After a rocky end to the regular season, the San Antonio Spurs managed to secure a playoff spot for the 21st consecutive year but their reward was a first-round encounter with defending champions the Golden State Warriors.

Both teams came into the clash missing their star player with Stephen Curry and Kawhi Leonard sidelined, respectively, but unlike the Spurs, the Warriors have another three All-Stars to call on and they made the difference in a one-sided game one.

Kevin Durant, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green dominated the game on both ends of the floor and led the Dubs to an easy 113-92 win at home.

Thompson led all scorers with 27 points, KD added 24 and Green almost had a triple-double with 12 points, eight rebounds and 11 assists.

The outcome of the game wasn't really surprising but the manner of the victory certainly was as the shorthanded Spurs struggled to cope with the intensity of the Oakland-based outfit.

Head coach Gregg Popovich believed they'd prepared well for the encounter but was disappointed with what he saw from his players and called them out for crumbling under the pressure.

"I thought we were very prepared physically and mentally," Popovich said, per ESPN's Michael C. Wright.

"But I was mistaken. As I said, we looked like deer in the headlights. The defence was really poor as far as following game plan of the first quarter, and it's a bad combination to play defence like that and not shoot at the other end."

The numbers make for grim reading from a San Antonio perspective as they connected on just 40 percent of their shots from the field.

Point guard Dejounte Murray agreed with Popovich's assessment and claimed that they were not ready mentally.

"That's fair enough. Hats off to Golden State," Murray said. "They did what they're supposed to do, which is protect home court. They won the first game. I think we came out not mentally prepared.

"As a group, there could be four guys prepared and one not prepared, but at the end of the day, it's a group. When you've got one half prepared and one half not prepared, it doesn't work.

"I thought we were not mentally prepared. They made shots and they executed and they did what they did."

The Texas-based franchise was swept by Golden State in the Western Conference Finals last year and they're in danger of suffering the same fate this time in the first round.

They have just one day to get themselves ready for game two on Monday but on the evidence of the series opener, the Spurs will need to produce something special to even get one win against the champs.

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