Spurs try to shake their double-ot loss to Atlanta.
Demar Derozan took two dribbles to his right, then started back left. The clock in his head was ticking down, same as the one on the AT&T Center scoreboard.
Derozan worked his way back toward the paint, at last rising over Atlanta’s Solomon Hill to tie the score with 2.7 seconds left in the fourth quarter and ultimately send Thursday’s game into overtime.
The Spurs eventually lost 134129 in double OT, but they displayed both pride and perseverance on the second night of a back-to-back.
“All year we have been showing how resilient we are, never stop playing as long as there is time on that clock,” said Derozan, who finished with 36 points and nine assists. “Hit a couple of shots here and there, get a couple of shots here and there, and we win that game.”
In hindsight, the Spurs might have been better off had Derozan’s shot rimmed out.
Already beaten down in the middle of the busiest closing schedule in the NBA, the Spurs’ double-overtime defeat cut doubly deep.
Not only did they add another tally to the loss column, the Spurs added 10 extra minutes to their dog-tired legs on the second night of a back-to-back.
It is the kind of loss coach Gregg Popovich hopes doesn’t linger into tonight, when the Spurs’ ill-fated homestand continues with a visit from the Indiana Pacers.
“They’ve showed a lot of grit and a lot of just downright fiber hanging in and playing tough,” Popovich said after the loss to the Hawks. “This was three in four nights after what they have already gone through schedulewise. So I’m happy they don’t die.”
Figuratively speaking, death might feel like a welcome option by the time the Spurs are done navigating what is left of their season.
The Spurs already are assured a losing record on their ninegame homestand, having started 2-5. They have fallen to 24-22 overall, clinging to eighth place in the Western Conference by a fingernail.
After their homestand ends Monday against Cleveland, the Spurs finish with 17 of 24 games away from the AT&T Center.
As taxing as the past two weeks have been, the Spurs might soon look back on them as the good old days.
“The tough part hasn’t even kicked in,” Derozan said. “We got to put our seat belts on a get ready for this tough ride and ride it out.”
Derozan compares the everyday or every-other-day nature of the Spurs’ remaining slate to an AAU schedule.
The difference is, AAU teams don’t play 72 games in a season.
“This whole complete season is something unique that years down the line we will all talk about, say how crazy it was,” Derozan said. “There is nothing we can do about it now but get through it.”
Each player must deal with the mental and physical fatigue wrought by the schedule in his own way.
Derrick White wakes up each morning and lies to himself.
Sometimes you just got to tell your mind like, ‘You are fine’ and ‘you ain’t tired,’ ” White said. “The mind is so powerful, it can tell your body to fight through anything.”
White’s game of mind over matter worked for him Thursday.
He knocked down the first 3-pointer he saw against Atlanta and stayed hot, finishing with 29 points, his career best in the regular season.
White made seven 3-pointers — also a career high — on 13 attempts. The rest of the Spurs combined to go 6 of 27 from beyond the arc, including a 1 of 8 performance from Patty Mills, who looked suspiciously like a gassed 32-year-old on the second night of a back-to-back.
Popovich realizes his players are physically exhausted. He understands there is a mental component to the exhaustion as well.
“They are human beings, so it affects you mentally too,” Popovich said. “Unless you win.”
That’s what made Thursday’s double-ot defeat so difficult to swallow. The Spurs burned extra fuel they did not have and came up short anyhow.
The Spurs trailed the Hawks from the middle of the first quarter until the end of the fourth quarter, when Derozan wiggled for his game-tying jumper.
After Derozan’s swish, Atlanta’s Trae Young missed a floater at the regulation horn that would have prevented overtime entirely.
“I feel like I should have hit that floater and ended the game right there,” Young said. “I definitely felt like I let my team down.”
In the end, the Spurs might have been better served had Young put them out of their misery sooner as well.
Instead, Young took over the overtime periods, scoring 14 points between them to send the Spurs to their sixth loss in their past eight games.
With the Pacers headed to town tonight, the Spurs won’t have time to dwell on the one that got away against Atlanta.
In the past, that would have been a feature of the NBA schedule and not a bug.
“No choice but to get through it,” Derozan said. “Right now, it’s easy to complain, to make excuses, to do whatever it is. At the end of the day, we have to get through it, be competitors, be professional and just keep fighting.”
If the Spurs have shown anything this season, it is the propensity to keep fighting.
They just have to hope the fight begins to pay off soon.