Another day, another historical game for Victor Wembanyama. The Spurs came into tonight’s match-up against the struggling Washington Wizards looking for their third win in four games during this five-game home stand, and while the second unit gave up a couple of double-digit leads in the first and fourth quarter, they were built on the back of Wemby’s red-hot shooting, and the Spurs were able to hold on down the stretch to secure the 139-130 win.
Wemby scored a career-high 50 points with the help of another career-high of 8 threes on 15 attempts, along with 6 rebounds and 3 blocks. His big night actually overshadowed a similarly big one from Jordan Poole, who had 42 points and led the Wizards in their last-ditch comeback attempt to keep the game interesting down to the final seconds.
Observations
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In case you missed it, the Spurs announced earlier in the day that the medical episode Gregg Popovich suffered back on November 2 ahead of the Timberwolves game was a mild stroke. He is now in a rehabilitation program and is expected to make a full recovery, but there is no timeline for him to return. Pop and his family remain in our thoughts and prayers, and hopefully he can return to the sideline again.
- Jonas Valanciunas continued his Spurs-killer ways, recording a double-double of 10 points and 11 rebounds in just 10 minutes of action in the first half alone. Fortunately, he never got going in the second half as the Spurs pulled away.
- Sometimes Box Score plus/minus doesn’t lie, and that was the case in the first half. All the starters had a plus/minus ranging from +9 to +17, while everyone off the bench had a negative, double-digit plus/minus except Blake Wesley, who was at 0. That certainly passed the eye test, as the Spurs built an early 16-point lead before almost instantly giving it back up when the bench came in for the first time, and the teams played pretty even from there to end up tied 67 all at halftime.
- Wembanyama is on an absolute tear in this home stand, and it continued today. He had 24 points by halftime and didn’t slow down in the second half. For the third game in a row, he matched his career high for threes in a game (6) early in the third quarter — only to soon break it with another. Even though he attempted 15 threes (maybe he will keep taking them and break the franchise record after all), he made 8 of them. The real test will come when the Spurs return to the road on Saturday, as his splits between home and the road are night and day.
- One thing the Spurs did not do well in this game was protect leads. They came out of the gate hot from three early to build a 16-point lead in the first quarter, but bench blew it almost entirely, and the lead was down to one at the end of the first quarter. The Wizards would eventually take a lead of three a few times before a huge 26-7 Spurs run to end the third quarter. The Spurs then built the lead all the way to 21 in the fourth, but once again the Wizards began to chip away once Mitch Johnson went the bench, and the starters had to return with five minutes left to close things out. Credit to the Wizards for not giving up.
- To end on something the Spurs did well that they haven’t in past games: protect the ball. They only had nine turnovers, conceding just 4 points off them. On the other hand, the Wizards had 18 turnovers, giving up 20 points off them to the Spurs. It turns out, the Spurs needed every bit of that difference tonight.
For the Wizards fans perspective, visit Bullets Forever.
The Spurs will conclude their home stand on Friday for the NBA Emirates Cup opener against the Los Angeles Lakers. Tip-off will be at 6:30 PM CT on ESPN.
