Two days after losing to the Warriors at home on the back of sloppy play and Steph Curry going nuclear, the Spurs were out for some revenge in the second game of a home-home miniseries, this one with In-Season
Tournament implications on the line. Curry once again was red hot, with 49 points on nine threes and carrying the load offensive for the Warriors, but the Spurs were ready to match him this time, with De’Aaron Fox and Victor Wembanyama combining for 50 points. Unfortunately, despite holding the lead for most of a thrilling, highlight-real of a fourth quarter, they (namely Fox) missed their last three shots, and Curry hit the game-winning free throws to hand the Spurs their second straight loss, 108-109.
Observations
- Overall, the viewing experience on Prime has been very good, but one complaint I have is color commentator Brent Barry (of all people) was mispronouncing Wembanyama, calling him “Wemb-I-ama”. It’s bad enough that anyone is still mispronouncing his name in his third NBA season (Reggie Miller probably always will), but a former Spur who recently worked within the organization? Come on, Brent. (ESPN announcer Tim Legler also pronounced Vassell as “Vastle” earlier this season, too. That’s even more ridiculous.)
- After a rough game on Wednesday, Fox who had 14 points in the first half, scored the Spurs’ first 5 points on a layup and wide open three, but that would be the only time the Spurs scored on consecutive possessions until a Wemby three with 1:41 left in the first quarter, followed by Fox putting his own miss back in to kick off a 9-0 run. Outside of 10 points from Curry, it was an offensive struggle for both teams early, with the score sitting at just 20-18 Spurs after 12 minutes.
- Turnovers continue to be a big problem for the Spurs. After a few really good games with high assists and low turnovers — not so coincidentally aligned to Fox’s return — Stephon Castle had 4 of the Spurs’ 13 first-half turnovers, most of which came when he tried to bring the ball up and initiate offense against the Warriors’ press defense. When Fox is out there, they just need to get him the ball and let him set up the offense while allowing Castle to thrive as a secondary creator within the flow of the offense. That’s when he’s at his best. (Same goes for Wemby: stop trying to bring the ball up or out-dribble smaller players.)
- For a moment, it felt like maybe Mitch Johnson learned from the Wednesday’s game, and after briefly going went with a little French Vanilla in the first quarter, he quickly subbed Jeremy Sochan in for Luke Kornet, which helped with perimeter defense and picked up the pace. But then, once again Sochan didn’t play in the third quarter, and again the Spurs struggled with Kornet on the floor. One telling play was late in the third, Wemby was driving in transition and about to pass it to the corner, but instead he passed back out to Fox because Kornet was the player in the corner. I’m willing to bet he would have passed that to Sochan because he would at least take that shot. I’m not saying French Vanilla shouldn’t be a thing, it’s just not good in this particular match-up.
- This game was very boom or bust for both offenses, but one thing the Spurs did well was keep up with the red-hot Curry. He had 17 more points in the third, including some of his classic highlight reel play, but the Spurs matched him thanks in part to Julian Champagnie — who was questionable coming into this game with a hip contusion — getting hot from three himself. He had four threes in a flurry across the last few minutes of the third and into the fourth.
- Johnson finally recognized Sochan was better for this match-up than Kornet and played him the first six minutes of the fourth quarter alongside Wemby, which included — you guessed it — Wemby passing to Sochan for a corner three, which he made.
- In a satisfying series of events in the fourth, Draymond Green tried to get under Wemby’s skin, but instead the opposite happened. Green was grabbing and wrapping up Wemby on an inbounds pass on the baseline, but Wemby still caught the ball for an alley-oop while jawing with Green. Unfortunately it didn’t count because the whistle was before the pass, but then Green fouled Wemby again on the next inbound pass, giving him his 5th foul and he had to sit. IT was just like when Tim Duncan was unfazed by trash talk and and attempts to knock him off his mental game by players like Kevin Garnett.
- Clutch Fox did not help in this one. In a thrilling last couple of minutes, the Spurs kept just ahead of the Warriors by tapping in offensive rebounds and a heroic block by Wemby to keep them up 1 with 32 seconds left, but on the two offensive possessions around that block, Fox held the ball and took two ill-advised jumpers that missed. Curry then hit what would be the game-winning free throws with 6 sec left (on a questionable call by him jumping left into Champagine to draw the contact), and Fox’s game-winning attempt somehow bounced off the inside of the rim and out.
The Spurs continue their home stand on Sunday against the Sacramento Kings. Kickoff will be at 3:00 PM CT on FanDuel Sports.
