OAKLAND—Shellshocked Golden State Warriors players and coaches vowed to bounce back after launching their season with a crushing 129-100 defeat at home to the San Antonio Spurs on Tuesday.
A disjointed Warriors team was pummeled relentlessly by San Antonio, who piled up the points through Kawhi Leonard and LaMarcus Aldridge to silence the Oracle Arena crowd.
Warriors reigning NBA MVP Stephen Curry described the mauling as a “slap in the face” but vowed to produce a response in Friday’s road game against the New Orleans Pelicans.
“It’s a nice little slap in the face,” Curry said. “First game you want to come out and protect your own court and have that energy of a home opener. I just felt we didn’t have that energy,” added Curry, who finished with 26 points.
“I’m not going to over-exaggerate the vibe but you’ve got to kind of bounce back. We have a lot of work to do, but I think we’re still in a pretty good spot.”
Warriors coach Steve Kerr said he was embarrassed by the scale of the loss.
“I’m sure we’ll be motivated for our next game. I think our guys were embarrassed tonight. I know I was,” Kerr told reporters.
“I didn’t see losing by 29 points coming. We had a pretty good camp, a pretty good exhibition season but that doesn’t really mean a whole lot.
“You can still see we’re still searching for our rotations and patterns. I told the team it’s a long season, we’ve got a long way to go, we’ll come in tomorrow and get a little bit better.”
Golden State’s blockbuster summer signing Kevin Durant, top scorer with 27 points, also attempted to keep the shellacking in perspective.
“We can’t over-react. But we can’t let these games pile up either,” Durant said. “It’s a slap in the face and woke us up a little bit and we’re looking forward to getting better.”
Klay Thompson said the humbling nature of the loss may benefit the team by puncturing the hype ballooning around Kerr’s all-star roster.
“It sucks right now but I really believe in the long run this loss will help us,” Thompson said.
“Everyone was anointing us, expectations are crazy, whatever. In the long run I really believe this will help us. This isn’t the end of the world, far from it. It’s only October 25.
“It shouldn’t have come to this but it’s a long season. I expect us to be much better on Friday night.”
Meanwhile, LeBron James notched a triple-double as the Cleveland Cavaliers launched the defence of their National Basketball Association crown with a 117-88 blowout of the New York Knicks on Tuesday.
Kyrie Irving topscored with 29 points but NBA Finals MVP James stole the show with 19 points, 11 rebounds and 14 assists on a night when the Cavs were formally presented with their 2015-2016 championship rings.
James was de facto master of ceremonies before the tip-off as the Cavs hoisted the championship banner from their epic 2015-2016 season, which culminated in the historic comeback victory over Golden State in the finals in June.
A packed house at the Quicken Loans Arena roared their appreciation on a night when Cleveland became the epicenter of the US sporting universe — the city’s Indians baseball team were hosting the Chicago Cubs in Game One of the World Series at the same time.
News of the Indians’ opening runs against the Cubs were greeted with deafening cheers and chants of “Let’s Go Tribe!” throughout the game.
James, who returned to the Cavaliers in 2014 on a mission to lead his hometown team to NBA glory, issued a stirring rallying cry during the pre-match ceremonies.
“If you’re not from here, live here, play here, or get yourself to Cleveland, then it makes no sense for you to live at this point,” James said.
“Cleveland against the world!”
– ‘Unbelievable atmosphere’ –
Each of the victorious Cavs players, coaches, front-office and owners were presented with diamond-encrusted 6.5 carat rings to mark last season’s win, which ended Cleveland’s 52-year wait for a major US sporting title.
“It was a great moment, to be able to relive our accomplishment from last year one more time, something that’s always going to be with us. It was an unbelievable atmosphere tonight,” James said after the win.
With the Quicken Loans Arena in party mode, the Cavaliers were in a buoyant mood against a new-look Knicks side who handed starts to summer signings Derrick Rose and Joakim Noah.
The Cavs quickly jumped out to an early lead, with Kevin Love’s superb three-pointer putting them 28-18 up as the buzzer sounded for the end of the first period.
But the Knicks rallied in the second period and turned around at half-time only two points down, trailing 44-42.
The Cavs rapidly turned the screw in the second half, pulling clear once more to run out convincing winners.
“I just tried to pick up where I left off last year and try and get my body back into form,” James said of his own performance.
“We’ve got a great team, we were a little rusty in the first half with some careless turnovers in the second quarter. But we sharpened up in the third and fourth quarter and it was a good win for us.”
James said the Cavs were now intent on delivering more success for the franchise’s fans after last season’s breakthrough.
“We want to keep ‘em on that high horse. We want to keep our fans on cloud 20. If we can do that we’ve done our job,” he told a television interviewer.