Spurs 'Focused Really Well' in Victory vs. Nets
Down double-digits to the Brooklyn Nets, the San Antonio Spurs were all but written off on Sunday night. However, in one of the more impressive wins of the season, the Spurs crawled back and bested the Nets in overtime.
Victor Wembanyama posted an insane stat line, but most impressive was his 13 points and three blocks in the fourth quarter and overtime, which pushed the Spurs over the hump.
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Rather than roll over and let the Nets leave Austin with a win, the Spurs collected themselves and played well above what was expected of them, especially considering how young and inexperienced they are.
Keldon Johnson, who added four points in overtime, expressed that the Spurs will raise expectations after this game.
"The next step for us is closing out games, and we did that tonight," he said. "Hopefully, we can build on that to finish out the season strong."
The Spurs were adapting throughout the game, trying different strategies until they found one that stuck, right in the knick of time. Normally, the on-the-fly mentality would hinder the young Spurs' success, but they were locked in all game.
"They (Spurs) executed a lot of stuff. We gave them (Nets) a lot of things tonight," said Gregg Popovich. "Their focus was really great and tried out some things we'd never done before I did a good job. A couple of things went awry. That's what happens in a game. But overall for a young group, I thought that they focused really well on execution and I thought their defense was really, really good against a lot of talented guys."
Aside from Wembanyama adding seven blocks, the Spurs were able to shut down Brooklyn's offense. The Nets only shot 25.8 percent from deep, but never really abandoned the three-point shot because getting to the rim against Wembanyama is not an easy feat.
As the season comes to an end, with the success of Sunday's game expect the Spurs to try new strategies to get the best of their young roster.
