A party with old friends, and a taste for the return of good times in San Antonio

Despite their team's struggles, Spurs fans turned out in record numbers to experience an event that was much more than just a basketball game.

SAN ANTONIO — By the time the 10:28-mark of the fourth quarter had rolled around at the Alamodome on Friday night, the outcome of the game had essentially already been decided. Warriors guard Moses Moody was at the free-throw line with his team up 118-91 looking to salt away the remaining minutes of the blowout, when out of nowhere a group of fans sitting in the temporary courtside risers launched into ‘The Wave’, quickly sending it into the upper deck and flowing around the building for what felt like 10 minutes.

The classic, goofy audience-participation game isn’t exactly something you see from the home crowd when its team is on the wrong side of a beatdown, but score was the last thing on the minds of the more than 68,000 people in attendance. They didn’t seem to care much about the long-distance views from their seats or the weird sightlines that come with playing basketball in a football stadium, either.

Golden State throttled San Antonio, 144-113, scoring with relative ease from every different angle on the floor and each slot on the roster. Defensively the Warriors managed to both barricade the 3-point line and clog the paint all night, forcing difficult shot after difficult shot to hold the Spurs at arm’s length before putting them away convincingly over the final 21 minutes. But it never felt like the mood of the evening teetered on the game’s outcome.

The Spurs were back in the Alamodome for the first time in more than two decades and perhaps the last time ever, and Friday night felt like a last hurrah with an old friend. Circumstances didn’t matter, and neither did that friend’s current lot in life. The nostalgia that swept through that place didn’t stem from the shine of that 1999 championship trophy or any big shot along the way, but from the bond forged between the city and the building that harbored the most significant sea change in this franchise’s history.

This was a reunion, not just a basketball game.

Prior to the proceedings, Gregg Popovich talked about friendship. He spoke of having a glass of wine with Steve Kerr on Thursday night and seeing Avery Johnson at the game Friday, two men he talks to on the phone but rarely gets to visit in person. He doesn’t think about the Memorial Day Miracle when he has conversations with Sean Elliott, he affectionately lets him know he’s a “lazy commentator now” instead. He says he isn’t concerned with the hardware or aesthetics when his mind wanders into the past — which isn’t often — just those people he’s met along the way who have given him so much of what he has today.

“I don’t look back very much. That stuff all goes away. You just kind of look forward to what is going on at this moment. It’s mostly about people,” Pop said prior to the game. “It’s about the people and the relationships that you have formed over the years, and over time you get introduced to their children and you watch them grow and all that sort of thing. That is most of the memories.”

There’s something to be said about being in the moment and appreciating it for what it is. Letting the past linger too long or allowing the future to consume one’s thoughts takes away from the here and now. There’s no point in being at a party like the one put on at the Alamodome on Friday if you can’t enjoy it.

Keldon Johnson and his teammates sure as hell did. From the cell-phone-generated light show during player introductions, to Tre Jones’ admittedly nervy pre-game address in front of the massive crowd, to the parade of former Spurs greats in the building, to the performance from Tag Team at halftime, to the breaking of an NBA attendance record (officially 68,323), it was the closest thing to a home playoff environment this young team has ever experienced despite the game itself reminding them just how far away from the postseason they actually are at this point.

For Johnson, that pulsating energy left a taste — not just for the type of excitement that comes with high-stakes basketball, but for those relationships of which Pop spoke. Keldon has aligned himself with the people of San Antonio since the day he arrived and fit in seamlessly with the community around him, but this was a different vibe. This was a hit of the good stuff, and that rush of dopamine won’t soon be forgotten.

“Obviously we’re not Tim, Manu, Tony and those guys, but I feel like we can be special in our own way. The fan base is already there, they never left. They support us … they make it easy, even through tough times,” he said. “So just imagine when we’re in full stride, and we’re winning — that’s what I look forward to. We’re growing as a young team, and this atmosphere really lit a fire under us and made us want to go harder every day to put on for such a loyal fan base.”

Still, that future is many miles down the road, with plenty of potholes peppering the horizon in the short-term. The Warriors took advantage of porous defense and bad communication in a clinical show of execution on Friday, and they displayed a championship standard this iteration of the Spurs can only grasp by absorbing its brunt and watching film of the aftermath.

That’s what it takes, though. The battles and subsequent growing pains were what formed the relationships Popovich has with people like Kerr, Elliott and Avery Johnson, and what they and the Big Three had (and still have) with San Antonio. There are no guarantees of who remains in town through the ebbs and flows of a fluid rebuild, but those who will had a chance to feel Spurs fans in a way they hadn’t previously, and to preview what life around here can be like when the city is buzzing.

The Alamodome houses plenty of major events throughout the course of the year, but dress it in the Spurs’ Fiesta colors, crank up the Vicente Fernández, let the cerveza flow and watch it transform from monolith to the heartbeat of the city’s skyline. Friday’s game was a sight for sore eyes for a franchise in the midst of one the roughest stretches of its 50-year history, and a sign of life from the many loyalists who aren’t leaving its side.

This fan base is still here, ready to start ‘The Wave’ with its struggling young team down by nearly 30 points in the fourth quarter, and sitting in the cellar of the league’s standings. If they play their cards right ahead of the NBA Draft, the Spurs will give those people another jolt of energy come June, and more importantly an offer of hope that the good times will soon return as more than just a momentary break in the monotony — that the lull of the winter months will once again serve as a signal that springtime basketball in San Antonio is right around the corner.

“I’m at a loss for words thinking about it,” Keldon Johnson said with a smile on his face. “To see the turnout tonight — it’s crazy to think what the future holds.”

All photos courtesy of Bally Sports Southwest.