SAN FRANCISCO — The Warriors didn’t need this one, but it would have made their lives a whole lot easier.
Golden State started fast and led by double-digits after halftime but still wasn’t able to put away what looked to be the easiest game left on its schedule.
Despite scoring the first 11 points of the game and getting 58 combined from Steph Curry and Jimmy Butler, the Warriors fell Wednesday night to the San Antonio Spurs, 114-111, packing more pressure onto their final two contests.
“We know where we’re at,” Curry said after Golden State was outscored by 15 in the fourth quarter. “I don’t know how it’ll impact where we end up after Sunday, but we do still have two games. We’ve got to win both of them and see what happens. We just made it a little harder on ourselves.”
The Warriors will need to win both their final games against the Trail Blazers and Clippers to clinch the No. 6 seed and avoid the dreaded play-in tournament. They’ll also need help elsewhere. They travel to Portland on Friday and host Los Angeles in their regular-season finale on Sunday.
“It’s going down to the wire for a reason,” coach Steve Kerr said afterward. “There’s a lot of great teams in the West, and there’s very few easy games. There are just very few games that fall into place, and because of the 3-point line in the modern NBA, you’re always vulnerable. That’s what got us tonight.”
The Warriors led by as many as 14 points in the second half, including an 88-76 advantage at the start of the fourth quarter, but were tied at 111 with 3.1 seconds left on the clock when the ball found the hands of Harrison Barnes, who put up a prayer from 3-point territory that fell through the net as the buzzer sounded.
“It’s make-or-miss at the end of the game whether it’s going to overtime or not, and you never want to put yourself in that position,” Curry said. “We did, and we got bit.”
Golden State had possession in a tied game with 32.6 seconds to go, but Barnes came up big again, intercepting Curry’s inbound pass and setting up a layup from Keldon Johnson that put San Antonio up 111-109. Draymond Green sank a pair of free throws and San Antonio called timeout, setting up the final possession.
The Spurs outscored the Warriors in the fourth quarter, 38-23. Barnes’ game-winner was their 18th 3-pointer on 46 attempts (39.1%). It was Stephon Castle’s triple that tied the game at 99 with 5:01 left that changed the tide, according to Kerr.
“We just couldn’t contain them defensively,” Kerr said. “And when you do that, you leave the door open for shots like the one Harrison hit at the end.”
Curry finished with a game-high 30 points, Butler poured in 28 points — 16 on 17 attempts from the free-throw line — and Green filled the statsheet with 13 points, nine rebounds and eight assists. But it wasn’t enough to beat the Spurs, who had lost eight of their previous nine games entering Wednesday, including a 148-106 rout last week in San Antonio.
Without Victor Wembanyama or De’Aaron Fox, the Spurs were led by three players who scored 20-plus points. Johnson and Castle each contributed 21 points, and Barnes added 20 — on 6-of-9 shooting from 3-point territory — to go with double figures from four other scorers.
Golden State got off to a fast start from the opening tip, and it looked like the Warriors might be in for a win reminiscent of their road rout. The Warriors forced the Spurs to miss their first six attempts from the field and jumped out to an 11-0 lead. They led by nine, 32-23, at the end of the first, and by a dozen, 88-76, at the end of the third.
“When you’re up 12 going into the fourth, your defense is going to be the difference in maintaining that separation,” Curry said. “You just can’t give a team life and give up 38 points. You give up 38 points when it’s crunch time, that’s not going to win any game.”
The game was the Warriors’ sixth in four cities in the past eight days, and they fell to 8-6 in the second half of a back-to-back. Their 133-95 win the previous night in Phoenix meant Curry, Butler and Green should have been relatively freshly rested after logging less than 25 minutes each.
They didn’t have the same luxury against the Spurs, who climbed all the way back from their cold start to take a 55-51 lead into the locker room. San Antonio didn’t go away after halftime, falling behind by as many as 14 points but pulling all the way back to make it a fresh ballgame with 5 minutes left.
“This is what the playoffs feel like,” Kerr said. “Lot of pressure. A lot on the line. Tough losses. The only thing you can do is to pick your chin up off the floor and get back at it the next day.”
