SAN ANTONIO \u2013 The Portland Trail Blazers will get their first look of the National Basketball Association (NBA) season at erstwhile league Most Valuable Player candidate Victor Wembanyama, when they travel to San Antonio to play the Spurs on Sunday (Monday morning, Singapore time) in their opening game of the first round play-off series.<\/p>\n
San Antonio have won two of the three games with the Trail Blazers this year \u2013 most recently a 112-101 decision at home on April 8 \u2013 but Wembanyama missed all three contests with injuries. <\/p>\n
That does not bode well for Portland\u2019s chances to upset the Spurs, who lost just four times in their 34 games since March 1.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe will play in the fourth game,\u201d Spurs coach Mitch Johnson said about Wembanyama. \u201cThat feels good.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wembanyama\u2019s numbers this season \u2013 1,600 points, 736 rebounds, 199 assists, 197 blocked shots, 122 3-pointers \u2013 are a combination never before produced in the NBA. Portland acting head coach Tiago Splitter said his team will employ a combined effort to try to slow the Spurs\u2019 star center.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course Wembanyama is a big emphasis for us both offensively and defensively,\u201d Splitter explained. \u201cHe\u2019s a 7-foot-5 guy that can handle the ball, shoot, guard the rim, guard the perimeter and brings something different that other teams don\u2019t have.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery game is a team effort. Stay connected on offense. Share the ball, play together. It\u2019s a big team effort on both ends of the court.\u201d<\/p>\n
San Antonio had the second-best record in the NBA this season at 62-20, trailing only defending champion Oklahoma City (64-18). The Spurs are on the hunt for their sixth NBA title in franchise history and are one of the favorites to lift the Larry O\u2019Brien Trophy in June.<\/p>\n
But this is lofty company for San Antonio, which hasn\u2019t earned a spot in the playoffs since 2019. The Spurs are just the fourth team in league history to win 60 games in a season a year after they won less than 35.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t really help but dream about it, of course,\u201d Wembanyama said about the team\u2019s quest for a championship. \u201cBut we have to stay grounded, stay in the moment. And before even thinking about Game 1, I have to think about showing up the right way. Practice, doing all my stuff, preparing, being locked in.\u201d<\/p>\n
San Antonio are far from a one-man team. The Spurs had seven players average in double-figure scoring, with Wembanyama leading the way at 25 points per game in 65 contests. De\u2019Aaron Fox was second at 18.6 points, and Stephon Castle (who had five triple doubles) racking up 16.7 points.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know where we are,\u201d Johnson said this week. \u201cWe will be ourselves. We\u2019ll be excited to play. If that means we come out in the first three minutes and there\u2019s some nerves, I think that\u2019s excitement. But I think we\u2019ll get back to being ourselves. That\u2019s what I expect.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs soon as we can get back to making it the basketball game we\u2019ve been playing all year, we\u2019ll be in a good spot.\u201d<\/p>\n
Game 2 will be Tuesday night in the Alamo City before switching to Portland for Games 3 and 4 on Friday and April 26, respectively.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile in play-off action on Saturday, Luke Kennard scored 27 points and LeBron James added 19 points with 13 assists as the Los Angeles Lakers earned a 107-98 victory over the visiting Houston Rockets in Game 1 of their Western Conference first-round series.<\/p>\n
Nikola Jokic had 25 points, 13 rebounds and 11 assists, Jamal Murray scored a game-high 30 points and the host Denver Nuggets beat the Minnesota Timberwolves 116-105 to also take a 1-0 lead.<\/p>\n
Over in the East, Donovan Mitchell scored 32 points and James Harden added 22 points and 10 assists, powering the Cleveland Cavaliers to a 126-113 victory over the visiting Toronto Raptors.<\/p>\n
Jalen Brunson scored 28 points and Karl-Anthony Towns added 25 for the New York Knicks in a 113-102 victory over the Atlanta Hawks at Madison Square Garden. REUTERS, AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN ANTONIO \u2013 The Portland Trail Blazers will get their first look of the National Basketball Association (NBA)…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":713772,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3784],"tags":[7,601,6,687,471,3967,1617],"class_list":{"0":"post-713771","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-portland-trail-blazers","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-blazers","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-portland","12":"tag-portland-trail-blazers","13":"tag-portlandtrailblazers","14":"tag-trail-blazers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116430380908260855","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/713771","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=713771"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/713771\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/713772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=713771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=713771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=713771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}