The Spurs outlasted another short-handed opponent for their second win in a row. Victor Wembanyama led the team with 29 points, 11 rebounds, and 3 blocks. Harrison Barnes contributed 19 points, and De\u2019Aaron Fox scored 17, while Stephon Castle chipped in 18 off the bench.<\/p>\n
Congratulations to De\u2019Aaron Fox on his 900th career 3. Here\u2019s to 900 more and all hopefully with the Silver and Black.<\/p>\n
You can\u2019t teach vision and chemistry, but good thing Victor Wembanyama and Stephon Castle have both in spades.<\/p>\n
OK Carter Bryant, I was not familiar with your game. Apparently the rookie has been grinding tape of Chris Paul lobs. Speaking of which, CP3 is going to be a Spur right? I mean the good guys are the second seed in a stacked West, and maybe they could use the depth, basketball wisdom, and veteran presence\u2014he\u2019ll bring the same tenacity and accountability that the Clippers wanted no part of?<\/p>\n
Discuss amongst yourselves. I\u2019ll throw in a second subject to discuss: For the sake of random chaos, let\u2019s bring back those synthetic basketballs the NBA tried to use 10 years ago and then subsequently ditched to go back to the old leather balls because the players complained (reasonably so) that it tore up their hands like paper cuts.<\/p>\n
On Thursday night, you cannot stop Cooper Flagg, you can only hope to contain him. Dylan Harper did his best with this fresh and so clean block on the rookie big man. While Flagg has the unenviable task of shouldering the Mavericks franchise in the aftermath of Luka Doncic\u2019s trade to L.A. and Anthony Davis\u2019s trade to Washington, Dylan Harper has been afforded every opportunity to grow and develop his game with the Spurs.<\/p>\n
The participants for the 2026 3-Point Contest have not been finalized with only Charlotte Hornets rookie Kon Knueppel being the first confirmed player. To that point, I think we\u2019re all waiting for Wembanyama\u2019s invite. He could just casually step over each cart after coolly draining threes from each area behind the arc. I\u2019m rather interested in him creatively finding a way to gain an advantage only for officials to step in and declare it \u201cillegal,\u201d similar to last year\u2019s skills contest with Chris Paul.<\/p>\n
You cannot spell so efficient planchettes without Stephon Castle. But you don\u2019t need a Ouija board to have the clairvoyance to know that Castle made the most of his 21 minutes off the bench, scoring 18 points, pulling down 7 boards, dishing out 6 assists, and swiping 3 steals.<\/p>\n
If you wonder how Castle could be so efficient in so little minutes, it\u2019s due to plays like this where he has a steal and an assist in under 10 seconds flat.<\/p>\n
Castle smartly turned down the invitation to reappear in the Slam Dunk Contest because you know they\u2019re just going to unearth Mac McClung from the depths of space to come rumbling in at the last minute in front of a panel of biased and misguided judges? Yeah, I said it and am still salty over last year\u2019s snub for Castle.<\/p>\n
Which bears a legitimate thought exercise: The NBA should not announce who is participating in the dunk contest. What if we turned the All-Star Slam Dunk Contest into an unhinged, chock full of surprise, pro wrestling-style extravaganza? Imagine an over exuberant Kevin Harlan on his 5th cup of espresso losing his mind when he sees a mystery player come down the ramp, \u201cOH MY GOODNESS I CANNOT BELIEVE IT . . . IT\u2019S . . . ANTHONY EDWARDS!! AND HE\u2019S WEARING A CAPE!! WHY DID HE JUST HIT RUDY GOBERT HIS OWN TEAMMATE IN THE BACK WITH A METAL CHAIR? WHO CARES?! HE\u2019S ABOUT TO THROW DOWN A REVERSE, INVERTED, 360 BACK FLIP ONOMATOPOEIA BOOMSHAKALAKA DUNK OVER A WALL OF FLAMESSS! I HAVE NEVER SEEN ANYTHING LIKE THIS IN MY LIFE!!\u201d<\/p>\n
If you missed the game because you were too busy cataloguing every Macho Man Randy Savage monologue, here are the full-game highlights:<\/p>\n
Next up, the Spurs return to San Antonio for an immediate rematch with the Mavericks on Saturday, February 7, 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Spurs outlasted another short-handed opponent for their second win in a row. Victor Wembanyama led the team…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":586678,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3797],"tags":[7,6,969,474,4075,4074,534,53862],"class_list":{"0":"post-586677","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-highlights"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116025002982832525","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586677","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=586677"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586677\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/586678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=586677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=586677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=586677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}