Spurs fall just short against Pelicans.
Pop likes effort from youngsters in defeat
For five days, Gregg Popovich allowed himself to dream.
He watched his young and growing Spurs open the season with a pair of a victories, and allowed himself permission to imagine the unimaginable.
“Just when I thought we were going to win all 72, I’m disappointed,” Popovich said.
Brandon Ingram and the New Orleans Pelicans brought down Popovich’s dream of turning in history’s first perfect NBA season Sunday, holding off a spirited second-half charge from the Spurs to win 98-95 at the Smoothie King Center.
Ingram scored 28 points with 11 rebounds and Eric Bledsoe blocked DeMar DeRozan’s 3point attempt at the buzzer as the Pelicans dealt the Spurs (2-1) their first loss of the season.
Having ridden their new uptempo offense to a total of 250 points in season-opening victories over Memphis and Toronto, the Spurs could not get on track Sunday.
Credit the talented Pelicans (2-1) for some of the Spurs’ woes. Credit a tough back-to-back that saw the Spurs race from Saturday night’s win over the Raptors at the AT&T Center to New Orle
ans for an early Sunday tipoff.
Afterward, the Spurs were also willing to accept their share of the blame after struggling to their lowest-scoring regularseason outing since a 113-85 loss at Denver on April 3, 2019.
“I thought their effort was great,” Popovich said. “I don’t think they were as sharp as we have been offensively. As a group, we were not sharp.”
Rudy Gay led the Spurs with 22 points off the bench, his highest scoring game not in the Orlando, Fla., bubble since also going for 22 on Nov. 22, 2019 in Philadelphia.
In the first two games, the Spurs had all five starters in double figures. It marked the first time that had happened to open a Spurs the season since 1989.
Sunday, the Spurs managed only three starters in double figures.
While Lonnie Walker IV (16 points), Keldon Johnson (14 points, 11 rebounds) and Dejounte Murray (13 points) kept pace, the only two Spurs with All-Star credentials could not reach the double-digit mark.
DeRozan had eight points after totaling 55 in the Spurs’ first two games. He was 3 of 12 from the field, but did add 10 assists.
LaMarcus Aldridge was held to four points, missing 5 of 7 attempts in 20 minutes of action.
“It was on us,” Walker said. “Back-to-back, our legs aren’t really going. It’s on the young core to kind of pick it up.”
The Spurs’ young guns tried.
Johnson opened the game with the unenviable assignment of defending Hulk-ish Pelicans star Zion Williams.
Listed at 6-foot-5 and 220 pounds, Johnson gave up an inch and 64 pounds to the explosive New Orleans forward.
With help from his friends, Johnson kind of, sort of held his own.
Williamson eventually emerged with a productive stat line in his first career victory over the Spurs – 18 points, 11 rebounds – but it did not come easy near the basket. Williamson was 7 of 22, with two of his baskets coming on uncontested dunks after Spurs players saved the ball to him under their own basket.
“It’s just playing basketball,” Johnson said. “You’ve just got to fight and don’t give up.”
Johnson and Williamson have a little bit of a history together. The two first squared off in November 2018, in the first game of their respective college careers.
Johnson scored a teamhigh 23 points that night to lead Kentucky in a 118-84 loss to Williamson’s starstudded Duke squad. Williamson, who would go on to be the No. 1 pick in the 2019 draft, had 28 points.
Unlike Sunday, however, Johnson didn’t have to defend Williamson in college.
“We had other players for that,” Johnson said.
The Spurs’ new smallball approach left that grueling task for Johnson in New Orleans.
A night earlier, Johnson was responsible for defending Pascal Siakam, Toronto’s All-Star power forward.
“Those are two really talented players,” Popovich said. “Zion is different in the sense of how physical and how dynamic he is. I think Keldon was fantastic in both situations.”
Sunday’s game nearly got away from the Spurs in the third quarter, as New Orleans began to pull away.
After falling behind by 15 points with 2:22 left in the frame — their largest deficit of the season to that point — the Spurs rallied.
A 21-3 run, keyed largely by Murray and Gay, helped the Spurs regain the lead.
“The defense allowed us to stay in the game,” Popovich said.
Ahead 93-91 with 3:06 to play, the Spurs endured a disaster of a defensive possession. Ingram scored a basket and drew a foul on DeRozan, with the Spurs guard drawing a technical foul for arguing the call.
Ingram missed the second of the two free throws, but DeRozan whiffed on a box-out of Williamson and then fouled the Pelicans forward to put him at the line for two more foul shots.
The five-point possession put New Orleans up for good, though the Spurs continued to push.
“When you’re down at that point, you just have to keep going,” Walker said.
Down three and gifted a chance to tie after Steven Adams clanged a pair of foul shots with 10.9 seconds to play, the Spurs botched the ensuing inbounds play, which ended with DeRozan rising for a 3-pointer surrounded by Pelicans.
Walker had a chance at an uncontested layup. Popovich said he wished his young guard would have taken the free basket and given the Spurs a chance to foul to keep the game alive.
“That was a mental error,” Popovich said.
Popovich gave his players a pass for that flub. It’s early in the season, after a shortened training camp, and the play was not one the team exactly had had down pat.
“They hadn’t seen it before,” Popovich said.
The Spurs’ veteran players were satisfied to use Sunday night as a teaching tool as well.
“I’ll take a loss like this if it means learning from it,” Gay said.
Even if it means 72-0 is off the table.