After blowing a 16-point lead and completely falling apart in Houston likely left the Spurs with a bad taste in their mouths for the last 48 hours ago, they made sure it didn’t happen again against the Utah
Jazz tonight, although they still made everyone sweat a little first. After the Spurs got ahead by as much as 15 in the first half, the Jazz came all the way back in the third quarter. Things were still tied several minutes into the fourth, but Utah could never gain the lead, and the Spurs finally turned things back on in the final seven minutes to but the young but pesky Jazz away, 126-109.
De’Aaron Fox led five Spurs in double figures with 31 points on 6-9 from three, Victor Wembanyama had 26 points with four threes, and Keldon Johnson scored 21 off the bench. For the Jazz, Ace Bailey had on of his best games of his young career with 25 points while continuously slicing through the Spurs defense, and Jusuf Nurkic had a 17-11-14 triple-double.
Observations
- Recent events have conditioned me to got excited when the Spurs are got from three, but the Spurs did it again tonight, hitting 5 of their first 6, with two from Julian Champagnie and Fox and one from Wemby. Of course, they then went 2-8 for the rest of the first quarter, although a third from Champagnie helped them tie things back up a 31 apiece after they had gone cold when the bench came in and gave up a 7-point lead.
- Jordan McLaughlin got some minutes to start the second quarter for unclear reasons other than Mitch Johnson either wanted to make a point or find a spark after the slow end to the first quarter, but whatever the message, they got the memo and came out with much more energy and aggressiveness building the lead up to 15 with him on the floor. He recorded three rebounds, two assists and a steal and is just one of those players who doesn’t make mistakes and does the little things that can help steady the ship.
- Luke Kornet joints Devin Vassell with adductor tightness, and the Spurs missed him badly. Kelly Olynyk got the back-up center minutes in the first half, and while he didn’t do much, good or bad, he was a net negative for a reason. It seemed like everything bogged down every time Wemby left the floor. Jeremy Sochan, who was questionable with an illness, got the back-up center minutes in the second half, and unsurprisingly the energy level and feistiness was higher.
- It’s not a Spurs game without a blown double-digit lead. In a reverse from the first half, this time it was the starters that gave up the entirety of what was once a 15-point lead, and the bench unit that did the stabilizing. They never allowed the Jazz to take the lead and even got it back up to 8 before a Kyle Filipowski three before the third quarter buzzer got it down to five. Overall, the Spurs were outscored 39-32, so it was definitely a turd quarter on defense, but credit to the bench for getting the offense going again and preventing it from being a full-blown turn quarter.
- Similar to their loss in Houston, the Spurs opened the fourth quarter by carelessly jacking up threes, missing their first five before Wemby finally got one to fall. Fortunately for them, while the Jazz again tied things back up to start the quarter, unlike Houston, they couldn’t hit any shots that would have given them the lead before the Spurs got their act back together and pulled back up by 10 with 7 minutes left. Fox and Wemby then traded haymakers to put the Jazz away. Overall, they finished on a 22-9 run after that first Wemby three.
- Stephon Castle’s shots continue to be short. I wonder how much that thumb is bugging him, especially after he re-aggravated it in Houston. Still, other than shooting 4-12, he had a solid night by getting to the line for 16 points, 7 rebounds, 8 assists, 2 steals and just 1 turnover.
- Random thought that jumps in my head every time three seconds is called, offensive or defensive: I get why the rule exists, but it’s dumb because it’s almost never called more than once a game, sometimes not at all, but it probably happens on at least 25% of possessions. It just feels like something that is called when the refs feel like they need to remind everyone that it exists. It’s like they need to meet an allotment by calling it every so often.
- Wild stat that was revealed during the game: Wemby is the Spurs franchise leader in three-pointers made per game at 2.2. That shocks me. I know it’s a small sample size, and there have certainly been players that averaged more makes than that in a single season, but it’s so hard to imagine that shooting specialists like Bruce Bowen, Danny Green, Patty Mills, or even Champagnie didn’t average more across their Spurs careers. I guess it’s just a combination of the rise in attempts since their heydays, not being in the main rotation the entire career (therefore small appearance hurt their career averages), etc.
