The Spurs suffered one of their worst losses of the season. Their thrilling comeback attempt shouldn\u2019t eclipse the fact that they once again seemed to underestimate a less talented team that was a lot hungrier than they were. The Pelicans played with physicality, and their reward was a 104-95 gutsy road win that should have been impossible to pull off without San Antonio\u2019s complicity.<\/p>\n
It was an encouraging start for the Silver and Black. They seemed to have a sound defensive gameplan to defend Derik Queen by putting Stephon Castle on the playmaking big man, and they were executing well on offense on two-man actions with Victor Wembanyama and Castle, mostly because De\u2019Aaron Fox was hitting his corner threes. The Spurs pushed the ball whenever they could and got Devin Vassell back off the bench to bolster their offense. Unfortunately, they just couldn\u2019t get separation when they were at their best, and the second unit struggled mightily on defense. The Pelicans felt much more comfortable attacking Luke Kornet, who played a deep drop and didn\u2019t have much help from the main defenders in pick-and-rolls. Through mostly hustle on defense and the offensive boards, New Orleans managed to only trail by three after one.<\/p>\n
San Antonio\u2019s offense looked stagnant at times in the opening frame, but things fell completely apart in the second. They didn\u2019t score a single fastbreak point and had to go up against a surprisingly disciplined Pelicans half-court defense that didn\u2019t give up many good looks. Had the Spurs managed to make it a defensive battle, they could have stayed in front or within a couple of possessions, but they had no answers for Zion Williamson, who scored 10 points and dished out three assists in the quarter, taking defenders off the dribble and challenging Wembanyama inside as a roll man. The offensive boards kept going New Orleans\u2019 way and the Silver and Black couldn\u2019t match the energy of their opponent. There was a sense of frustration that resulted in Fox getting a technical at the end of the half, which finished with the visitors up nine.<\/p>\n
The Pelicans missed the technical free throw after the break, but it didn\u2019t take long for them to reach a double-digit lead in spite of it. It was a completely disastrous start to the half for the Spurs, which played with little physicality and urgency and made inexplicable mistakes on both ends. Mitch Johnson sat his entire starting lineup arguably a timeout too late, and San Antonio found some life, especially through the play of their two rookies. With Williamson resting and the momentum on their side, the Silver and Black chipped away at a lead that had reached 20 at one point and seemed insurmountable given the way the team was playing. Several names stepped up to get the team back in it by using their opponent\u2019s recipe: just play harder. Heading into the final frame, New Orleans was still up 14, but there was hope of a comeback.<\/p>\n
The problem with digging yourself a hole and trying to climb out of it is that it drains the energy needed to fight once you get back up. The Spurs played with inspiring physicality and intensity for long enough to not only catch the Pelicans but take the lead. Then they just ran out of juice. Some questionable coaching decisions didn\u2019t help, but it\u2019s likely San Antonio reverted to relying on threes instead of pushing the pace and attacking the rim at every opportunity because the ones that made the comeback attempt possible were exhausted, and the ones who sat during it were out of rhythm. New Orleans deserves all the credit for always continuing to play, relying on hustle and aggressiveness when the execution wasn\u2019t there, and for pulling off a completely deserved win against an opponent that likely didn\u2019t take them seriously, but hopefully learned its lesson.<\/p>\n
A fan won $10,000 by making a half-court three off the shot clock, so it wasn\u2019t all bad on Sunday.<\/p>\n
Next game: at Houston Rockets on Wednesday<\/p>\n
The Spurs will have time to marinate in this loss before heading to Houston to face a direct rival for seeding.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Spurs suffered one of their worst losses of the season. Their thrilling comeback attempt shouldn\u2019t eclipse the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":561426,"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-561425","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\/115960098687821613","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561425","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=561425"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561425\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/561426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=561425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=561425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=561425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}