SAN FRANCISCO -- There was more crowd noise than might have been expected at Chase Center on Friday night, suggesting Warriors fans are quickly making peace with reality.
All high hopes and distant dreams faded when it became clear a few hours earlier that team icon Stephen Curry will miss all of November, December and January. And there is no guarantee of a February return.
Realizing this was the first of many nights when the Warriors will face a superior team, fans have flipped. One game after sprinkling their favorite squad with boos while being blown out by the Suns, they were wildly cheering for pluck.
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As in: These people were loving their scrappy underdogs, emphasis on scrappy.
While losing for the fourth time in five games, this one 127-110 to the appreciably bigger and better San Antonio Spurs, the Warriors displayed enough determination to earn deep appreciation. They showed plenty of intensity, particularly veteran Draymond Green and rookies Jordan Poole and Eric Paschall.
“Every night when we step onto the floor, if we want to give ourselves a chance to win, we’re going to have to be the hardest-playing team on the floor,” Green acknowledged. “That fire should help us out with that. And we’ll need a lot of that moving forward.”
The Warriors posted very livable assist-to-turnover numbers, with 25 dimes and 11 giveaways. They also shot nearly as well as the Spurs (46.4 percent to San Antonio’s 47.3). The Spurs, however, fired off nine more field goals and nine more free throws.
Golden State Warriors
Most telling was San Antonio’s 23-8 advantage in second-chance points. That’s the benefit of winning the offensive-rebounding battle, 16-7.
What the fans saw were mistakes of commission, guys hustling but too often not big enough or strong enough to outfight the Spurs.
“We executed, I thought, pretty well and I thought we competed,” coach Steve Kerr said. “But we just couldn't get enough stops. The thing I didn’t like was the fouling. They had 30 free throws and 15-to-six in the first half and that set the tone. A lot of offensive boards, too. They are a big team and they put a lot of pressure on you.”
Such postgame comments were routine under P.J. Carlesimo, Eric Musselman and Mike Montgomery. Coaches of Warriors' past, when Oracle crowds would get fired up any time the Warriors came close to winning -- as long as there was next-level effort.
This sellout crowd (18,064), though not every ticket-holder made it to the arena, unleashed a pretty good collective screaming when Alec Burks nailed a corner triple to cut the deficit to 11 (97-86) at the end of the third quarter.
They applauded with gusto at the sight of the Warriors scrambling on defense, as they often did, even if the Spurs eventually found a way to a score.
It’s rather charming, with a distinct turn-of-the-millennium feel. And it’s the kind of effort Kerr is pleading for his team to give for the rest of the season.
“There’s an awareness of where we are,” Kerr said before tipoff. “What we have to do is go compete. Go play. We’ve got a bunch of hungry young guys who are ready to play. There is no reason why we shouldn’t be the first team there on the floor for the loose ball. There’s no reason why we can’t be the team that plays hardest every night.
We may not have enough talent, but we should be competitive as hell. And that’s what we’re going to preach and that’s how we’re going to prepare the guys.”
Sure, many fans started streaming toward the exits midway through the fourth quarter. They had seen enough. If they are real fans, they’ll be back. There is reason to believe most will.
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They’ve evolved from celebrating greatness to appreciating grit, even though the grit for the next few months is mostly for the sake of grit.