The NBA is back, baby, and so too are the upsets.
San Antonio Spurs just gatecrashed the Golden State Warriors 2016-17 hype party in a big way, thrashing them 129 – 100 at Oracle Arena, Oakland.
The Spurs were led by Kawhi Leonard, who gave an A+ performance with a career-high 35 points on 10-of-21 shooting (15-of-15 from the free-throw line), and LaMarcus Aldridge with 26 points on 10-of-20 shooting.
Kevin Durant and Stephen Curry led the Warriors, scoring a combined 53 points on 20-of-36 shooting – but it wasn’t near enough, thanks largely to just 27 defensive rebounds.
It’s a disappointing season starter for the Warriors, who is no doubt looking to wipe the finals series loss to LeBron James‘ Cleveland Cavs from its memory with a 2017 title.
While it’s only the first game of the season, the Warriors had the shortest odds of any NBA team in history to come out as champs prior to stepping out for their first game; last season they won their first 24 games of the 2015/16 season and only lost two regular season home games.
So a first up loss on their home court by 29 points with KD in tow is *not* the start they were looking for.
But with 81+ games left, Steph, Klay, Draymond and KD aren’t even close to throwing in the towel.
Speaking at a post-game press conference, Klay said:
“It’s a long season. It’s not the end of the world. We’re going to get better from [this].”
Steph echoed the sentiment, saying he’s keen to watch the game back to troubleshoot the team’s play.
“I’m looking forward to waking up tomorrow and watching film. After we watch film we’ll figure out those things we didn’t do right.”
Photo: NBA.
