For the second time in less than two weeks, the San Antonio Spurs have defeated the Eastern Conference\u2019s best team.<\/p>\n
Victor Wembanyama scored 38 points with 16 rebounds and 5 blocks, strengthening his case for NBA MVP<\/a>. His performance and 29 points from De\u2019Aaron Fox led the Spurs to a decisive 121-106 win<\/a> over the Detroit Pistons at Frost Bank Center on Thursday.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n On Feb. 23, San Antonio defeated Detroit, 114-103<\/a>, at Little Caesar\u2019s Arena.<\/p>\n San Antonio controlled the game from the opening tip, running out to a 10-2 lead and outscoring Detroit 19-8 to close out the first quarter on top, 38-23. Detroit cut the deficit to 10 points with 2:36 remaining before halftime on two Tobias Harris free throws. But another Spurs surge, fueled by five points from Wembanyama, resulted in a 71-55 halftime lead.<\/p>\n Cade Cunningham led Detroit with 26 points (shooting 4 for 7 on 3-point tries) with eight assists, but he shot 10 for 26 from the floor. He also didn\u2019t get much help from the rest of the Pistons\u2019 lineup.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Isaiah Stewart, playing his second game since returning from a seven-game suspension<\/a>, added 18 points and six rebounds. But Jalen Duren, matched up against Wembanyama, managed only seven points with seven rebounds. Both Ausar Thompson and Ron Holland II left the games with injuries. Thompson rolled his ankle two minutes into the game and didn\u2019t return.<\/p>\n [Join or create a Yahoo Fantasy Baseball league for the 2026 MLB season<\/a>]<\/p>\n The Pistons could be encouraged by shooting 43% (12 of 28) on 3-pointers, but that was boosted partially by coach J.B. Bickerstaff going deeper into his bench. Trade acquisition Kevin Huerter hit one of his two 3-point attempts, but that wasn\u2019t nearly enough.<\/p>\n With the win, the Spurs improved to 45-17, staying three games behind the Oklahoma City Thunder for the top seed in the West<\/a>. Since their 11-game win streak was snapped<\/a> by the New York Knicks on Sunday, San Antonio closed out its Eastern road trip with a 40-point blowout<\/a> of the Philadelphia 76ers before returning home for a 15-point win over the Pistons.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n The Spurs play the second end of back-to-back games on Friday, hosting the Los Angeles Clippers (30-31). After that is a tough three-game stretch facing the Houston Rockets, Boston Celtics and Denver Nuggets.<\/p>\n Detroit (45-16) has lost two consecutive games and three of its past six. That skid has trimmed the Pistons\u2019 lead over the Boston Celtics for the No. 1 seed in the East to 4.5 games. But two of their next three games against the Brooklyn Nets (15-47) could get them back on a winning track.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For the second time in less than two weeks, the San Antonio Spurs have defeated the Eastern Conference\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":642488,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3773],"tags":[1026,7,75,247,909,1314,187,296,188,3860,7779,194,1016,912,4103,135,6,191,179,207,297,856,969,474,2594,933,693],"class_list":["post-642528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-detroit-pistons","tag-ausar-thompson","tag-basketball","tag-boston-celtics","tag-brooklyn-nets","tag-cade-cunningham","tag-deaaron-fox","tag-denver-nuggets","tag-detroit","tag-detroit-pistons","tag-detroitpistons","tag-frost-bank-center","tag-houston-rockets","tag-isaiah-stewart","tag-jalen-duren","tag-kevin-huerter","tag-los-angeles-clippers","tag-nba","tag-new-york-knicks","tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","tag-philadelphia-76ers","tag-pistons","tag-rebounds","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-spurs","tag-the-spurs","tag-tobias-harris","tag-victor-wembanyama"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116180680939992974","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642528","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=642528"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642528\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/642488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=642528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=642528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=642528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}