How the Spurs Secured Win Number 60 After Wembanyama's Injury

SAN ANTONIO - The Spurs secured win number 60 for the season behind another triple-double by Stephon Castle and a total team effort after Victor Wembanyama went down with an injury.

Wembanyama stayed in the locker room after halftime with what the team called a bruised left rib. He played the final five minutes of the second half after the injury occurred, but there's no word yet on his status for the last three games of the regular season.

Castle finished with 19 points, 13 assists and 11 rebounds in the win, leading six Spurs in double figure scoring. It's the fifth triple-double of Castle's career, and three have come in the last month.

"Having our big fella down, we knew the game was going to be tough already, even having him, so seeing him go down, we knew everybody needed to take our level up a notch," Castle said. "I just think the guys that they have individually on that team, they have a lot of great ISO players on that team. So just being able to take that challenge, no matter who either one of us had to guard, and I feel like our competitiveness was high across the board."

"I think tonight was a classic Steph Castle game in the sense that his competitiveness, at times, probably won out versus some of the basketball decision making," Spurs coach Mitch Johnson said. "And I will never - almost never - penalize him for that. I think he's done a phenomenal job of continuing to put those things together and bottle them and try to have them work together. But in a game like that, under the circumstances and the personality of it, he just imposed his will. At times, it may not have been perfect, but it sure reflected him. I thought he was a big part of why we got going."

Philadelphia played a physical game, and Joel Embiid led all scorers with 34 points. Even with only 16 minutes of Wemby, San Antonio dominated the paint 58-38. The injury to Wembanyama meant that Luke Kornet started the second half and Mitch Johnson went with some small-ball lineups when Kornet got a breather, and he was quite happy with how everyone stepped up.

"I was really proud of the group," Johnson said. "I thought in the first half we got away from ourselves just in terms of style of play and identity that we want to play with. But the second half, thought we were great."

"Luke stabilized the starting unit when he started the third and I thought everybody participated in really trying to play our identity and our pace and the small ball lineup played well, obviously, when Luke went out to make sure that we didn't overplay him," Johnson said. "Carter (Bryant) and Keldon (Johnson) fought their butts off, and I thought Keldon did a great job front and making them fight for catches and pushing their offense out into the operating area."

De'Aaron Fox finished with 13 points and 4 assists, but was a game-high +15 on the box score and got props from his coach after the game for the ways he contributed that won't show up in the box score.

"I thought Fox did a great job, at times, imposing himself in the game," Johnson said. "Sometimes that was through outward emotion, and I think that was what our team needed at the time, because I thought he did it in a very controlled, intentional way. That's something we're continuing to learn in terms of how to be maniacally competitive, in desire and fight, and you have to also do that with a clear mind and the level of poise to make sure that you can execute."

"I thought he was extremely, extremely important for us tonight in that regard, because the game got pretty physical, and it's hard to ref that game at times," Johnson said. "I thought Fox did a really good job of, kind of drawing a line in the sand, but then also making sure that we were steady."

Rookie Dylan Harper scored 17 off the bench for San Antonio and hit all three of his attempts from long range, where he's been dialed in lately.

"Obviously Vic going on was a big loss, but just having our teammates back at the end of the day, I mean, that's all you could do," Harper said. "Wish he was on the floor for the second half, but we just had to find a way to push through and get the win. That's what we did."

The 60th win of San Antonio's season was a scrappy one that they had to piece together and overcome some adversity to secure. It's another big milestone en route to the biggest goal of winning a title.

"In 79 games, we've done a hell of a job. It's a lot of wins this year. I'm not going to downplay that at all. Those guys in that room get a lot of credit for putting together pretty pretty good sample size at 79 games. It's a good thing that we've had that much success with that much improvement, so it gives us a lot of hope to continue to to push on them, and hold them accountable because we got a long way to go... a long way to improve."