The Golden State Warriors’ 123-85 loss to the San Antonio Spurs was ugly enough on the scoreboard, but after shooting 1-for-13 from the field, Yaxel Lendeborg wasn’t interested in hearing that he should simply forget the performance and move on.
He openly acknowledged being scared to attack Victor Wembanyama at the rim, described his own shot selection in painfully honest terms and said he felt he’d let his teammates down.
Steve Kerr, meanwhile, was preaching patience and perspective. The Warriors had just run into what he called the hottest team in the league, without one Wardell Stephen Curry II, and his message was straightforward: Learn from it and prepare for the next game.
Top 3 observations from Detail Recap
Before getting to our Top Five Quotes from Steve and Yaxel, let’s revisit three takeaways from our possession-by-possession Detail Recap of the Warriors' 123-85 loss to the Spurs.
Watch the standalone Detail Recap, also available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts:
1. More meaningful Bassey minutes
I've been making this argument for several games now, and Draymond Green's flagrant foul on Wembanyama only reinforced it: Kerr needs to find more opportunities to play Charles Bassey at center and reduce the physical burden on Draymond.
Here's the paradox: Bassey actually finished with more total minutes than Dray in this blowout, but that's precisely why we need to distinguish between meaningful rotation minutes and minutes accumulated after the outcome has essentially been decided.
I'm not insisting Bass must start every game. Kerr can choose his matchups, but against bigger opponents, why not use Bassey earlier and more frequently, allowing Draymond to conserve some energy and avoid having to battle opposing centers so often over an 82-game season?
Bassey’s fake-and-dunk against Wemby was another reminder of what he can contribute offensively, too. This is about preserving Draymond while developing another useful option, not assigning blame for one flagrant foul.
2. Melton should not start
LJ Cryer was one of the few bright spots in San Antonio: 20 points, six threes, five assists and zero turnovers. He demonstrated the quick-trigger shooting and ability to create his own shot that Golden State desperately needs without one Curry.
Meanwhile, De’Anthony Melton finished 3-for-11 from the field. His overall box score wasn't disastrous — four rebounds, three assists, no turnovers, a steal and a block — but watching the possessions told a different story. He looked hesitant, struggled to get his feet set and repeatedly failed to establish an offensive rhythm.
And here’s the thing. That’s the second straight game he’s been a bit unreliable. I called his performance against the Rockets pendulum-like.
That’s why I’d make the switch. Start Cryer and let Melton return to a backup role, where he can continue to settle in on that role when Steph comes back around, concentrate on defense, find his rhythm and contribute without being asked to immediately provide the offensive production of a starting guard.
This isn’t about giving up on Melton. It’s about putting both players in positions where they can best help the Warriors while Curry is unavailable. Cryer has earned the opportunity. Let’s see what he can do with it and, with him showing off some shiftiness even during garbage time late against the Spurs, I actually think Cryer approximates Curry better than Melton does — so… just start him!
As my co-host Dean Chambers said on the chat and which can be seen in this article’s picture: “We only have $65,882,080 to put on the court, which is barely more than Steph makes by himself.” (Wardell’s salary this season is $62,587,158, in case you were wondering) — but I understand how hard it is for Kerr to break old habits and overcompensate on the urgency of each game. I’m sure he has a very high threshold for an idea crossing the hurdle into an experiment worth trying. I’m not gonna sit here and crucify Steve every single time (Bassey, now Cryer), but yeah, I’m starting to sound like a broken record.
It’s probably worth a separate deep-dive, but overall I just think Kerr has asked Steph and Dray to break old habits (read: turnovers), yet he’s not breaking his old habit (taking a flyer on someone from our NBA2K/armchair coach perspective, which sometimes turns out to be the right call — read: Jonathan Kuminga). Again, this is coming from someone who agrees with Draymond, who every now and then reminds people that Steve is the best coach in the league. I do agree, but… no different than when I pull my hair out as Brandin Podziemski dribbles into a corner and we’re forced to burn a timeout, cross-court sling passes by Wardell “just a little bit outside” and three rows deep into the seats, notwithstanding.
3. Castle and the Spurs deserve flowers
It's easy to focus on everything the Warriors did wrong when they fall behind 18-0 and go more than six minutes without scoring while Castle and Wemby trade alley-oops to each other like it’s and All-Star Game, but San Antonio deserves credit for making Golden State pay for virtually every mistake.
Stephon Castle delivered an absolute clinic: 32 points on 12-for-18 shooting, including five threes on eight attempts, with six assists and just one turnover, not to mention passing with flying colors — and then some — on the direct assignment guarding Lendeborg. It’s tough for taller guys when there’s a smaller, super-rugged and determined defender in front of you, not to mention if you’re only a rookie. Castle played like a future Hall-of-Famer last night. Spurs fans, he doesn’t always shoot like that, right?
One early sequence illustrated the Spurs’ execution beautifully. Dylan Harper screened for Melt, Victor surveyed the floor from well beyond the arc and Harper slipped inside for an easy basket when Draymond didn’t drop far enough to help. The Spurs were up 12-0 before Kerr finally called timeout.
Even Mitch Johnson’s timeout with San Antonio ahead 26-8 illustrated the difference in urgency. The Spurs made a mistake, and Johnson immediately wanted to address it, Gregg Popovich-style.
Castle was outstanding, Wembanyama dictated the geometry of the floor and the Spurs played with the precision of a team that knows exactly what it wants to accomplish. Sometimes the opponent is simply that good. This was one of those nights.
The stories beyond the box score
Those are my three biggest observations from the film, but the possessions only tell part of the story. The postgame interviews revealed something equally important: how the people involved are processing the loss.
That brings us to our Top Five Quotes, beginning with Yaxel’s candid response to one of the most difficult performances of his young NBA career.
Perhaps just as significant, Kerr’s pregame comments revealed how much offensive responsibility Golden State has already entrusted to Yaxel, including the installation of isolation sets originally designed for Jimmy Butler.
Here are our Top 5 quotes from Kerr’s pregame and postgame press conferences and Yaxel’s remarkably candid locker-room interview, with our observations on what each tells us about the Warriors moving forward.
1. “I’m not gonna move past this. I don’t know about the rest of us. Everybody’s saying throw it out the window. I can’t throw a damn thing out the window. We just lost by 100, so I’m fucked up mentally right now. We got a game in two days, they said, I think, so we’ll see how we can bounce back that game, I guess, yeah.” — Yaxel
This was our No. 1 quote because it captured the emotional weight of the loss better than anything else said that night.
The Warriors obviously didn’t lose by 100 points — he also mentioned losing by 70 points, so clearly not a math major 😆 —but Yaxel’s exaggeration(s) tells you something about how thoroughly defeated he felt. This wasn’t somebody searching for excuses. It was a young player struggling to process a performance that fell far below his expectations.
What’s especially interesting is his rejection of the conventional NBA wisdom that players need to have short memories.
There is value in remembering how a loss feels, particularly when that memory can fuel improvement, but the challenge for Yaxel will be finding the balance between accountability and allowing one bad night to affect his confidence going forward.
That tension becomes even more interesting when we consider what his head coach said.
2. “Well, there’s gonna be nights like this and so the bounce back is what’s most important. And he’ll learn from this, just like he’s learning from every experience that he’s having here in the early going and we got a big game coming up in New Orleans, so it’s important to just turn the page quickly.”
The contrast between Kerr and Yaxel is fascinating. Yax says he doesn’t know what there is to learn from a game like this and refuses to move past it which is more about his self-awareness as a newbie — beat writer Joseph Dycus of Bay Area News Group tweeted that Lendeborg had previously never lost by more than 27 points back in junior college. Kerr says learning from the experience and turning the page quickly are precisely what matter most.
My guy Dean probably said it best:
3. “Well, I mean, I just wasn't being aggressive. He’s skinnier than me. I just gotta go put an elbow in his chest and jump into his body or something. If he blocks it, he blocks it… I kept going up there scared though. That’s pretty much what it was. All of us were kind of scared in a way, but we’ll get it next time, I guess.” — Yax
That’s the extraordinary impact Wemby can have on a game without even blocking a shot. He changes offensive decisions before players ever get into their shooting motions.
Yaxel explained elsewhere in the interview that the Warriors were settling for floaters rather than attacking the basket. He even admitted he hadn’t worked on a floater since junior college.
Yaxel seemed to understand what he needed to do differently. He talked about getting into Wembanyama’s body, initiating contact and accepting the possibility that his shot might get blocked.
Of course, knowing what to do and executing it against one of the most imposing defenders in basketball are two very different things, but if Yax can take that lesson into his next matchup with Vic, perhaps this game will ultimately prove more valuable than the box score suggests.
4. “Well, we’re already (putting in sets for Yaxel). We started doing that the first week of the season, recognizing how talented he was, how good he was at creating shots, so we started putting in some of the same sets we put in for Jimmy (Butler) the last couple years and so we already run a lot of iso for Yax, but you feel it out during the game. You can’t overdo it or you lose the rhythm, but when you need a bucket, you definitely go to him and trust him to create something for himself or his teammate.” — Kerr
We already knew Yax was becoming an important offensive option for the Warriors, but Kerr confirmed that the coaching staff recognized his isolation ability almost immediately.
Kerr’s warning about not overdoing isolation possessions is equally important. The Warriors have built much of their offensive identity around movement, screening and sharing the ball. Asking Yax to create in isolation can be extremely useful, especially without Curry, but it shouldn’t come at the expense of the rhythm that makes Golden State's offense effective.
That balance is going to be one of the more interesting coaching challenges during Curry's absence and the Spurs game demonstrated just how difficult those isolation possessions can become when an elite defensive team is prepared to take away a player’s preferred options.
5. “Yeah, it's gonna take a little time to adapt to no Steph and we’re playing the best team in the league, hottest team in the league. And they came out ready to play and knocked down some early threes and we had some decent looks, just couldn’t get anything to go and then we’re playing from behind right away.” — Steve
The Dubs weren’t simply facing a very good Spurs team. They were doing it without Steph, the player around whom so much of their offensive system revolves. Replacing Curry isn’t just about finding somebody else to score his points. It’s about replacing the advantages he creates through his movement, shooting gravity and the defensive attention he commands on virtually every possession.
Without him, players like Yax and Podz are being asked to create more offense against defenses that can devote additional attention to stopping them and against San Antonio, those challenges were magnified by the Spurs’ early shotmaking and Wemby’s presence around the basket.
One blowout doesn’t necessarily tell us what this team will look like throughout Steph’s absence. It does, however, make clear how much work remains.
Accountability & perspective
Yaxel felt he had let his teammates down. He was frustrated with his inability to attack Wembanyama and wasn’t interested in pretending that a 38-point loss was something he could simply forget.
Kerr, on the other hand, understands that player development isn’t linear. A young player can look like an emerging star one night and struggle mightily the next.
The accountability Yaxel demonstrated is encouraging, provided he doesn’t allow it to become a burden that affects his confidence and Kerr’s patience is important, provided the lessons from the loss translate into better execution.
The next opportunity comes in New Orleans, where we’ll begin to see whether Yax can turn his frustration into something productive and whether the Warriors can find a more sustainable offensive rhythm without Curry.
Complete interviews
There’s much more from these three interviews than we could fit into our Top 5, even as the Warriors flushed this one down the toilet with only Steve appearing on the podium postgame for a mere two minutes and Yaxel took questions at his locker.
Kerr also discussed Wemby’s potential development into an even more dangerous late-game closer, his admiration for Spurs coach Johnson, the relationship between offensive discipline and defensive success, and Steph’s recovery plans with Rick Celebrini now that they’re back in the Bay.
There were also some lighter moments, including Steve reflecting on his relationship with Pop and a hilarious exchange about who he’d trust to drive the team bus to New Orleans, if the FAA had still ground all flights — everything seems to be trending back, although the backlog of flights is causing major delays and missed connections on Saturday.
Yaxel’s full locker-room interview offers additional context for just how frustrated he was with his performance, including his candid description of the shots he missed and why he struggled to find any offensive rhythm.
For paid subscribers, the complete transcripts of Lendeborg’s postgame locker-room interview and Kerr’s pregame and postgame press conferences follow below.
I’ve also added Yax and Al Horford from morning shootaround. Here are all the videos:
Your support helps us continue bringing independent, formerly season-credentialed Warriors coverage, original interviews and the behind-the-scenes details that define the LGW Way.
