Everything was well coming into this game, with the Spurs up 1-0 in the first round against the Portland Trail Blazers and Victor Wembanyama receiving his Defensive Player of the Year trophy. Then, there was the game. After a rough start, the Spurs fought back from a double-digit deficit only to lose Wemby to a possible concussion early in the second quarter. They still fought and gutted it out, and everything seemed to open up in the fourth quarter as they got out to a 14-point lead with under nine
minutes to go. Unfortunately, the Blazers got hot from three, and poor free-throw shooting came back to bite the Spurs as they lost 103-106.
De’Aaron Fox, Stephon Caslte and Devin Vassell combined for 51 inefficient points, while Luke Kornet did an admirable job filling in for Wemby with 10 points and 9 rebounds and was very much a case if “box score plus-minus don’t lie”, as he was at +29 before the game-ending Portland run. The Spurs were able to hold Deni Avdija relatively in check with 14 points on 5-13 shooting, but Scoot Henderson exploded for 31 points on 11-17 shooting, 5-9 from three.
Observations
- Random question: have the Spurs ever had two playoff games in a row in which it was cool outside? For those who haven’t been here, South Texas has very short, mild winters and long, hot summers, with spring and fall being fleeting. While it isn’t typically hot yet in April, it is warm with highs typically in the 80’s (Fahrenheit, of course). Cool fronts do occur, but needing anything beyond short sleeves across two Spurs playoff games is new to me.
- The Blazers’ goal coming into this game was to get more players involved on offense, and they did just that with four players scoring as they went on a 13-0 run after the Spurs took an early 4-2, while the Spurs struggled with turnovers and deflections against Portland’s feisty defense. Also, unlike Game 1, the Spurs couldn’t keep Donovan Clingan off the offensive glass, with no one boxing him out when Wemby went for blocks. Fortunately, Stephen Castle finally got going and scored 7 straight points to cut into what had been a 13-point lead, and the Spurs took advantage of Portland’s starters resting to retake the lead 28-27 with an 18-5 run to close the quarter.
- I’ll be honest, I kind of forgot about Scoot Henderson before the last couple of weeks. After all the hype coming into the 2023 Draft that had some (including himself) claiming he had a higher ceiling than Wemby, he had a rough rookie season and has dealt with injuries much of the last two. However, he showed what the hype was about in the first with 13 points on 4-5 shooting in the first quarter, and he stayed hot all night.
- Like many teams, Portland’s new plan with Wemby was to put a smaller, stronger player on him, in this case Jrue Holiday. As a result, he was not as loose and free to move around like he did in Game 1. Early in the second quarter, he pulled the chair on Wemby, who fell, stayed down and appeared dazed. Replay showed he smacked his chin the court and may have briefly lost consciousness, and he ran back to the locker room. He did not return to the game after entering concussion protocol.
- After his exit, the Spurs got down by five a few times but regained their composure, and in ways played much looser on offense since Portland’s defensive plan no longer applied. Luke Kornet stepped up well in Wemby’s absence, and it was a little harder for the Blazers to get offensive rebounds since he was staying down and boxing out Clingan. The game was tied at 57 at the half despite the drama.
- I had to watch some on mute in the third quarter. All night it felt like Reggie Miller and Mike Tirico were rooting for Portland, and outside of one instance in the second quarter when Reggie laughing at a weak foul called on Julian Champagnie, asking what happened to playoff basketball, it felt like they were reviewing and critiquing every questionable call against the Blazers but not the Spurs. It was eventually too distracting.
- So far, in both games it feels like Portland is getting the benefit of the doubt on loose ball fouls, offensive fouls, and of course Avdija doing his best SGA impression. Mitch Johnson finally had enough and challenged a call that would have been Champagnie’s fifth foul in the third quarter. Shaedon Sharpe had pushed him into Henderson, but they called the foul on Champagnie. It was a successful challenge. (Oh, and I did un-mute for this part, and Reggie somehow didn’t think it would successful.)
- Another spate of injuries hit in the fourth quarter, with Harrison Barnes exiting after hurting his wrist in a collision with Avdija, and a play later, Dylan Harper and Clingan both existed with with thumb injures after getting tangled up (in Harper’s case, the same thumb that was already hurt). Fortunately, Harper soon returned.
- The offense opened up for the Spurs in the fourth, and they got the lead up to 14 on a Kornet reverse dunk and-1. Unfortunately, what could have been a run that put things away did not because the Spurs struggled at the line all night. They were 15-22 at that point and finished 2o-28 which gave the Blazers room to come back, and they did on a Holiday put-back with 2 minutes left. The Spurs had several chances to retake the lead after that, but the offense bogged down. Robert Williams stretched the lead to three with 12 sec left, and Vassell couldn’t hit a desperation three at the buzzer after a round of the foul game to force overtime.
