Warriors run out of gas in 104-94 loss to Spurs

The Warriors had a 17-point lead with 14 minutes to go, but poor Golden State shooting and the dominance of Victor Wembanyama cost them the game.

When Draymond Green recruited Kevin Durant to the Golden State Warriors after the 2016 season, Harrison Barnes took it personally. Green was the only former Warriors not invited to Barnes’ wedding, and he’s held a grudge to this day. In his first game against his old team as a member of the San Antonio Spurs, Barnes got some revenge, delivering 22 points and eight rebounds on just eight field goal attempts in a 104-94 win. Green scored one point and fouled out in the final minute.

Spurs sophomore Victor Wembanyama also got revenge on Steph Curry for putting him on a three-point poster in the Olympics, costing him a gold medal. Wemby finished with 25 points, nine assists, seven rebounds, three blocks, and a steal, taking over the game late.

The young Spurs absolutely dominated the end of the game, holding the Warriors to just 13 points in the game’s final 14 minutes. The 4th quarter was a 33-13 blowout, which followed a 7-0 run to end the third. It could have been fatigue from the Warriors, or it simply could have been the incredible closing performance from Wembanyama. He had 12 points, two blocks, and a steal in the quarter, but he really killed the Warriors as a passer. He had five assists in the quarter, and they were highly efficient, generating two three-pointers, a dunk and two layups.

It’s always tough to play on a road back-to-back in the NBA, especially on their third game in four nights and after what we assume was an all-night champagne celebration with Michael Imperioli after the Warriors clinched a berth in the NBA Cup Friday night. But as good at the Warriors have been to begin this season, they’ve been vulnerable to blowing big leads.

Wiggins led the Warriors with 20 points, while Curry had 14, with five assists. Trayce Jackson-Davis and Kevon Looney challenged Wembanyama while combining for 20 points and 15 rebounds. Buddy Hield and Lindy Waters III each had 11 points and three three-pointers.

The Warriors had a chance to deliver a knockout blow in the third quarter, when they ran their lead to as high as 17 points after a Steph Curry three-point play.

They even maintained that lead for two more game minutes thanks to Moses Moody and Kevon Looney, but things fell apart after that. A missed layup and two turnovers led to the Spurs’ 7-0 close. They had a 15-point lead and the ball with 35 seconds left, but managed to give up five points of the lead nonetheless.

By the 8:07 mark of the fourth quarter, the lead had shrunk to four points and the Warriors’ tired starters were back in the game. The team has solid depth, but the absence of De’Anthony Melton and the energetic Jonathan Kuminga, out with an illness, really hit late. Particuarly Kuminga would have been huge during the second unit’s scoring droughts, and in a game where the team only shot 13 free throws.

It looked like they might get a Curry Flurry down the stretch when he answered a Wemby three with his own deep three to push back, when San Antonio cut the lead to a point.

But he followed it with three missed shots and two turnovers, losing the ball once to a rival Steph. Spurs rookie Stephon Castle, who finished with 19 points, forced a turnover, made a game-tying layup, and then the go-ahead three-pointer on a dime from Wemby. Then Wemby hit another three, part of a game-sealing 11-0 run.

For the second night in a row, Wiggins started the first quarter hot, putting up seven points in the first 2:12 of the game, though he couldn’t finish an early four-point play opportunity.

He had 10 points in the quarter, along with a nice pass to Steph Curry for a three-pointer. The Dubs mixed it up even while facing the NBA’s most prolific shot-blocker in Victor Wembyanama, scoring five baskets at the rim and draining five three-pointers. Curry only had one of them, but he put quite a bit of sauce on his delivery.

In the second quarter, there was a fun few minutes of nostalgia for Warriors fans. One thing fans missed during last year’s disappointing season was hating Chris Paul. But now that CP3 is back where he belongs — any NBA city besides San Francisco — the hate can return to warm Warriors fans’ hearts.

After the two-man game of Hield and Trayce Jackson-Davis took turns passing to each other for seven quick Golden State points, Paul quarterbacked a 10-0 San Antonio run that got the Spurs back into the game, cutting the Dubs’ lead to 36-30. Like the Grinch listening to the singing of the Whos from the top of Mount Crumpit, my hater’s heart grew three sizes watching Paul disrupt the offense, predicting the Warriors’ plays, while making offensive dynamos out of players like Blake Wesley and Sandro Mamukelashavili.

Neither team could reliably make shots in a rock fight of a second quarter, but Wiggins ended the quarter by stealing the ball from Wembanyama and hitting a three-pointer over him to get the Warriors to a 50-38 halftime lead.

One strange part of the first quarter was that neither team turned the ball over during the first eight minutes of the game. Of course, then Buddy Hield and Malakhi Braham turned the ball over on consecutive possessions — it was still a Warriors game, after all.

Buddy Hield moved into 19th place on the all-time three-pointers list with a first-quarter triple, moving past seven-time All-Star and future Hall of Famer Joe Johnson.

“Iso Joe” is now No. 20 with 1,978 career three-pointers, though he does not get credit for any of his three-pointers, or four-pointers, from his career in the BIG3, where he won MVP trophies in 2019, 2021, and 2023. Look, if we’re inducting any college basketball coach who keeps his job for a decade in the Hall, shouldn’t the best player in BIG3 history get in? Ice Cube can give his induction speech, and that, my friend, will be a good day.

Kelenna Azubuike and Bob Fitzgerald had an early debate about the value of Spurs forward Sandro Mamukelashvili’s name in a Scrabbler game. Without any letter or word score multipliers, the name is worth 56 points, though Azubuike argued that proper names aren’t legal. It’s also not clear how you’d manage to play a 14-point word with a rack of seven Scrabble tiles, but it was a timely broadcasting moment heading into the week of Thanksgiving. If you were searching for ways to start arguments with your relatives, especially if you’re confined inside due to weather, debating the finer points of board game rules is an excellent way to make a loved one storm out of the room.

This was an understandable loss for the Warriors, but a disappointing one, considering how big a lead they had even without much shooting or scoring from Curry. Ultimately, they didn’t make enough shots and they didn’t get enough bench scoring. Brandin Podziemski’s slump continued as he went scoreless in 16 minutes, though perhaps Kerr should have gone with more Gary Payton II, who was +7 in his 13 minutes.

And it’s also exhausting to party with Michael Imperioli. That guy knows how to have fun.