Golden State Warriors 79-87 San Antonio Spurs - Full Game Highlights | March 19, 2016
The San Antonio Spurs continued their dominance at home, holding out against the NBA's most dominant high-flying and high-scoring team - Golden State Warriors on Saturday night in San Antonio as the two best teams in the league, faced off for just the second time this season. In the first meeting on Jan. 25, the Spurs, playing without Tim Duncan, got walloped by the Warriors, losing by 30 points. Saturday's game was vastly different though.LaMarcus Aldridge had 26 points and 13 rebounds, and the Spurs beat the Golden State Warriors 87-79 to remain perfect at the AT&T Center this season and extend their home winning streak over the defending champions to 33 straight regular-season games.
"They're a great team, they're the bar in the NBA and it just felt good to win tonight," Aldridge said.
The Spurs held the Warriors to a season-low point total, using a bruising defense to slow Stephen Curry in a tense showdown between the league's top two teams.
Slowing down the pace and playing lockdown defense, San Antonio kept its perfect home record alive (35-0) by defeating Golden State 87-79. This was just Golden State's seventh loss of the season and makes a dent in its quest for 73 wins. According to projections from SportsLine, the Warriors now have a 64.9 percent chance of winning at least 73 games.
Although Duncan was healthy and available to play, he came off the bench for just the third time in his storied 19years NBA career and played just eight minutes in the first half as the Spurs opted for a smaller lineup to match up with Golden State's own small-ball units. Duncan didn't play a single second in the second half but quite surprisingly the Spurs didn't truly need him. In his place, LaMarcus Aldridge stepped up, being aggressive all game to finish with a double-double of 26 points and 13 rebounds. The Spurs also got big games out of Kawhi Leonard (18 points and 14 rebounds) and Boris Diaw (14 points and eight rebounds).
For Golden State, tired legs from playing on Friday night against the Dallas Mavericks and missing Andrew Bogut and Andre Iguodala proved to be a big factor in its loss. Stephen Curry made just one 3-pointer on 12 attempts, finishing with 14 points. Klay Thompson also couldn't get in a rhythm, shooting 7 of 20 from the field and 1-for-7 from three to finish with 15 points.
Despite their poor shooting (37.8 percent as a team and an uncharacteristic 25 percent from three), this was still a game the Warriors could've won. They went into the fourth tied up and until Saturday, were 54-0 this season when leading or tied entering the final quarter. But San Antonio's suffocating defense and timely shots from Danny Green and Aldridge put Golden State away for good in the final minutes.
The Spurs held Curry to 14 points while limiting him to 1-for-12 shooting on 3-pointers.
"Tonight we executed well on the defensive end, but offensively I didn't allow us to get comfortable offensively," Curry said. "I've got to play a lot better, manage the game a lot better, especially if certain shots that I normally make aren't falling. You've got to be able to adjust and find different ways to impact the way."
Curry was continually harassed by Green, who blocked two shots while holding the MVP front-runner to 4-for-18 shooting.
San Antonio (59-10) moved within three games of Golden State (62-7) for the league's top seed with two meetings remaining in April.
Image - San Antonio Spurs forward LaMarcus Aldridge, center, chases the ball against Golden State Warriors abc7
Abena Alice with cbssports, AP and news wires
NBA: San Antonio Spurs avenge loss, beat Golden State Warriors to stay perfect at home
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