Spurs v. Hornets: Room to Breathe
You could see it in last night’s victory over the Charlotte Hornets, if only for a few moments. You saw it when Patty Mills hit Manu Ginobili for a buzzer-beating three at the end of the first half. You saw it again when Ginobili hit a clutch three to create some needed separation in the final minutes. And you saw it, finally, when Tim Duncan caught the game’s final rebound over Cory Joseph and used it to playfully bonk him on the head as the buzzer sounded.
The Spurs looked loose.
After the stretch they’ve endured – a brutal month and a half of gritted teeth, weary legs, and endless overtimes – the lightness that emerged on the court was refreshing. Though the Spurs did blow a big early lead and found themselves in a tight contest late (as has been their wont recently), for the first time in a while the team looked like it was having… fun.
The Spurs haven’t really escaped Hell Month, of course. December is over, but its nagging injuries have messed with rotations and disrupted the kind of movement the team normally makes as the calendar changes. Last night, the Spurs brought out a starting lineup that included Matt Bonner and Austin Daye, and the team leads the league this season having 23 different starting lineups. (For comparison, at this point last season the team had only used twelve different starting lineups.)
Still, they weren’t going to get any pity from the Hornets, themselves the victim of an injury bug that prevented Al Jefferson and Gary Neal from suiting up and kept Lance Stephenson out for much of the season. The Hornets, for their part, have done well to work past injury issues, coming into Wednesday night on a five-game winning streak, with Kemba Walker averaging nearly thirty points a game in that stretch. Any way you looked at it, the Spurs had their work cut out for them.
Things started out slowly, with the Spurs in a 7-0 hole, but after Popovich went to his now customary hockey lineup switch, the Spurs turned a corner and quickly took control of the game. The lead continued to balloon as halftime approached, and Manu Ginobili’s buzzer beater to close the half gave the Spurs a nice twelve-point cushion.
Ginobili was phenomenal on Wednesday night, and though the shooting brilliance is particularly glaring, the box score does little justice to how much he took over the game. As Tony Parker continues to struggle regaining his playing rhythm, Ginobili has been tasked with a greater offensive load, and while he can be uneven with such a high usage rate, he killed the Hornets with cuts and timely baskets. All night, he seemed to find the right person to get the offense a great shot, and just as the Hornets would claw back in the game with a clutch basket from Kemba Walker or PJ Hairston (?), Ginobili would be there to push right back.
Even with Ginobili playing this well, though, there was little the Spurs could do to keep from blowing the third quarter, and the team looked stunned by the Hornets energy. Charlotte had – *checks notes* – about five hundred blocks in the quarter, and the Spurs stubbornly continued to drive into traffic, befuddled by their momentary insanity. The whole team looked frustrated, but truth be told, the scene was a familiar one. The Spurs have lost the third quarter nine times in the fifteen games Kawhi Leonard has missed. They clearly miss his ability to create shots out of loose boards and his knack for preventing the other team’s runs with a timely steal or clutch defensive play.
But unlike other games in that stretch, the Spurs found ways to stay in the game and hold on for the win. Matt Bonner contributed a career high four blocks. After a brutal start, Tony Parker seemed to find his shot. And at the end of the game, the team found a way to hit (most of) their free throws.
It might not be a big win in the macro view of a long season, but for one night the Spurs were able to dig deep and look a little like their freewheeling selves again. Friday brings a big matchup against the Blazers and an opportunity to avenge one of (!) the triple-overtime defeats of a cruel December. Like that overtime thriller, the game might come down to clutch shots or lucky bounces. It might come down to hitting free throws or grabbing big rebounds. But it might also come down just being loose.
