San Antonio Spurs

Short-handed Spurs spank Warriors' backups, pull within half-game in West

Published Mar. 14, 2017 4:29 p.m. ET

Andre Vergara

The Golden State Warriors' duel with the San Antonio Spurs on Saturday was not exactly the showdown of Western Conference powers that the nationally televised, prime-time game was supposed to be.

That's because Warriors coach Steve Kerr rested Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green and Andre Iguodala after seven games in 12 days, while an injured Kevin Durant remained out. On the Spurs' side, Kawhi Leonard, Tony Parker and Dejounte Murray all were out with injuries, and the team announced LaMarcus Aldridge is out indefinitely due to a recurrence of minor heart arrhythmia.

So it was a short-handed Spurs team that beat the Warriors' backups, 107-85, to move within a half-game of Golden State for the best record in the NBA. Ian Clark scored a career-high 36 points in a rare starring role, but the Warriors fell to 52-14 after losing their third straight for the first time since ... you know.

While Clark hit an impressive 15 of 21 shots, the rest of the Warriors hit 18 of 71 — 25.3 percent. So Draymond Green's mom had little praise to give.

https://twitter.com/WarriorsPR/status/840775662667419648

https://twitter.com/BabersGreen/status/840771011591192576

That pretty much told the story — and this:

https://twitter.com/crazyforeMHS/status/840779119478636544

It has been 2,272 days since Golden State last played without at least one of their All-Star trio of Curry, Thompson and Green. The last time the Warriors were without all three was Dec. 21, 2010.

Also, Golden State has won just once in its past 35 regular-season games at the AT&T Center.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.