OAKLAND >> First-year Santa Cruz Warriors coach Aaron Miles didn’t need to do a re-enactment of Gene Hackman in Hoosiers and put two-way guard Quinn Cook on his shoulders to measure the height from the floor to the rim at Oracle Arena on Sunday night.

The Warriors, playing in a substantially larger venue than their home facility in Santa Cruz, felt quite comfortable in their lone appearance this season on affiliate Golden State’s home court. After all, many of the athletes on Santa Cruz’s roster played in enormous arenas while in college, representing heralded universities like Duke, Kentucky and Louisville.

That said, feeling comfortable wasn’t enough to prevent Santa Cruz from dropping its NBA G League game to Austin 105-97 in front of 15,228 enthusiastic fans.

Cook, the league’s second-leading scorer at 24.5 points per game, finished with a game-high 28 points for the Warriors (17-15), who remain in third place in the Pacific Division.

“Playing in the best arena in the NBA and (in front of) the best fans,” Cook said, “I don’t think you can go to any other team and they support their minor team like that. It was electric in there.”

Seven-foot center Damian Jones and guard Damion Lee each scored 15 points and two-way forward Chris Boucher scored 12 in 15 minutes off the bench.

Jaron Blossomgame had a team-high 12 boards as the Spurs outrebounded Santa Cruz 47-33, using 16 offensive rebounds for 22 second-chance points. Nick Johnson scored 21 points to lead five players in double digits for Austin (20-12), leader in the Southwest Division standings.

“The guys played hard,” Miles said. “We all need to do a better job rebounding, collectively,”

Jones, on assignment from Golden State, provided the highlight of the night when he posterized Austin center Matt Costello on his vicious, second-quarter dunk.

Two-time NBA MVP Stephen Curry, a night after torching Boston for 49 points, 2017 NBA Finals MVP Kevin Durant and Shaun Livingston were among Golden State players taking in the action from the team’s executive suite. Curry stood up from his chair, hands on his head in disbelief, in an animated celebration after Jones’ dunk.

“I just seen the opening and I had to go,” Jones said. “It was an open lane so I had to take off.”

Golden State coach Steve Kerr watched the game from a courtside seat.

In Santa Cruz’s Oracle debut last season — a 105-96 loss to the Oklahoma City Blue on Feb. 12 — the teams set a G League single-game attendance record, drawing 17,497 basketball fans.

Santa Cruz’s tradition of playing on Golden State’s home court will continue after the NBA team’s new venue in San Francisco, the Chase Center, opens in the 2019-20 season.

“I think all of us, coaches included, try to play this cool, calm and collected attitude and demeanor,” Miles, a former star at Kansas, said prior to the game. “At the same time, there’s some of that energy, that excitement, nervousness at the same time for everyone. I know the guys are excited and I’m excited for them.”

Despite the large turnouts for Santa Cruz at Oracle, Massimo Degaudenzi, Santa Cruz’s director of public and community relations, said Golden State likely won’t host more than one game each year.

“While hosting more than one game at Oracle Arena is possible, the team is 100 percent committed to the team’s raucous and faithful fans in Santa Cruz, who have provided the best fan atmosphere in the NBA G League,” Degaudenzi stated in an email.

Santa Cruz, which has 45 straight sellouts at Kaiser Permanente Arena, leads the league in average attendance at 2,476 fans per game. The crowd gathered at Oracle doesn’t factor into home attendance.

The fans, who took advantage of lower level seats priced as low as $40, a savings of hundreds of dollars over Golden State games, were excited about the change of scenery.

Scotts Valley’s Sophia Soto, 11, seated in the front row with her friends, had a big smile on her face as the game got underway.

“To be this close to all the players is really cool,” Soto said. “It’s just a good experience. Like, if they fell on you, that would be awesome. It would hurt, but I don’t care.”

Harbor High golf coach Scott Bedell and his wife, Janna, were seated a section over and 10 rows back.

“I’ve never sat this close at Oracle,” Bedell said. “Ten rows up from the floor. Actually it’s better than the first row. I can see the floor.”

Similar to last year, there was a bobblehead giveaway to the first 10,000 fans.

Bedell, late to Oracle for last year’s game due to traffic delays created by mudslides on Highway 17, ended up missing out on the bobblehead. He later traded a vacation at his condo in Palm Springs for the souvenir, but this year was in his seat as soon as the doors opened to get his Durant bobblehead.

DJ Andrew Rivas handled pre-game music as well as during timeouts, Golden State cheerleaders also performed and there were plenty of free T-shirt giveaways during breaks, which brought screaming fans to their feet.

Roughly 90 percent of Santa Cruz’s season ticket holders were in attendance, Degaudenzi said. The Warriors did their best to get them as close to the floor as possible in roughly the same seat vicinity they’d have at Kaiser Permanente Arena.

“The bobblehead’s great but I think it’s getting to see the local Santa Cruz team in great seats,” Scott Bedell said of the top reason to make the trek to Oracle.

“I think it’s fun to see the up-and-coming players, the new talent that’s coming in,” Janna Bedell said.

“It wouldn’t be as special if they did it more than once a year,” Scott Bedell said.

His wife countered: “Two or three times a year would still be special enough.”

Contact Jim Seimas

at 831-706-3256.