San Antonio allowed just 42 points in the second half despite a challenging day of travel delays, led by 25 points and stellar defense from Victor Wembanyama.
After waking up in Charlotte and diverting to Atlanta when the plane lost cabin pressure, San Antonio beat Orlando 112-103 in a twice delayed game. The win, and Denver’s loss to Oklahoma City, will send Spurs head coach Mitch Johnson to the All-Star Game in Los Angeles.
"We've shown that we can respond,” Johnson said. "Our challenge is now to raise our floor, and it's a privilege to coach those guys, because as a coach, when you're competitive, that's what you're looking for." Nobody could have blamed the Spurs if they came out flat on Sunday night after a horrendous 24 hours of travel, but instead they came out angry. Victor Wembanyama, who had been listed as questionable, barreled his way to the basket for a tone-setting jam early on.Steph Castle missed the game with a sore groin, making De’Aaron Fox and Dylan Harper extra important, and they stepped up in a big way. Both faked and forced their way to the hoop, finishing and finding teammates to the tune of 24 points and 5 assists combined in the first half. San Antonio came out scorching in the first quarter and built an 18-point lead as Orlando looked way off, but the visitors ripped off a 17-3 run to start the second. The visitors scored 40 in the second quarter, making it the second game in a row where that period didn’t work out for San Antonio. The Spurs trailed 61-60 at the break, and it would have been easy to give his guys a break, but Johnson gave them hell instead."I think it was probably more challenge and yelling and some explicit words,” Johnson said. “The discipline or lack thereof, it's really hard to beat any teams and good teams, and we saw that obviously again in Charlotte, when we lost one quarter and lost the game, and we didn't want that to happen again. And I thought the response was a plus.” “There's no excuses,” said Harper. "I mean, we all knew circumstances coming into it, we had a busy day, but going to halftime it was just cleaning everything up and just being sharp on everything, no matter if that's the offensive side, defensive side, rebounding, just anything. He just encouraged us and just told us, when you go out there, you got to just do your role, do your job." Wembanyama answered the bell, playing like an alien possessed to start the second half and imposing his will inside on both ends.Desmond Bane knocked Wembanyama to the floor on a flagrant foul, on a night where Bane picked up a technical and continued jawing at the refs throughout. Harper continued to drive and finish with unbelievable polish. At the start of the fourth, he hit a three to make it a 10-point lead for San Antonio. He skied for a ferocious chasedown block, then found Dunk Contest-bound Carter Bryant for a timeout-inducing dunk.There’s always a chance of jelly legs on the second night of a back to back, a chance that gets multiplied with the kind of travel headaches San Antonio struggled through. Nobody could have blamed the Spurs if they fell apart late on Sunday night after the previous 3 quarters and 24 hours, but they also didn’t do that. The Spurs have struggled to grow or hold leads even in the best of circumstances, and displayed a ton of maturity in the final minutes as they grinded out possessions on both ends and methodically tightened the vice until Orlando was blue in the face. After expressing his displeasure with Bane’s physicality, Wembanyama crammed on him to put the Spurs up 17 and effectively end the game."I know they do that because they don't want to play the game, they don't want to play a basketball game," Wembanyama said. "Our job on offense is to make it a basketball game, so that's how we're going to beat them. It's just the game, it's like this every night." Wembanyama finished with 25 points, 8 rebounds, 5 blocks and 4 steals, leading six Spurs in double figures. San Antonio's defense clamped down after the unfortunate second quarter where they gave up 40, ceding just 42 points the entire second half. All things considered, it has to be one of the most resilient and impressive wins all year for San Antonio. Afterward, Johnson’s response to a question about the All-Star Game revealed a good bit about how he’s been able to lead the Spurs to this point. "I don't like to make a big deal out of things,” Johnson said. “Coaching the All-Star Game will be a heck of an experience and opportunity, I don't want to understate that, but the game tonight was extremely important because it's one of 82 games, and we are trying to grow, and we are trying to get better, and we are in a competitive Western Conference, and that is what the focus was on tonight. "If I am in LA, I'm sure there'll be some moments that maybe hit me,” Johnson said. "But tonight was about the San Antonio Spurs and game , and we needed to respond because of how we played in the previous game, and we did that."Tom Petrini has covered Spurs basketball for the last decade, first for Project Spurs and then for KENS 5 in San Antonio. After leaving the newsroom he co-founded the Silver and Black Coffee Hour, a weekly podcast where he catches up on Spurs news with friends Aaron Blackerby and Zach Montana. Tom lives in Austin with his partner Jess and their dogs Dottie and Guppy. His other interests include motorsports and making a nice marinara sauce.
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