The San Antonio Spurs slowed down the Golden State Warriors

On Saturday night, the San Antonio Spurs evened their season series with the Golden State Warriors, with a rather shocking 87-79 victory. It wasn’t so much that the Spurs won, statistically they’re also on track to finish with one of the greatest regular seasons of all time, it was the way they won. San Antonio was able to slow the game down to a grinding tempo and disrupt the pace and rhythm of the Warriors in a way no one else has really done this season.

Pace, as a measure of the actual speed of the game, can be subject to distortion. However, looking at the average offensive and defensive possession length in seconds paints essentially the same picture. The graph below uses that data from InpredictableThe Warriors and Spurs regular season numbers are included and the single game numbers from their first and second meetings are highlighted as well.

The Spurs’ average offensive possession in this game was 18.0 seconds, that’s nearly two seconds longer than any other offense has averaged this season and more than two-and-a-half seconds longer than any defense typically forces. Golden State was without Andrew Bogut and Festus Ezeli in this game and so San Antonio repeatedly went to their bigs in the post to depress the pace. LaMarcus Aldridge and Boris Diaw combined for 148 touches in this game, compared to about 93.4 per game across the entire season. According to the NBA’s play type statistics, those two average 8.3 post-up possessions per game, averaging 1.01 and 1.02 points per possession, respectively. In this second matchup against the Warriors, they combined for 17 post-up possessions, producing 1.18 points per possession.

Obviously, there was a lot more to this game than just San Antonio pounding the ball inside. Patty Mills and Tony Parker played terrific defense on Stephen Curry, although his 4-of-18 from the field performance and 1-of-12 on three-pointers felt somewhat fluky as he missed plenty of shots he’s been making all season long. In addition to their injuries in the front court, the Warriors were without Andre Iguodala and on the second night of a back-to-back. Gregg Popovich seemed cautious not to tip his hand too much either and only played Tim Duncan eight minutes (he didn’t play at all in their first matchup).

It’s important not to read too much into this one game. The Spurs found a formula that worked for them for one night. It’s one that we assume they’ll return to often in any future matchups with the Warriors, but there are plenty of other variables to account for. We get two more regular season game between these two juggernauts and then, fingers crossed, seven games more in the playoffs.