The San Antonio Spurs with their backs against the wall in Game 4 grabbed a huge win to keep their playoff hopes alive for at least one more contest. It was a balanced effort on both ends of the court that helped lift the team to their first victory in the series against the Golden State Warriors.
It was an impressive performance that the team was able to string together despite the absence of head coach Gregg Popovich, who is grieving the recent loss of his longtime wife, Erin. Following Game 4, veteran guard Danny Green voiced that the team is playing with the sole motivation to continue to win games in honor of Popovich, according to Tom Orsborn of the San Antonio Express-News.
Danny said there was a win-one-for-Pop vibe going on: "Can’t take anything away from Ettore. It was a great playoff win for us, for him. We are proud of him. He did a great job keeping us in it, talking us through it, Xs and Os. But every win is for Pop, the big guy, right now."
— Tom Orsborn (@tom_orsborn) April 22, 2018
It was a strong collective effort from the Spurs to keep the series going that saw them shoot 45.7 percent from the field while hitting 53.6 percent from beyond the arc while committing just eight turnovers. LaMarcus Aldridge led the way with a double-double posting 22 points and 10 rebounds.
It also featured a turn-the-clock-back outing from Manu Ginobili, who scored 16 points off the bench with 10 of those points coming in the fourth quarter. In fact, his offensive fire punch in the fourth quarter helped keep the Warriors from taking control of the game after cutting the deficit to two points early in the period.
Meanwhile, the Warriors were held to just 37.8 percent shooting from the field and 25 percent from beyond the arc in Sunday's contest. Beyond Kevin Durant's 34-point performance, Golden State struggled to get big outings from their other two stars with Klay Thompson and Draymond Green combining for 10-of-30 shooting from the field and 3-of-12 shooting from 3-point range.
San Antonio will look to keep the momentum going forward in Game 5 with the daunting task of getting that same formula to success put in play back at Oracle Arena on Tuesday night. The team certainly has the motivation in place to strive to keep the series going for their beloved head coach.
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