Basketball players know not to do the motion you just described. It's not a mystery that it causes injuries. That's why it's illegal and draws a foul.

Zaza is 33 btw so he REALLY knows better.

At BEST, it's an incredibly reckless play. It doesn't really matter at this point whether or not it was intentional. Draymond Green has intentionally done that sort of thing his whole career and it has never made a lick of difference.

Sit everyone. Barring an epic collapse or injuries to both Curry and Durant this series is over.

yawny06 said:

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I don't agree with that...Golden State choked last year.

They are beatable. They certainly aren't the '96 Bulls.

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They've won 24 of 25 with no good reason to think they're not about to make it 27 of 28. If someone was going to expose them, they'd have done it by now.

2 MVPs, 5 All-Stars, Cheatin' Zaza and the league's blessings vs. Manu, a bunch of rookies/sophomores and two centers who can't quit stepping on their own *****.

Any hope of this being a compelling series hinged on the end of today's game and now it's all but a formality.

Oh, and if that weren't a big enough **** sandwich, the Spurs have blown two straight >20-point leads against them.

That is no reason to intentionally tank the rest of the season.

And we started a playoff campaign before 10-0 and looked unstoppable.

Ditto. Nobody with their number hanging in AT&T rafters is less deserving than Bruce Bowen.

And his penchant for undercutting is why I would be surprised if Pop is critical of today's dirty play. Shoe's been on the other foot.

This series fittin' to get chippy tho

My God you are irrational. Get it together man, if Kawhi stays in today's game the Spurs win. If he comes back.for game 2 we have a chance to win. As a fan of a team who has been tremendously successful over the years do you really think the NBA is out to purposefully keep them out of the finals? You're delusional.

If Kawhi can come back healthy they have a chance. He's the best all around player in the series.

After watching the replay a few times I will say that I don't believe it was Za Za's "intent" to injure Kawhi, but it was reckless nonetheless (we will likely never know). There is a reason why the NBA tightened up the officiating on being in the shooter's "landing space" and it was definitely for instances like this. Damn shame too, because until he went out the Warriors looked like ****

The Warriors looked good the entire second half. Even before Kawhi went out. The problem for them was that the Spurs looked equally as good, and everything GS did, the Spurs were answering.

I believe the Warriors would've made a big run no matter what. Spurs likely would've held on though.

Fair point.

Definitely didn't help either that Mills was off, there were quite a few errant turnovers in the second half, and plenty of missed rebounding opportunities. I give the Spurs credit though, I realize it doesn't mean much in the grand scheme of things but that first half was pretty damn good basketball from them.

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The Warriors looked good the entire second half. Even before Kawhi went out.

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The Spurs were +5 on the second half when Kawhi was hurt. The score was 78-55 when he was hurt.

Then the Warriors scored 26 points in just under 8 minutes to close out the 3rd quarter.

Klay looked high AF out there

Klay Thompson
39 Minutes
2/11 FG
1/3 3PT
6 Points
4 Boards
3 Assists
2 Turnovers

Patty Mills
37 Minutes
1/8 FG
0/6 3PT
5 Points
2 Boards
3 Assists
1 Turnover

Rough outing for both of these guys. Wouldn't expect to see that low of production with that many minutes. They will bounce back from it though.

Really hurts to lose one that way. Hope Kawhi is alright.

As a GSW fan, I too hope Kawhi comes back. Won't be as fun to watch without him playing.

NRE, hats off to the Spurs tonite. They were stomping my Warriors until Kawhi went out.

He'll miss the next game for sure. Might as well not watch it unless your a warrior fan.

Why even be a fan if you aren't even going to watch the game?

QBCade said:

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As a GSW fan, I too hope Kawhi comes back. Won't be as fun to watch without him playing.

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Yeah I bet you're just devastated.

The Warriors make a living stomping teams who are missing key pieces due to injury. As if having two human cheat codes on one team wasn't enough of an advantage, it just happens that the team with two of the dirtiest players in the league (Dray and Zaza) tends to find itself up against injured opponents a lot.

Huh. Imagine that.

Maybe the warriors are onto something, maybe it will be more like the NHL with stars and then goons that the refs are cool with, I guess the Spurs need to get with the program, never would have thought the unstoppable warriors with their supposed high octane record setting offense and stars would need to take out an opposing player to win a game, I hope lebron stomps them

Old Army Metal said:

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QBCade said:

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As a GSW fan, I too hope Kawhi comes back. Won't be as fun to watch without him playing.

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Yeah I bet you're just devastated.

The Warriors make a living stomping teams who are missing key pieces due to injury. As if having two human cheat codes on one team wasn't enough of an advantage, it just happens that the team with two of the dirtiest players in the league (Dray and Zaza) tends to find itself up against injured opponents a lot.

Huh. Imagine that.

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Gimme a break and go cry somewhere else. I didn't say I was devastated. I'm definitely happy they won. But, I do like to see good players go up against each other. As said above, it's not like the Spurs haven't had dirty players as big pieces of championship teams.

Matt_ag98 said:

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Maybe the warriors are onto something, maybe it will be more like the NHL with stars and then goons that the refs are cool with, I guess the Spurs need to get with the program, never would have thought the unstoppable warriors with their supposed high octane record setting offense and stars would need to take out an opposing player to win a game, I hope lebron stomps them

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Puhlease. It wasn't done to injure.

But Zaza shouldn't have had to be put in to do that, I mean supposedly you guys are the best NBA team of all time so why need to take a player out?

I'm just being realistic. I was excited about this series. Golden state gets all of the hype and the headlines. I think if this team wasnt missing Kawhi and tony Parker that they could give GS a fight and take them to 6 games at least. I doubt we would win the series, but we would've made them sweat a bit. Without TP and Kawhi it's just not worth watching anymore. Pop was able to pull a rabbit out of his hat against the rockets, but the warriors are too loaded.

https://theringer.com/2017-nba-playoffs-san-antonio-spurs-golden-state-warriors-game-1-kawhi-leonard-zaza-pachulia-ankle-injury-ad01327dafa8

This article mentions that The Spurs were 316-0 under Pop in games where they reached a 25 point lead?

Setting aside Kawhi's injury, gotta love how the refs did their part in the fourth. Durant can travel, err throw the ball to himself. I mean a phantom tip as the ref explained it. Two points.

And that BS offensive goal tend against Danny. a ball moving away from the goal cannot by rule be a goaltend but second time in two games costs us a bucket.

Pumpkinhead said:

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https://theringer.com/2017-nba-playoffs-san-antonio-spurs-golden-state-warriors-game-1-kawhi-leonard-zaza-pachulia-ankle-injury-ad01327dafa8

This article mentions that The Spurs were 316-0 under Pop in games where they reached a 25 point lead?

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I don't know which is more incredible:

1) He'd reached a 25 point lead in 316 games

2) He'd won all 316 games that he'd reached a 25 point lead

ZaZa will bill cast as the victim before long. I give it two days max before stories about anonymous threats to him start surfacing.

Adam87inSA said:

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ZaZa will bill cast as the victim before long. I give it two days max before stories about anonymous threats to him start surfacing.

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Fu ck Zaza. He deserves every minute of it.

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As a neutral fan in this series, the Spurs fans should be furious about this game.

Pachulia's move was absolutely intentional and dirty, and is the largest reason why they won the game.


That being said, the Spurs should still have won given how much they were winning by. The team mentally lost its cool after the injury. You can't ever give up an 18-0 run and expect to win.

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I disagree. The Pachulia foul was a foul and borderline intentional/dirty; it's nothing that the Spurs fan haven't seen though.

You answered your own question in the next sentence: the biggest reason why GS won was because the Spurs stopped playing after Kawhi went down with his injury. Even before he injured his ankle, you could GS was mounting a run with Steph going crazy from the 3 point line.

I thought the game called evenly bad and you can't say they had something to do with the win because they were calling ridiculous fouls on both teams. It was inconsistent all the way around and the Spurs had just as many calls go their way as GS.

I understand that Kawhi is a large part of the San Antonio offense but he's not the whole team and it wasn't like he was carrying the team either. When he first injured his ankle after that made 3, he wasn't himself. He tried a jumper and kind of clanked it off the rim and you could tell that he didn't have the same lift and was walking/running gingerly on it. I think he was bound to re-injury it again and perhaps it was better that it happened that way rather than injuring it while going for a rebound where he might have jumped higher and could have potentially broken that ankle. Ironically, Kawhi is a warrior but I felt that he should have gone to the locker room to get it taped before starting to play through it.

When Kawhi re-injured his ankle, it didn't roll all the way to the side. It rolled a little bit, but he was able to readjust his foot right before he went down. A harsher injury happens when you completely roll your ankle to the side so there's still hope that he will play. The bigger question is how much his beating his ankle will take because he's already tweaked it twice and it doesn't seem like it's stable enough that it won't happen again.

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I thought the game called evenly bad and you can't say they had something to do with the win because they were calling ridiculous fouls on both teams. It was inconsistent all the way around and the Spurs had just as many calls go their way as GS.

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I generally agree with this and hate the "blaming the refs" game, but the non-call on Durant's pass to himself in the last three minutes was a huge, borderline inexcusable whiff.

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I understand that Kawhi is a large part of the San Antonio offense but he's not the whole team and it wasn't like he was carrying the team either.

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Spurs already have their #2 scorer out for the season.

Kawhi was +21 in 24 minutes played. 26 points on 13 shots with 8 rebounds.

Without Kawhi, the Spurs relied on underperforming LMA, a couple guys that are way past their prime and a bunch of nobodies that were passed over by every team in the NBA.

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Even before he injured his ankle, you could GS was mounting a run with Steph going crazy from the 3 point line.

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Spurs were +5 in the first 5 minutes of the 3rd quarter before Kawhi was hurt, so they were stretching their lead even more until Kawhi was hurt.

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It was inconsistent all the way around and the Spurs had just as many calls go their way as GS.

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