The Spurs offense was great against the Warriors — for three quarters

Let’s get the negative out of the way first: the Spurs lost yet another game that was centered around a fourth quarter collapse (this time to the Golden State Warriors), and there was really no excuse in this one since their top six players were all out. The offense went cold, the defense forgot how to switch, the Warriors won all 50-50 balls, and for the second game in a row the refs missed a blatant travel on a crucial late bucket by the opponent. On top of all that, both Jakob Poeltl — who has been the Spurs second best and possibly most important player of late — and Jock Landale were out in the second half after taking knocks to the head.

With all that negativity out of the way, this is the highlights post, which means we’re looking at the all the best plays of this game, and outside of the fourth quarter, this Spurs provided plenty of those in quite an entertaining game.

Before leaving the game (hopefully it’s not a concussion, but Gregg Popovich said after the fact he had blurred vision), Poeltl was continuing his rampage into its 8th game, with blocks and Poeltl Jams galore, even adding a little flare in there.

Not happy about being snubbed from the Rising Stars game, Devin Vassell was out to prove his worth, finishing the night with 14 points on 4-7 shooting from three. (It’s just too bad they stopped falling in the fourth, but he was not alone in that regard.)

Before the Spurs’ fourth quarter collapse, it was looking like a Lonnie Walker explosion at the end of the third was going to be the sequence that put the game out of reach for the depleted Warriors as he helped build their largest lead of 17. This block-then-hustle-up-the-floor-for-the-acrobatic-finish is what every fan wants to see from their most athletic player on a more consistent basis.

He followed that up with another block, dunk, and athletic layup. (Oddly the dunk was not captured on Twitter as far as I could find, but here’s a link.)

Finally, the full game highlights because we’re pretending like that’s where the game ended. (Just stop at the 7:11 mark, and it’s all good!)