Coming off a tough loss to the Los Angeles Lakers on Wednesday, the Spurs looked to regroup heading into the start of NBA Cup group play. Their first Cup match of the season was at home versus the Houston Rockets. After a struggling 22 minutes of Spurs basketball (marred by poor shooting and lazy turnovers), a switch flipped. The Spurs erased a double-digit deficit in a flash and actually took a one-point lead heading into halftime. From there, the threes started to fall, and the steals began to pile up. The Rockets would keep pace, but the Spurs would maintain the lead by exploiting the 2-3 zone deployed by Rockets coach Ime Udoka, and getting their hands in passing lanes. Kevin Durant ended up with eight turnovers as a result. The Spurs eventually pulled out a gutsy win, 121-110, and are currently in first place for West Group C.<\/p>\n
Victor Wembanyama had a nice bounce-back game with 22 points (8-16 FG), (6-6 FT), eight rebounds, four assists, two blocks, and a steal. After a struggling first half, Wemby scored 18 of his 22 points in the second half. He now looks like he\u2019s starting to figure out double-teams and making timely decisions when he catches the ball in the post. Hopefully, he continues to be patient and does not get too frustrated with the way teams are defending him. In fact, he\u2019s too talented not to figure it out.<\/p>\n
How do you defend this? Wemby takes Amen Thompson to the hole with brute strength and finishes off the glass for two!<\/p>\n
POSTER ALERT! Wemby posterizes his idol KD at the rim!<\/p>\n
ALLEY-OOP! Steph Castle dices up the zone by driving in and lobbing it to Vic for the easy slam!<\/p>\n
CLUTCH! Wemby takes the turnaround jumper over Thompson to give the Spurs\u2019 lead more cushion!<\/p>\n
Harrison Barnes led the way with 24 points (6-9 3PT), five rebounds, two assists, and two steals. HB was on fire from three! Fans who said he\u2019s lost a step may want to think again. If he maintains this shooting pace, it may be challenging to replace him in the starting lineup when the team returns to full health.<\/p>\n
Tear drop! One of HB\u2019s non-threes of the night goes in after some crafty moves!<\/p>\n
Julian Champagnie dropped 22 points (6-13 3PT), seven rebounds, four steals, an assist, and a block. This goes up there with one of Juju\u2019s best games of his career. Not only was he on fire from three, but he got busy in the passing lanes and picked up four steals. Just like HB, his 3 and D play may keep him in the starting lineup.<\/p>\n
CHAMPAGNI3! One of Juju\u2019s six threes came late in the fourth when the team needed it most! Thanks to Castle\u2019s offensive board, Juju was wide open and made it rain!<\/p>\n
Devin Vassell dropped 15 points, four steals, three assists, and three boards. Even though he struggled from the field, Dev\u2019s threes were timely momentum shifters. Also, his four steals solidify his effort and tenacity on defense. Look for him to increase his efficiency against New Orleans.<\/p>\n
AND-ONE THREE BALL! Dev gets fouled by Josh Okogie on the three for the four-point play!<\/p>\n
Stephon Castle dropped a double-double: 14 points and 13 assists to go along with six rebounds, two steals, and a block. Steph sparked the Spurs\u2019 comeback late in the second with a pair of highlight plays! He went up strong against Alperen Sengun and got the deuce to go, and then with five seconds to go in the half, he stole the inbounds pass and finished an and-one bucket on the other end! His speed and strength carried him on those plays, and his diming ability was on display tonight with double-digit assists. Even though De\u2019Aaron Fox will be returning, Steph has shown flashes of being a decent point guard. That being said, his turnovers may prove to be the reason why he\u2019s better suited as a two-guard.<\/p>\n
Keldon Johnson provided a spark plug off the bench with eight points, six rebounds (five offensive), four assists, and a steal. It\u2019s beautiful to see Keldon thriving in his role off the bench! So far this season, he\u2019s provided the squad with hustle plays and key offensive rebounds. One of the most significant problems with this team last season was rebounding, so it\u2019s inspiring to see Keldon work on providing the team a spark on the glass and giving them second chances.<\/p>\n
An example from above: KJ gets the offensive board and uses his strength to put it back up and in!<\/p>\n
All in all, this was a great win to start NBA Cup Group Play! The team did not become complacent when they were down, and they tightened up defensively against the highest-scoring offense in the league. They still need to work on limiting their turnovers, but imagine what this team\u2019s potential will be when Fox returns. Oh, wait, he\u2019s returning against the Pelicans later tonight. Then, Luke Kornet and Dylan Harper are expected to make their returns within the coming weeks. Just in case you need to remind your friends and family, it\u2019s not too late to join the Spurs\u2019 bandwagon!<\/p>\n
Finally, here are the full game highlights.<\/p>\n
The Spurs stay at home and take on the New Orleans Pelicans tonight at 7:00 P.M. (CST) on FDSN-SW.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Coming off a tough loss to the Los Angeles Lakers on Wednesday, the Spurs looked to regroup heading…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":397465,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3794],"tags":[7,292,194,4066,6,211,53862],"class_list":{"0":"post-397464","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston-rockets","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-houston","10":"tag-houston-rockets","11":"tag-houstonrockets","12":"tag-nba","13":"tag-rockets","14":"tag-spurs-highlights"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115515005877465086","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=397464"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397464\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/397465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=397464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=397464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=397464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}