NBA Playoffs: Popovic's Spurs Caught Out Against New-Look Warriors

The Golden State Warriors dusted off their poor form to start their first round of the playoffs in fine fashion with a 113-92 win over the San Antonio Spurs on Saturday.

The reigning champions won just 7 of their last 17 games in the regular season with their biggest loss of the campaign thus far coming in the final game against the Utah Jazz – 119-79.

The Warriors are without star point guard Stephen Curry, who is currently sidelined with a grade two MCL sprain to his left knee. He will not return for the first round of playoffs, which gave the Spurs more hope of progressing to the Eastern Conference semifinals.

Gregg Popovic was disappointed with his team after their opening game loss in the best of seven series and labeled their performance "like a deer in the headlights." He admitted he was of the view his team were prepared for the contest, but they were clearly not as they were out scored in every quarter except the last one when they registered two points more than the Warriors.

Moreover, according to ESPN, the Warriors’ starting lineup that consisted of Andre Iguodala, Klay Thompson, Kevin Durant, Draymond Green and JaVale McGee had not played together for even a single minute during the regular season.

"I thought we were very prepared physically and mentally," Popovich said, as quoted by ESPN. "But I was mistaken. As I said, we looked like deer in the headlights. The defense was really poor as far as following game plan of the first quarter, and it's a bad combination to play defense like that and not shoot at the other end."

Spurs are also playing in the first round of the playoffs without one of their key players in Kawhi Leonard. The small forward is out injured and has played just nine games for Popovic’s side this season.

Despite his absence, Spurs starting point guard Dejounte Murray agreed with the coach’s analysis of their game and tipped his hat off to the Warriors, who showed unexpected good form which was surprising after the way they ended the regular season.

"That's fair enough. Hats off to Golden State," Murray said. "They did what they're supposed to do, which is protect home court. They won the first game. I think we came out not mentally prepared.”

“As a group, there could be four guys prepared and one not prepared, but at the end of the day it's a group. When you've got one half prepared and one half not prepared, it doesn't work. I thought we were not mentally prepared. They made shots and they executed and they did what they did,” the Spurs point guard added.

The second game of the seven-game series will be played Monday at the Oracle Arena and Popovic will be hoping for a better response to his team, as it will be an uphill task for the underdogs to come back if they go two games down.