Teams have learned that the best chance of stopping the Spurs is to send waves of defenders at Victor Wembanyama and wear him out as he tries to fight through a forest of defenders to get to the basket.
The Spurs haven’t found the answer for that strategy, which resulted in a fifth foul on Victor early in the fourth quarter which caused him to miss most of the quarter. He came back halfway through the quarter, but he fouled out late, missing a chance to help hold off Luka Doncic and the surging Lakers.
The Spurs had some good contributions from players who hadn’t played in a while—Jeremy Sochan, in his first game returning from injury, played solid defense on Luka and made key plays on offense, scoring 16 points in limited minutes. Lindy Waters III showed why the Spurs acquired him this summer, hit a key bucket to keep the Spurs alive late. When Victor picked up his sixth foul with 1:39 left and the Spurs looked cooked: the Lakers had the lead and the Spur lost their best player, held to just 19 points by the stingy Lakers. When Harrison Barnes fouled out on the following possession, it looked like it was time to throw dirt on the Spurs chances to eke out a win tonight.
Somehow, the Spurs were gifted a last chance to get back into the game by a critical mistake inbounding the ball from Marcus Smart. They could not get a clean look on the first inbounds play, but they had .4 seconds left to make a play. The call was an alley oop to Julian Champagnie who got fouled by Jake LaRavia. If he made both free throws, the game was going to overtime. The first attempt went long, and the Spurs couldn’t take in the second, which was intentionally missed. Spurs lost 118-116, so close to winning a game where they had three players foul out and with Victor being mostly neutralized by the Lakers’ sell out defensive philosophy. This was a test for the Spurs, and they failed this time, but you lose more from failure than from success. The Spurs are now third in the Western Conference, and don’t have any time to lick their wounds, because they return to San Antonio to face the Rockets on Friday night in their first NBA Cup game of the season.
Observations
- It’s Harrison Barnes’ 1,000th game in the league, and as the elder statesman of the team, he’s providing a lot of leadership and knowledge that’s a valuable asset for the team that goes beyond his play on the court.
- Michelle Beadle was a nice addition to the telecast on FanDuel. I didn’t even know that I missed her until I saw her on my TV.
- I’m kind of impressed by this Luka fellow. I hear the Lakers got him in a fire sale. I think they got a pretty good deal, from what I can see.
- DC Comics second stringer Plastic Man got name checked by Jacob Tobey early in the game. It’s not a bad metaphor for how insanely long he looks when he’s playing, and how it seems he can reach anything from anywhere.
- Julian Champagnie earned six points on one possession due to a flagrant foul on a three point shot.
- DeAndre Ayton has had so many second chances that I’ve lost count. He might finally make it this time. He seems a lot more focused than he looked earlier in his career. And his backup is Jaxson Hayes, who is not good, so he should be feeling pretty good.
- Kelly Olynyk and Jeremy Sochan entered the game halfway through the first quarter. Who are those guys?
- Lindy Waters III hit his first shot, nothing but net. Looks like his eye is OK.
- Doncic has a magical control of how he can manipulate other players into his web of deceit, forcing them to touch him as he contorts his body to get off crazy shots, and more often that not, gets awarded with free throws. The Spurs led 29-26 after the first quarter, but it felt like it could have been a lot more, except for the Luka effect, scoring half of the Lakers’ points with 13. But he has a lot more in his game than just that. He’s not a good one on one defender, but he can get steals because he can anticipate where the ball is going to be, and he has great hands.
- The Lakers did a good job drawing fouls on Victor Wembanyama, and he’s going to have to adjust to that by not going for every play.
- Is it me, or do the Spurs ruin too many good defensive sets by not getting the defensive rebound? They end up forcing a bad shot, and then give up an offensive rebound which leads to a wide open shot and easy score. This is something that Mitch needs the team to work on. The Lakers 11 offensive rebounds that led to 27 points were the difference in the game tonight.
- Olynyk looked a little lost in his first Spurs action. He had several defensive lapses, but he improved as the game went on.
- Stephon Castle is hitting his free throws now, which corrects one of the few flaws in his game last year.
- L.A. Coach JJ Redick tried to challenge a pretty obvious blocking foul from Vanderbilt with 0.5 seconds left in the first half. He was a tick too late to get request it, but he really wanted to get a fourth foul called on Victor before the half. The Lakers led 60-59 at the half. JJ got his challenge right after halftime on a much better considered call, reversing a foul on Jake Laravia to a no call to recover the ball. Champagnie got the last laugh by immediately stealing the ball back and scoring a bucket.
- The Spurs junked up the game in the third quarter and got to the line, and Luka was reluctant to play defense after picking up his fourth foul early in the quarter, and they finally got their first double digit lead with 2 minutes left in the third. The Spurs led 96-88 as the fourth quarter began, scoring 37 in the third.
- The fourth quarter put the Spurs under pressure as Victor picked up his fifth foul early and had to sit. The rest of the team were able to hold onto the lead, barely, until Victor’s return halfway through the quarter, thanks to some key plays from Jeremy Sochan and Lindy Waters III, who just returned from injury for tonight’s game.
The Spurs will be back in action on Friday night, taking on the Houston Rockets in their first game in the NBA Emirates Cup, and revealing the special court surface that will be used for those games in the Frost Bank Center. Hopefully, the designs won’t be as hard on the eyes as they were last year, but maybe the beautiful game on the court will overshadow the gaudiness of the court. The in-season tournament doesn’t mean that much, except that doing well in that competition will be a big confidence builder for the suddenly competitive Spurs. The Spurs are in one of the toughest groups in the entire league, so just getting past the group stage will be a huge achievement if they can advance past the group stage.
