturday. When you take Curry’s lack of effectiveness and add your next best players posting numbers well below their season averages — and you still only lose by 8 points to the 2nd best team in the NBA — then the happy-go-lucky attitude that the Warriors showed after the game isn’t that crazy after all.
Kerr also added, “It seems every time we have lost one this year, we’ve won 10 in a row. That’s a testament to our guys’ competitiveness. You saw it tonight, you saw how hard they fought. I know they’ll bounce back.”
With 13 games left on the regular season schedule, the Warriors would love to go on another 10 game winning streak — especially since the Spurs would be on that list. Given what fans have seen this season, expect Stephen Curry and the Warriors to do just that.
[Photo by Darren Abate/AP Images]