There are nights in the NBA when the score tells the truth long before the final buzzer. Tuesday night in Oklahoma City was one of them.<\/p>\n
The San Antonio Spurs\u2019 119\u201398 loss to the Thunder was less about one bad stretch and more about a familiar reality: a young team still learning how unforgiving elite competition can be. For a half, the Spurs hung around. After that, they were reminded how quickly things unravel when execution slips.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were not sharp tonight,\u201d Spurs Head Coach Mitch Johnson said after the game. The third quarter is what got away from us, but even in the first half, it felt like there was a lot of uncharacteristic lack of game play and execution. I don\u2019t think we were very sharp from the beginning.\u201d<\/p>\n
San Antonio showed early signs of fight. Victor Wembanyama was active around the rim, Stephon Castle attacked with confidence, and the Spurs looked capable of trading punches. Castle, in particular, played with poise beyond his years, finishing with 20 points, eight assists and seven rebounds \u2014 the kind of stat line that hints at what the future might hold.<\/p>\n
But promise only gets you so far.<\/p>\n
Once Oklahoma City turned up the pressure, the cracks widened. The Spurs\u2019 offense stalled into rushed threes and forced passes, a recipe that produced misses and fueled the Thunder\u2019s transition game. San Antonio shot just 13-of-37 from beyond the arc, and many of those attempts came with a hand in the shooter\u2019s face.<\/p>\n
The game tilted in the Thunder\u2019s favor decisively in the third quarter. Two separate runs (11-1 and 12-0) blew the doors open, and the Spurs never found a way to respond apart from a 14-2 run in the fourth quarter. Wembanyama finished with 17 points and seven rebounds; his brief exit after a collision didn\u2019t help, but the bigger issue was what has plagued San Antonio all season: Poor shooting and inconistent play when things go sideways.<\/p>\n
Case in point: De\u2019Aaron Fox and Harrison Barnes combined for 15 points on 6-16 shooting from the floor. With San Antonio missing Devin Vassell to a groin strain, the Spurs needed all the help they could get. Castle may have had a decent night offensively, but he struggled to control the basketball. San Antonio committed 11 turnovers, and Castle had five of them on his own.<\/p>\n
Oklahoma City\u2019s defense made sure of that. The Thunder crowded the paint, challenged everything at the rim, and made up for their own mistakes with blocked shots and getting their hands into the passing lanes. San Antonio\u2019s bench offered flashes \u2014 Dylan Harper\u2019s 12 points and Luke Kornet\u2019s work on the glass stood out \u2014 but there was no sustained push to change the night\u2019s direction.<\/p>\n
This wasn\u2019t a loss that demands panic, but it does demand perspective. The Spurs are building something, and nights like this are part of the tuition. Against a Thunder team built to contend now, San Antonio looked like what it is \u2014 a group still learning how to win consistently in this league.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s January in the NBA, and it\u2019s tough,\u201d Johnson said. You look around the league, and this is a month that tests you mentally, physically, and emotionally. These games will help us. These games will be learning experiences that we need to go through, and they will serve us well. It\u2019s our job to make sure we maximize the learning moments from these games.\u201d<\/p>\n
The scoreboard was harsh, but the lesson was clear. Growth isn\u2019t linear, and progress sometimes comes wrapped in a 21-point loss.<\/p>\n
Wembanyama and Castle spent time grabbing their faces as well as on the ground on Tuesday. It appeared to be part of the OKC game plan to be physical with Wemby, and it worked. \u201cIt was a bit much tonight,\u201d Wemby said of the physical nature of the game.Harrison Barnes\u2019 rough patch continued on Tuesday as he finished with just two points on 1-of-7 shooting. Another tough moment with Vassell out as San Antonio could have used a big night from their veteran forward.The NBA on NBC theme still hits. I just wish the Spurs had more luck when having games on the Peacock network.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There are nights in the NBA when the score tells the truth long before the final buzzer. Tuesday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":535523,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3797],"tags":[7,6,969,474,4075,4074,534,52387],"class_list":{"0":"post-535522","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-antonio-spurs","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-nba","10":"tag-san-antonio","11":"tag-san-antonio-spurs","12":"tag-sanantonio","13":"tag-sanantoniospurs","14":"tag-spurs","15":"tag-spurs-game-recaps"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115892076116714641","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535522","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=535522"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535522\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/535523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=535522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=535522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=535522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}