El Conclusión: HASHTAG FULL(ish) SQUAD

A solid night from Touchdown Tim. The points, rebounds, and blocks were there, but he also hit all of his free throws and tossed in six assists. One of them was a beautiful feed from the three-point line to a mid-air Kawhi for an easy layup. Duncan almost had seven assists, too, as his perfect cross-court pitch to Patty Mills at the end of the first half was just a split second too late.

*Trey Kerby voice* “He’s BACK!” Kawhi came back with a vengeance, and the Spurs looked like a completely different team. He was clearly amped to return, and though his three-point shooting wasn’t great, he filled up most of the box score in other ways. The team just looked like a different animal with him back, and his presence returns some semblance of normalcy to Gregg Popovich’s rotations. It’s great to have him back.

Quiet night for Splitter, whose defense has been struggling to return to championship form. He only played 17 minutes tonight, as Pop elected to give Boris Diaw big minutes and Aron Baynes some playing time.

Tony Parker had arguably his best game since returning from his hamstring injury. He shot decently, which is actually a big improvement on his recent stretch, but he also had good control of the offense for much of the game, tossing in seven assists as the team was rolling.

Somewhere in San Antonio, Danny Green is chilling on a couch, a large snake wrapped around his neck, and each of his hands dipped in buckets of ice. Danny scorched the Blazers tonight, hitting four threes and contributing in all the other ways that have made this such a successful season for him. With Green and Leonard on the floor together, the Blazers had so much trouble scoring. Fantastic game from IcyHOT.

GTA: San Antonio – Sadly, Garbage Time Anderson didn’t have much time to show us his moves. Here’s hoping the next blowout gives him a bigger opportunity.

Aron Baynes saw some minutes tonight, offering Pop the kind of energy he was trying to cull from Splitter, and Baynes fared decently in his short court time. Though his scoring wasn’t anything to write home about, he did crush the boards, snagging some key rebounds in typically grizzly fashion.

Matt Bonner played three minutes, attempted three shots, but did not score three points because he hates prime numbers.

Despite attempting just five shots, Boris Diaw was pretty aggressive throughout the game. He rebounded well, passed out four assists, and even added some nice defensive contributions. At one point, he pinned a Damian Lillard layup attempt to the backboard, and the internet temporarily exploded.

The Aussie Bake Oven is now fully operational. With eighteen points in just a little over twenty minutes, Patty Mills gave us another reminder (in a stretch full of them) how much we were missing in his absence. While Cory Joseph has played very well this season and has improved his game substantially, nights like tonight show why what Mills excels at – shooting, duh – means so much to the Spurs’ offense.

There will be other nights this season for Cory Joseph to have big games once again. But there will also be many nights like this one, where Joseph’s inability to space the floor keeps his minutes low.

The shooting wasn’t great. In fact, it was pretty bad, with some notably terrible three-point attempts peppered in. But Manu did a great job against the Blazers reading passing lanes and finding open teammates. His defense throughout the night was also much needed.

Neither Ayres nor Daye played tonight, so I guess you could say Pop chose truth over “Day-res.” (I am so, so sorry.)