Looking for their 10th straight win for the first time in ten years, the Spurs continued their tour of Eastern Conference playoff teams, this time across the border against the Toronto Raptors. It wasn’t a pretty game, but despite more offensive struggles from Victor Wembanyama and some terrible free throw shooting making life harder than it had to be, the Spurs found a way, rallying back from 15 down late in the third thanks to some hot three-point shooting and clutch defensive play.
The Spurs scored
the first six points and got out to a 9-2 lead, but similar to two nights ago in Detroit, things suddenly slowed down while they struggled with 5 turnovers, and the Raptors kept chipping away at the lead, closing the quarter on a 12-6 run to get within a point, 30-29. The main reason the Spurs were still ahead was, fortunately for them, Devin Vassell was also still in Detroit form with 8 points on 2-2 from three, and Dylan Harper came in hot off the bench for 9 points in the first quarter.
The Spurs seemed to wake up to start the second, with a Wemby block leading to a Harper fast break dunk, followed by a De’Aaron Fox three to force a quick Raptors timeout, but it was short lived. Wemby continued to struggle on the offensive end, and Toronto responded with a 7-0 run to take their first lead at 36-35. It stretched to a 10-0 run after a Spurs timeout, after they gave up a three by turning it over in the backcourt. The Spurs again briefly regrouped, regaining the lead and stretching it to five thanks to more offensive heroics from Vassell and Harper, but Wemby just couldn’t get involved on offense, and the Raptors closed on an 8-2 run to take a 57-55 lead into halftime.
The Raptors immediately got a three-point play to open the third quarter before Wemby finally got his first field goal of the game on an alley-oop dunk from Champagnie, who then hit a three to ties things back up. Lots of whistles had both teams in the bonus early, although Wemby, who couldn’t buy a call against former Spur Jacob Poeltl, was getting agitated and subbed out earlier than usual, likely to cool off. With him out and Luke Kornet seemingly a step slow after suffering a leg contusion in Detroit, the offense opened up for the Raptors, who continued to stretch out the lead in transition and from three. On offense, the Spurs were settling for threes and mostly missing, but a big one from Stephon Castle cut into a 15-point Raptors lead, and the Spurs found themselves down 78-90 with 12 minutes to go.
Matt Bonner, who is now a studio analyst for the Raptors but joined the Spurs broadcast for this game, mentioned Toronto’s biggest weakness is something Spurs fans can relate to: forgetting what got them there and getting stagnant in the fourth quarter. He was proven prophetic, as the Spurs opened the quarter on a 15-2 run to regain the lead, including threes from Castle, Vassell and Harrison Barnes, and Wemby’s now calm presence on defense had the Raptors reeling. What they did have was the whistle in their favor and were already in the bonus less than five minutes in, which they used to stay close. More huge threes from Champagnie and Wemby got the Spurs ahead 106-100 with under 4 minutes to go, but made poor offensive decisions after a timeout let the Raptors get back within two.
Free throws were a problem all night, with the Spurs hitting just 13-23 compared to 23-27 for the Raptors, and it reared it’s ugly head in the waning seconds of the game. Harper had a chance to get them up by 4 with 16 seconds left but missed both free throws. Fortunately, he got his own rebound, and Fox hit 1-2 to get the Spurs up 109-106 with 10 seconds left. Immanuel Quickley then hit 1-2 FT’s, and after a timeout, Wemby hit 1-2 with 8.7 seconds left. That meant the Raptors still had a chance, but Brandon Ingram’s three-point attempt went off the side of the backboard, and the Spurs were able to get the rebound and heave it down court as time expired, securing their ugly (but beautiful) 10th straight win for the first time since 2016.
Game notes
- Right after receiving a ton of praise on this site for the way he handled not being the center of attention on offense in Detroit, Wemby was back to trying to do too much when things weren’t going right in the first half. He forced what few bad shots he could find, going 0-4, plus had a couple of turnovers when he tried to dribble into the Raptors defense. Then, he got subbed out earlier than usual in the second half after Poeltl got away with holding him on defense, tripped him on offense, and then charged right at him on defense again. After some time to mentally cool off, Wemby was better (but not great) in the fourth quarter. His defense was there all night with 5 blocks and was why he was as team-high +19 on the court, but it was another bad night on offense with just 12 points on 3-12 shooting (although he had those four huge points in crunch time).
- A big part of the team’s free throws woes were courtesy of Fox (2-8) and Harper (0-2). While the rest of the team combined to hit 10-12, including 3-4 from Castle, it continues to be an issue particularly for the guards. They survived tonight despite shooting just 2-6 in crunch time (including Wemby’s 1-2), but overall the team is going to have to be better at the line. Once the playoffs hit, free throws will become harder to come by, and they’ll have to take advantage of whatever free points they can get.
- Despite a couple of blunders late, Harper awesome on both ends tonight with 15 points, 7 assists, 5 rebounds and 2 steals. His performance off the bench was especially important with Keldon Johnson only playing 14 minutes after suffering a shoulder stinger. One great moment of maturity came late when Ingram tried to pump fake him three times to draw a foul, but he didn’t bite. Overall, Harper and Vassell (21 points on 5-6 from three) were the only two players who were steady on offense all night, and the Spurs desperately needed that.
- The win, combined with the skeleton Thunder losing in Detroit tonight, now has the Spurs just one game back in the loss column from the top seed in the West. They need to keep this tank rolling while OKC is injured and secure home court advantage.
Play of the Game
It may have been overshadowed by the missed free throws afterwards, but otherwise Fox was Mr. Clutch once again, including this huge bailout shot over the backboard with just over a minute to go.
Up next: Thursday at Brooklyn Nets
6:30 PM CT on FanDuel Sports
