Lowell Cohn: Warriors leave aging Spurs in the dust

OAKLAND - The Warriors had to prove they're better than the San Antonio Spurs. Imperative.

And they proved it, at least for one night, winning 120-90. The game - never really a game - ended in the first half. So much at stake for the Warriors. The burden of proof on them. Last season, they had a losing record against the Spurs. They were the world champions but didn't face the Spurs in the playoffs. Perceived to get an easy road to the title. Lost street cred over that, lost street cred among their peers.

The Warriors needed street cred even with the best record in the NBA this season. Needed to beat San Antonio, the Spurs in their stark simple black uniforms - a team of grim reapers.

It was more than the old story about street cred. It was an age-old story, the story about the generations of man and woman. The younger generation outlasts, defeats and disposes of the older generation. Sons taking the place of fathers. It is the natural order of things and it is cruel. It's what the Warriors owed the Spurs - still owe them.

Cruel is what the Warriors set out to be Monday night. Banish the San Antonio Spurs. Banish that great Spurs basketball team with its august tradition and its old players, and its legendary old coach - fall turning to winter, the brown withered leaf falling to the ground. The young Warriors stomping on it.

The coaches, Steve Kerr back for only his second game and Gregg Popovich, said the game didn't mean anything special. Said it before the game. Just a night on the endless NBA tour. Play a game. Catch a flight. Catch a breath. Get on with the schedule.

Here's Kerr before the Spurs game. Call it mental throat clearing. “I would think both teams will learn a lot from tonight and then make an adjustment next time we see them or maybe hold that adjustment for the playoffs. When you haven't seen a team it's hard to know what those cards you are holding are. You've got to see it first.”

Oh, the Spurs game was mere homework. Working on geometry problems which may appear on the final exam some time or other. No urgency.

More Kerr mental throat clearing: “To me the biggest value is in the standings. Home court (in the playoffs) is big, especially if you end up with a Game 7. That's where I've always felt home court matters the most, not getting the first two at home but having Game 7 on your home floor. I think 80 percent of the time the home team wins Game 7 in the playoffs. That's why these games are important. The other stuff is all sort of just chatter and it doesn't matter that much.”

He was talking Game 7 in the playoffs. The rest was just chatter. Mere media stuff. Cotton candy fluff.

Baloney.

Any coach who competes, any player who competes - who loves to compete, who feels it in his heart and his bones and his gut - wants to beat the best team when the best team is right there. The Warriors and the Spurs are the best teams. The old best team and the new best team fighting for one spot. Inflicting the first hurt. The Warriors needing to supplant the team that owned them, schooled them, dominated them.

Popovich coached Kerr when Kerr was a player. The younger man wanting what the older man has. A cruel cruel world. Natural order of things. Natural selection.

Kerr and Popovich, two determined antagonists, could talk past the muscle-against-muscle Warriors-Spurs struggle, but they knew what it meant even though, afterwards, Kerr said, “It was our night and it wasn't theirs. What does that mean? I don't know.”

Well, it sure meant something. It was the first time the Spurs and Warriors met this season. Kerr could talk about refining his matchups against San Antonio and getting a game up in the standings. Could talk about whatever bland stuff he wanted. But a game like this - an enormous game - was about making a point, especially with the game on your home court. It was about taking the Spurs' measure.

And the Warriors took the Spurs' measure. Measured them for a coffin. Made them look old and slow and imprecise. The Spurs a step behind, one thought behind, kept losing the ball, kept throwing it away. Couldn't sink their shots - not like the Warriors sank theirs. The Spurs never had a go-to player. Who is their go-to player? They sure don't have Stephen Curry. No one able to guard him. Curry draining a 3 in the third quarter and galloping down the court. Yes, a grown man galloping from the sheer fun of it all.

And don't say Tim Duncan didn't play and that's why San Antonio lost. Tim Duncan couldn't have helped. Would have stood there with a bewildered look on his innocent face while the game whizzed past him. The Warriors were a sonic boom in the Spurs' heads. Spurs star Manu Ginobili knew the truth. “At this point, they are better than us,” he said after the game. “I'm not embarrassed to face it.”

The Warriors made the Spurs look like any other so-so team on any other weeknight. It's what the Warriors do. The Warriors' record since the start of last season is a gasp-inducing 108-19. There's a new order of things around here. Roll over Gregg Popovich and tell Phil Jackson the news.

For more on the world of sports in general and the Bay Area in particular, go to the Cohn Zohn at cohn.blogs.pressdemocrat.com. You can reach Staff Columnist Lowell Cohn at lowell.cohn@pressdemocrat.com.