The San Antonio Spurs, celebrating their 50th anniversary this season, made history this Friday with a new NBA game attendance record, gathering 68,323 spectators in their crushing loss to the Golden State Warriors (113-144). . San Antonio surpassed the 1998 mark at the Georgia Dome at the Alamodome, home of the Spurs between 1993 and 2002, in a game between the Atlanta Hawks and Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls that was attended by 62,046 spectators. Only the 2010 All-Star Meeting beat Spurs’ mark with 108,713 attendees.
The Spurs came to the Alamo in 1973. They started this season by honoring Argentinian Manu Ginóbili, who was one of the members of the legendary “Big Three” along with Tim Duncan and Frenchman Tony Parker and was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2022. As part of the anniversary activities, the Spurs played a game in Mexico City in December and will face the Portland Trail Blazers and Minnesota Timberwolves in Austin in April.
Founded in 1967 under the name Dallas Chaparrals, the San Antonio Spurs were also the Texas Chaparrals today between 1970 and 1971. In 1973 they were named Spurs in the ABA league and debuted as an NBA franchise in 1976. To commemorate their half century of life, the five-time NBA champions (1999, 2003, 2005, 2007 and 2014) organized parties including fireworks before and after the game. With a great atmosphere in the stadium (the fans cheered despite the fact that their team lost by 39 points in the fourth quarter), this historic game was attended by Spurs icons like David Robinson (he announced to date that the attendance record was set ). broken), Parker or Ginóbili. “More than 68,000 people! Spurs fans, you are the best! Congratulations to everyone who made this possible!” the Argentine tweeted after the game.
+68,000 people in the building! Spurs fans, you are something else! Congratulations to everyone who made this possible! 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 https://t.co/e62MDukwUV
— Manu Ginobili (@manuginobili) January 14, 2023
Gregg Popovich, the eternal coach of San Antonio, also met on the benches an illustrious student of his like Steve Kerr, coach of the Warriors, who played for the Spurs in two stages (1998-2001 and 2002-2003). The night wasn’t entirely sweet for Spurs as the Warriors walked over them. Both teams came into this game after losing three games in a row. Jordan Poole was the top visitor with 25 points and Donte DiVincenzo contributed 22 points. Klay Thompson and Andrew Wiggins each added 16 points and Stephen Curry had 15. Neither Golden State starter played 30 minutes as the game was decided in the third quarter.
For the locals, Tre Jones added 21 points and Keldon Johnson received 17. Popovich called his first time-out after 3 minutes into the game (4-10) and seeing his students fail to react forced the game to stop for a second two Minutes later (4-17). However, Spurs woke up and reached the end of the first quarter just 5 points behind (28-33).
Screens in the Alamodome showed Ginobili watching the game and Spurs fans cheered regardless of the result. DiVincenzo, who came on as a substitute, was the Warriors’ top scorer at halftime with 12 points (60-74). While the locals had only hit 2 three-pointers from 7 attempts in the first half and persisted in color, the guests hit 9 three-pointers from 23 attempts. An explosive start to the third quarter from Thompson and Draymond Green, with Poole completing the final minutes of the segment, brought the score to a stunning 89-114 (29-40 over that period), putting the duel before a judgment final quarter, where nothing is at stake.
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