Spurs shake off two straight losses and win over Trail Blazers

After a few disappointing losses, the San Antonio Spurs not only returned home in terms of losses, but looked to start their home game strong against the Portland Trail Blazers. Stephon Castle started his second straight game in the absence of Jeremy Sochan and won the Anfernee Simons Matchup straight. He was the initiator of the scoring, had a few nice assists and played solid defense. He finished the first half with six points and three assists. However, the quarter got off to a bit of a slow start as the Spurs trailed 15-13 after six minutes. This led to a timeout for Mitch Johnson, which helped restart the team. They got out of that situation and went on a 14-3 run that gave them a 27-18 lead. With 28 seconds left, Keldon Johnson was called for a blatant three-pointer by Jerami Grant. This resulted in a five-point possession for the Blazers and a 33-27 lead after one.

The second quarter started a bit like the first, with the Blazers doing well to take the Spurs’ lead – except the bench came in and ran. The bench unit began the game 10/12 from the field and 3/3 from three. In fact, up to this point in the game, Keldon was the only bench player to miss a shot, but he made up for it somewhat with seven rebounds. The ball was whipping around, the guys were making timely cuts and they were flying around defensively. When Blake put the ball in the net after a backcut and a nice pass from Zach Collins, the Spurs led 54-45 with 3:54 left in the half. But Deandre Ayton made sure the Blazers stayed close. He scored six of his 17 points in the final 3:30 and the Blazers ended the quarter with a 10-2 run. After leading by as many as 11, the Spurs went into the locker room with just a 56-55 lead.

The first four minutes of the third quarter were a kind of Julian Champagne show. He hit two three-pointers and prepared an assist for Wemby under the basket, which gave the Spurs their first eight points. With the Spurs leading 64-62 and getting the ball under their basket, Wemby and Jerami Grant got into a battle to see who could apply the most pressure, resulting in Wemby going down twice. After things settled, the battle continued until Wemby committed a dead-ball foul. He then shot a free throw and Malaki Branham made a three-pointer on that possession to give the Spurs some breathing room. The Branham three was just one of the three-point shots the Spurs fired at the Blazers in the quarter. The Spurs scored 35 points, 24 of which came from long distance. Those three-pointers and bench play slowly continued to build the Spurs’ lead, increasing that lead from one point at halftime to 12 going into the fourth period.

Unfortunately, that momentum didn’t continue as the Blazers started the fourth period with a 9-2 run, cutting the Spurs’ lead to five (93-88). Unfortunately, the double was due in large part to Wemby’s play. His first four minutes featured turnovers, a missed tip and three missed shots before he finally hit a three-pointer as a trail man. Shortly before this three-pointer, Mitch Johnson once again took advantage of a timeout at exactly the right time. When the game started again, the Spurs went on an 8-2 run to extend their lead back to 101-90, which after a few more minutes of good Spurs basketball turned into a 108-95 lead with five minutes left . The next three minutes would not be what we would consider beautiful basketball. Both teams foul, miss shots and turn the ball over (three of the Blazers’ five points were free throws and Castle made two field goals). With 1:16 left, Castle hit Keldon for a layup, which led to Chauncey Billups calling a timeout and bringing the reserves into the game. Once everything was said and done, the Spurs would win 118-105.

Game notes

Stephon Castle will be a good shooter. A lot can be said about Stephon Castle’s performance so far as a rookie. What’s particularly noteworthy is that he doesn’t shoot the ball well at all from the three-point position. After tonight, Castle is 3/24 out of three. This corresponds to 12.5%. If he were to play enough to make 200 three-point attempts, that percentage would decimate the record for worst percentage by a player to make at least 200 three-point attempts (Marcus Smart shot a paltry 25.3% on 241 attempts). But here’s the thing: His shot is actually pretty good, form-wise. It’s almost the Malaki Branham scenario because when you watched Malaki in his first two years you saw a player who could score and shoot well in the midfield. And while his insane 52% on 2.8 attempts per game may not be sustainable, Malaki appears to have found his shot from the outside. I’m betting that with more and more NBA reps, Castle will become someone the Spurs can trust to make at least 35%.

Jeremy Sochan is missing. It’s hard to say that a team is missing a player when they win comfortably. That’s not necessarily true when it comes to how the Spurs fared against the Blazers. Jerami Grant is one of the players that the Spurs haven’t gotten along particularly well in defense so far. He’s too fast and shoots too well for a big shot to protect him. He’s too big to protect with a light wing. Grant finished the night 6/10 from the field, but three of those misses were from three, and he made his way to the free throw line 11 times, making eight. His strong offensive performance wasn’t good enough in this game, but it will be important for Spurs to figure out how to protect players like that.

The blazers are big. What was immediately noticeable was the size of the starting lineup that Chauncey Billups fielded. Those five were 6’4″ Anfernee Simons, 6’8″ Toumani Camara, 6’8″ Jerami Grant, 6’9″ Deni Avdija and 7’0″ Deandre Ayton. Scoot Henderson is the only player shorter than Simons, standing at 6-foot-3, but he is also stocky and strong. They may not have all the talent to be a play-in team or better, but there is something they like about the makeup of their roster so far.

Just place Julian Champagnie in the left corner. Each player has a spot on the field from which they can shoot better. The best shooters have more than one of these points. After he made his second three-pointer from the left corner, it clicked to see what his numbers were from different areas of the court. Entering this game, Champagnie had made five of 10 attempts from the left corner three. From the right corner? He was 1/6. The numbers in the left corner got better after he hit 4/5 tonight. The Spurs likely know these numbers, so it wouldn’t be surprising if they brought in Champagnie *left* Corner.

A good Zach Collins is a good Spurs team. I try to avoid using “I” in the articles I write, but I’ll drop that at this point. That’s because I’ve been pretty vocal about how Collins played last season and how he’s played so far this year (see post below). I’m not here to apologize for this criticism because he was great against the Blazers. Rather, I’m here to point out how important it is that the Spurs get this Collins game by game. Maybe there are encounters that aren’t good for him – that happens. But if he can do anything close to what he did last night in most games, we’ll be looking at a potential playoff team.

The unexpectedly best line-up of the evening. Given the injuries the Spurs are dealing with, they are relying on some rotations that may not have been ideal before the season started. Against the Blazers, there was a five-man lineup at the top of the +/- leaderboard that no one would have hoped for given the opportunity. Those five were Zach Collins, Keldon Johnson, Julian Champagnie, Malaki Branham and Stephon Castle. This lineup outscored the Blazers by 11 points in their 4.3 minutes on the court. Honorable mention goes to Collins, Keldon, Malaki, Blake Wesley and Harrison Barnes, who played a combined 1.9 minutes and outscored the Blazers by 8 points. That’s the kind of bench performance every team craves.

Game play

Sure, this play ends in a foul and not one of the 35 assists the Spurs had tonight (Harrison Barnes shared the following free throws), but this pass from Wemby is special.

Next game: Against Utah Jazz on Saturday

The Spurs face the Jazz in the second of five straight home games. The game starts at 4:00 p.m. CT, as Kids Takeover Night is also taking place