“Number 1, the Spurs were Great… Fourth quarter, defensively flying around,” This was how Steve Kerr began his post-game presser. Well, that’s how the game went too. After commanding the San Antonio Spurs for the first three quarters, the Golden State Warriors looked like they lost the gas in their tank. That’s what Andrew Wiggins believed too after the game. However, there seems to be another reason behind the loss, leading us back to Coach Kerr’s agenda.

Heading into the season, the Warriors didn’t look like they were going to make much noise with an inexperienced roster surrounding two vets, Stephen Curry and Draymond Green, the oldest players on the roster. But Kerr proved everyone wrong, dismantling his opponents one after the other with a deep roster. Amid this stacked roster, the star coach outlined his agenda as well, which was to protect the two vets.

With numerous conversations surrounding the back-to-back games, Steve Kerr had his own ways to manage his players. So, the star coach has to figure out a way to rest his two vets, Green and Steph, on back-to-back affairs. And Kerr decided upon either benching one of them or reducing their minutes. Last night against the Spurs, the 59-year-old went with the second option and it backfired.

Heading into the fourth quarter, the team held a 10-point lead. It should have been a 17-point lead, but the team fumbled big time in the final seconds of the third quarter. Nevertheless, he went with the strategy, making Green and Steph watch the game from the bench. Unfortunately, it didn’t last long, as Kerr had to check them back in with 8 minutes because of the Spurs’ 33-point flurry.

Even the vets couldn’t evade the loss. Andrew Wiggins, who dropped the team-high 20 points, had only one thing to say: “I’m sure everyone is (tired)… If not mentally, physically. If not physically, mentally. One or the other.” Let’s dig deeper to know what went wrong.

What went down for Steve Kerr’s men as they suffered an embarrassing loss against the Spurs?

The Warriors don’t seem to have learned from their mistakes. We have lost count of how many double-digit leads this team has tanked in the second half this season. While they somehow managed to pull off wins at the end, tonight, they couldn’t. Notably, the Dubs even went on a 5-minute-long FG-less run in the fourth quarter while the Spurs slowly chased down the lead.

Andrew Wiggins, who reasoned fatigue as one of the reasons for the loss, also added, “We’re still figuring some stuff out…Today would be a perfect example, especially down the stretch, us executing, getting what we want when we want it. But then they made it hard on us.” It’s important to credit the Spurs team for their effort. But at the same time, the Warriors couldn’t conjure one of their key traits.

One of the major strengths of the Dubs this season is to come back at their opponents at every possible minute on the floor because of their depth. However, the team themselves looked tired. Jonathan Kuminga‘s absence seemed to have directly impacted the team’s second unit push tonight. What do you think? Could the Warriors turn the result around in the presence of Kuminga? Let us know in the comments.