Energetic Gay powers victory
Forward rebounds week after going scoreless in Utah
Rudy Gay is no mystic. He is no Zen master.
When talking about the art of basketball, and about how one game can look so drastically different from the next, Gay certainly seems to channel that old NBA oracle, Phil Jackson.
“The ball gave me energy I guess,” Gay said Sunday after his 23 points — including 13 in the fourth quarter — helped lift the Spurs to a 110-97 revenge-game victory over Utah.
“Anybody who played basketball growing up knows when you get the ball a couple of times, it gets you in a rhythm and you find out what to do with it.”
Gay’s big night continued his bounce back from a head-scratching scoreless night in Utah only seven days earlier.
His fortunes weren’t the only thing that reversed in Sunday’s rematch at the AT&T Center.
After losing that game by 34 points, the Spurs reeled off a 47-point turnaround in Round 2.
DeMar DeRozan led the Spurs with 26 points, LaMarcus Aldridge scored 20 with three blocks and Gay equaled a career high with 15 rebounds to go with his scoring.
That, combined with the Spurs’ second consecutive strong defensive showing, helped give them their first winning streak of any kind since a four-gamer ended Nov. 4 against Orlando.
After opening a critical sixgame homestand 2-0 with wins over the Los Angeles Lakers and the Jazz, the Spurs — at 13-14 — know they can’t afford to get complacent now.
“You can’t get too high, you can’t get too low,” Aldridge said. “You can’t get caught up in one loss, one win. We’ve had great wins where we played the right way, and we’ve had bad games where we laid an egg out there.”
Sunday would fall into the first category.
The Spurs held Utah to 36 points during a first half that gave them control of the game.
A Jazz team that made a franchise-record 20 3-pointers against the Spurs in Utah last week started 4 of 17 from beyond the arc and finished 9 of 29.
Jazz guard Donovan Mitchell ended the first half without a point. Utah’s leading scorer got it together in time to notch 27 points, and Ricky Rubio added 26 but it wasn’t enough for the Jazz to full climb out of a 21-point hole they created in the third quarter.
After a beginning to the season that saw the Spurs rank near the bottom of the NBA in defensive efficiency, coach Gregg Popovich is cautiously optimistic his players are starting to grasp concepts at that end of the floor.
“I think it’s sinking in,” Popovich said. “We’ll see if it continues. It’s about consistency, and we haven’t had that.”
Utah players certainly noticed the difference in the Spurs’ defense Sunday.
After allowing 139 points on Monday in Salt Lake City, the Spurs held the Jazz to 42 points less in the rematch.
It marked the first time the Spurs had kept an opponent beneath the 100-point threshold since a Nov. 10 victory over Houston.
“They were getting into us, being very physical,” said Utah center Rudy Gobert, whose team dropped into a tie with the Spurs for 12th in the Western Conference. “They really gained confidence in that.”
Monday in Utah, the Spurs appeared to have little idea how to attack the 7-foot-1 Gobert. Sunday, the Spurs used ball movement to catch Gobert shifting, then went right at the 2017 NBA Defensive Player of the Year.
Gay and guard Derrick White each got dunks in Gobert’s vicinity, while White logged his final bucket of the night with a confident floater lifted over the big Frenchman’s outspread arms.
The Spurs finished with 52 paint points, a sure sign of a team in attack mode despite Gobert’s presence.
“When you catch the ball in there, you can see him out of the corner of your eye,” said White, who got the start with both Dante Cunningham (abdominal soreness) and Davis Bertans (personal reasons) unavailable. “He’s a rim protector, so you know you have to take it up strong.”
Late in the fourth quarter, with the Spurs lining up a knockout blow, Gay followed that advice.
Utah crawled within five points on Mitchell’s baseline jumper with 9:33 remaining. From there, the Spurs rattled off an 11-4 run to get the cushion back into double digits.
With 3:23 to play, DeRozan was short on a step-back jumper. Jakob Poeltl cleaned up the rebound for the Spurs, and found Gay cutting to the basket.
Gay finished a ferocious twohanded dunk between Gobert and Mitchell, drawing a foul on the latter to complete a 3-point play.
“Rudy on Rudy crime,” Gay called it later.
After throwing down the slam, Gay screamed into the crowd and pumped his arms in celebration.
The play put the Spurs ahead 104-91, and provided the exclamation point on the night. That the dunk came with Gobert in the vicinity gave Gay a bit of added pleasure.
“He’s a dynamic defender, a guy that can change a game just by being in the way,” Gay said. “It feels good to be able to score on top of him.”
These are the types of games and moments the Spurs need from the 33-year-old Gay, who is in his second full season since returning from a January 2017 Achilles tendon tear.
Sunday’s fourth quarter, which featured a bevy of tough turnaround jumpers over defenders too small to manage his 6-foot-8 frame, provided the blueprint.
Gay’s 0-for-3 game in Monday’s debacle in Utah — only the fifth scoreless outing of his 13season career — looks like an aberration in a December in which he has topped double figures in every other appearance.
“Rudy’s got the whole package,” guard Bryn Forbes said. “Rudy’s got some stuff a lot of people haven’t seen before. It’s starting to unfold for him now. We’re excited to see what comes next.”
Gay is eager to show more of his repertoire.
All he can hope is that he continues to get the ball, the ball continues to give him energy and he can remember what to do with it.