San Antonio Spurs Win Big at Perfect Time and Other Saturday NBA Takeaways
The San Antonio Spurs don't seem like a team that listens to a lot of outside noise, but Saturday's destruction of the Phoenix Suns felt like a direct response to the Alamo City's critics.
After losing four of their last five games, the Spurs took control of this contest from the opening tip. They started the proceedings on an 8-0 run out of the gate and never relented. The Suns, who came in averaging 106.3 points per game, managed just 13 in the opening frame.
And their offense actually worsened from there, as AZCentral.com's Paul Coro notes:
Phoenix missed 35 of its 43 first-half field-goal attempts and all five of its threes. The Spurs were on cruise control before they'd even broken a sweat, leading by 11 after the first quarter and 27 at the break. By the time the final buzzer sounded, the Spurs had rolled to a 101-74 win.
Kawhi Leonard was the only San Antonio starter to clear the 30-minute mark. Tim Duncan, Tony Parker and Tiago Splitter all played fewer than 23 minutes.
Gregg Popovich isn't one to send a message, but this had all the makings of a statement win—and a timely one at that. Despite a decade's worth of warnings about the danger of sleeping on the Spurs, they hadn't exactly given the NBA world a lot of options.
Something has felt off with this team.
"For the first time, the Spurs are showing signs of frailty," wrote Bleacher Report's Grant Hughes. "Signs that even they appear to be concerned by."
That's been the biggest difference this season. It's nothing new to hear others doubting the Spurs, but it's jarring to hear their admissions that even they don't know what's been going on.
"It's tough right now. It's tough," Parker said after his team dropped four consecutive games, per Jeff McDonald of the San Antonio Express-News. "Since I've been with the Spurs, I've never experienced that in a 3-game, 4-game stretch."
The Spurs don't play must-win games ahead of the postseason, but this contest held a similar importance. They ended their losing streak on Friday, but that win came against a bad Sacramento Kings team that was playing without its key contributor (DeMarcus Cousins).
The Suns are no powerhouse, but they're an above-.500 team in a desperate fight for their playoff lives. They had just snapped the surging Oklahoma City Thunder's seven-game winning streak Thursday night. Phoenix has a lot of young talent on its team.
And San Antonio just obliterated all of it. The Spurs had eight different players score at least six points, led by Leonard's 22. The Suns had half of that, finding out it's hard to move the scoreboard when you misfire on more than 70 percent of your shots. From the Spurs' Twitter feed:
One win isn't going to make San Antonio's season, just like four losses weren't going to break it. But it's OK to attach emotions to both: concern before, hope now.
If the Spurs hope to pull off their first successful championship defense, they'll likely need to keep climbing up from their current seventh-seeded perch. Saturday's convincing win was a necessary step in the right direction.
Good Games, Bad Nights for Young Guns Whiteside and Wiggins
The bright futures in front of Miami Heat center Hassan Whiteside and Minnesota Timberwolves swingman Andrew Wiggins can't change the bleak presents their teams face.
And that's not for a lack of trying on their part.
Whiteside, Miami's surprise star of the season, put forth yet another jaw-dropping display in the middle. In a shade less than 34 minutes, he corralled 24 rebounds, scored 14 points on 6-of-8 shooting and tallied two rejections.
Despite his production, the Heat couldn't handle a Hawks team playing without Al Horford, Jeff Teague, DeMarre Carroll and Pero Antic. One could either credit the 65 points from Paul Millsap, Kent Bazemore, Dennis Schroder and John Jenkins for that, or blame Henry Walker's 3-of-16 shooting and Luol Deng's eight turnovers. The Associated Press' Tim Reynolds and ESPN Stats & Info detailed Whiteside's performance:
"Hassan Whiteside is the first NBA player with two 24-rebound games this season.
— Tim Reynolds (@ByTimReynolds) March 1, 2015"
Wiggins' Wolves nearly pulled off a shocker but ultimately endured a 101-97 loss to the Memphis Grizzlies.
The rookie played his part, dropping in a team-high 25 points and hitting five of his six foul shots. As per usual, he reminded the basketball world just how freakish his physical tools really are.
Ricky Rubio flirted with a triple-double (13 points, 10 assists and seven rebounds), while reserves Gary Neal and Gorgui Dieng combined for 29 points. But the Wolves lost Kevin Garnett to an ejection and saw Kevin Martin shoot just 5-of-18 from the field.
Combine those offensive woes with the fact that Minnesota's defense allowed Memphis to shoot 59.4 percent from the field, and the Wolves just couldn't pull this one out.
But as long as Minnesota is looking down the road, it has to like what it's seeing from Wiggins. Per the Wolves' official Twitter feed:
Raptors Hit New Rock Bottom
The Toronto Raptors could have excused their four consecutive losses that preceded Saturday night. Three came against current playoff teams, and one had the makings of a trap game—the first outing of a road back-to-back versus a New Orleans Pelicans club down two of its starters and its sixth man.
Some of those excuses are admittedly weak, but at least they existed. The same cannot be said of Toronto's troubling 103-98 loss to the tire fire known as the 2014-15 New York Knicks.
All-Star point guard Kyle Lowry got the night off to rest. That still doesn't explain what transpired inside Madison Square Garden.
The Raptors defense had no answers for Tim Hardaway Jr. (22 points on 8-of-15 shooting), who entered the night with a 38.9 field-goal percentage. They gave up 19 points to Andrea Bargnani, eight above his season average. Alexey Shved burned them for 15 points and five assists, one night after cementing his spot in the Shaqtin' A Fool Hall of Fame with whatever this was supposed to be.
Lou Amundson stuffed his stat sheet with nine points, three blocks, three assists and three rebounds, while still finding time for his own Shaqtin' nomination.
Toronto is supposed to be one of the NBA's elites. That's what its 37-22 record says (tied for second best in the East). So, how does it drop a game to the league's worst team?
Divine intervention, perhaps?
Quite simply, Toronto's defense was disastrous, and the offense wasn't much better.
Louis Williams led the team with 22 points, but he missed 10 of his 16 shots. DeMar DeRozan scored 13 points on 15 field-goal attempts. For Greivis Vasquez, it was 14 on 13. The most-used players were the least effective ones.
Unfortunately, that theme has been repeated like a broken record during the Raptors' skid. Their top three scorers—Lowry, DeRozan and Williams—are all shooting below 42 percent from the field.
Given the difficulties this team has had on the defensive end, it cannot afford offensive struggles like these.
Bigs, Beal Propel Wizards to Badly Needed Win
It feels like forever and a day since the Washington Wizards were holding the Eastern Conference's coveted No. 2 seed. It wasn't.
Not even close.
At 31-15, they held that spot on Jan. 27. They promptly nosedived from there, dropping five games in a row and then 11 of 13. That trend nearly continued Saturday, but Washington held on for a 99-95 win over the Detroit Pistons—the Wizards' first win since Feb. 9.
Washington struck the first blow of the contest, riding eight first-quarter points each from John Wall and Marcin Gortat to its most prolific period this season, as The Washington Post's Jorge Castillo notes:
With a 23-17 edge in the second frame, the Wizards rolled into intermission with a 16-point lead. Their starting frontcourt combo of Marcin Gortat and Nene was active early and often, entering the break with 20 combined points.
The Wizards stretched their lead to 21 points early in the third quarter and promptly crashed head-first into an offensive wall. The Pistons scored 22 of the final 33 points in the frame, trimmed their deficit to 10 and kept cutting from there. Detroit opened the fourth on a 15-4 run with all of its points coming from rookie point guard Spencer Dinwiddie and bruising big man Greg Monroe.
Disaster seemed certain for the District.
But the Wizards did just enough to survive.
"It's still great to get the win, but we have to do a better job of keeping our leads," John Wall told reporters after the game. "It is more exciting to win than people being sad and trying to figure out how to get a win."
Nene and Gortat combined for 37 points and 24 rebounds. Wall poured in 22 points and dished out six assists. Bradley Beal, back from an eight-game absence (leg), shot just 2-of-10 from the field, but he had six boards, five dimes, three steals and several critical energy plays.
The Wizards are a long way from figuring things out and even further from where they'd like to be. But any win is a good win at this point, even one as aesthetically unpleasant as this.
Monta Ellis Is The King of Tough-Shot Makers
For all the heat Dallas Mavericks scoring guard Monta Ellis gets for his shot selection, one would think he'd have a worse career field-goal percentage than 45.5.
But the one-time preps-to-pros leaper helps both further that thought and maintain that accuracy by taking shots others wouldn't attempt—and converting them.
The latest example came during Dallas' 104-94 loss to the Brooklyn Nets. As Rajon Rondo prodded the Brooklyn defense at the top of the key, Ellis cut along the baseline. Rondo found Ellis with a beautiful bounce pass, and Ellis took the highlight to the next level from there.
He caught the ball, spun around a lurking Joe Johnson and finished with a reverse layup.
Ellis will have some ugly misses every now and then, but his combination of creativity and athleticism yields some incredible finishes.
Epic Fail of the Night
Warning kids, do not try this at home.
One night after his Raptors stomached a worse-than-it-sounded 24-point loss to the Golden State Warriors, Raptors swingman DeMar DeRozan tried to inject some energy into his downtrodden team. The former Slam Dunk Contest participant escaped on a one-on-none fast break and took flight for what was sure to be a memorable finish.
Anyone who watched it won't forget it anytime soon, but it will stick in their memory banks for all the wrong reasons.
Somehow, the 25-year-old managed to disappoint fans on both sides of the contest.
Good job, good effort, awful execution, DeMar.
