The unthinkable happened to the Golden State Warriors in Game 1 of the Western Conference Semifinals on Monday in San Antonio.
They led the Spurs by 16 points with four minutes to go in regulation, then the wheels fell off, as the Spurs outscored the visitors 18-2 to tie the game at 106 points apiece and force overtime.
Both teams battled back and forth into double-overtime before miscommunication by the Warriors led to a wide-open three-pointer by Manu Ginobili that he promptly buried. Golden State went from stealing a huge game in San Antonio to losing it in heartbreaking fashion, 129-127.
It's easy to look at the X's and O's of this game and figure out where the Warriors went wrong, so we'll start there.
First of all, turnovers killed the Warriors. They committed 21 turnovers, something that trickled over from their first-round series against the Denver Nuggets (they averaged 18.7 turnovers in six games against the Nuggets). The Spurs ended up scoring 21 points on those 21 turnovers.
San Antonio also lit it up from beyond the arc, something the Nuggets never were able to do. The Spurs went 13-of-26 from downtown, led by Danny Green, who went 6-of-9 from long distance.
Perhaps the Warriors can lock down on San Antonio's three-point shooting from Game 2 on. They ranked seventh in the NBA in opponents' three-point percentage during the regular season (although they did have their stretches where they gave up a multitude of treys).
What's most concerning—and what should have worried Warriors fans before Game 1 against the Spurs—is that the Warriors ranked 28th in the NBA in turnovers per game during the regular season. That included ranking 24th in turnovers per possession, via TeamRankings.com. So this is no fluke.
So, from an X's and O's standpoint, the Warriors obviously stand a far better chance against San Antonio if they limit their turnovers. Of course, that's easier said than done. It's difficult to become a completely different team all of a sudden.
The barrage by the Spurs at the end, backed by a hysterical home crowd, combined with Golden State's sudden inability to put the ball in the basket, is the kind of stuff nightmares are made of on the hardwood. After shooting 17-of-24 in the third quarter, the Warriors shot 5-of-20 in the fourth quarter.
I thought Charles Barkley made a great point after the game on TNT's Inside the NBA. He said that a loss like that doesn't just feel like one loss. It feels much worse.
And while the Warriors did bounce back against the Nuggets after a meltdown in Game 1 of their first-round matchup, Tim Kawakami of the San Jose Mercury News pointed out the main difference:
This is a young team, which only compounds the effects of such a devastating meltdown. I'm not saying the Warriors are mentally fragile (anybody who has seen Mark Jackson coach the team this season knows that's not the case), but, the fact of the matter is, 13 of the 15 players on Golden State's current roster are under 30 years of age (David Lee and Richard Jefferson are the exceptions).
The six Warriors who played more than 30 minutes on Monday (Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Harrison Barnes, Jarrett Jack, Andrew Bogut, Draymond Green) averaged 24.7 years of age. Heck, Barnes is still 20 years old.
Monday's game went from a "win" that could have potentially catapulted the Warriors to the conference finals to a loss that could see them lose the series in four or five games, even with their superb home-court advantage in Oakland.
To expect this young squad to rebound from a loss like that against a Gregg Popovich-coached team is expecting too much.
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