Experience won over youth as the San Antonio Spurs defeated the Golden State Warriors 129-127 in a double-overtime Game 1 victory. The Spurs overcame what was once an 18-point deficit and a 127-126 disadvantage with 3.9 seconds remaining before Manu Ginobili's game-winning 3-pointer gave the veteran Spurs the 1-0 advantage in the best-of-7 series.
Ginobili capitalized on a cross-court imbound pass from Kawhi Leonard to give San Antonio the advantage with 1.2 remaining. Despite his 16 points, it was a surprisingly poor shooting performance from the former all-star who went 5-20 from the field and 2-9 from behind the arch.
"It's only the second one I made all day," Ginobili told ESPN. "Good timing, though."
With 1.2 seconds remaining, Golden State put their faith in Jarrett Jack to take the final shot. However, the veteran point guard could not connect from the top of the key.
The Spurs trailed by 16 points with 4 minutes left in regulation before going on a 18-2 run to close the fourth quarter and force overtime. A big reason for the deficit was another impressive scoring performance from Warriors guard Stephen Curry.
Curry scored 44 points on 18-of-35 shooting, including 22 points in the third quarter alone. However, San Antonio forced the young guard to struggle in crunch time, forcing Curry to go 0-for-7 on jump shots in the 4th quarter and overtime.
"I have no clue. I really got to watch it to see what happened," Ginobili said of the Spurs comeback. "They started missing shots. Steph was unbelievable in the third quarter."
Tony Parker scored a team-best 28 points for San Antonio to go along with his eight assists and eight rebounds. Danny Green scored 22 points, while Kawhi Leonard added 18 points and nine rebounds.
Tim Duncan, true to form, had a well-rounded performance in the Spurs' Game 1 victory. The future Hall of Famer scored 19 points on 7-8 shooting, while grabbing a team-best 11 rebounds. Duncan, who suffered from the flu, had an impressive performance despite playing just 34 minutes on Monday.
The series will continue with Game 2 taking place on Wednesday at 9:30 p.m. ET at the AT&T Center in San Antonio.
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