Spurs Pushed Around by Pelicans in 104-95 Loss

On a freezing cold night in San Antonio, the worst-in-the-West Pelicans handed the Spurs what may be their worst loss of the season by a score of 104-95.

The Spurs didn't bring enough focus or physicality and almost got away with it, but the basketball gods punished them and so did New Orleans. San Antonio still hasn't shaken off the sub-par shooting that has marred their results throughout January, as they managed just 27% from deep and 59% from the free throw line. The Pelicans secured 19 offensive rebounds and dominated the paint 56-32.

"I think they've played bigger their lineups, and it definitely feels like they've been very intentional on sending multiple bodies, but again, nothing that's too much of an outlier of what's going on throughout the league," Spurs coach Mitch Johnson said after the game. "I would say it was just more about effort, physicality. Got to hit bodies."

San Antonio struggled with the details and looked out of sync, on both ends, but the failure to match the muscle of the 12-36 Pelicans will loom large. They aren't the first team to give the Spurs trouble in that department, and they know it's something that they'll need to improve as the postseason approaches.

"We've gotten a lot of feedback recently from how teams have played us, and that is definitely going to be, it feels like an approach from other teams," Johnson said. "Some teams, you know, New Orleans has been doing that as of late, recently, just as their style of play, and their brand of basketball, and it served them well. And so it's going to be something that we're going to have to step up in."

"It's just a mental thing," said Devin Vassell, who scored 13 points off the bench in his return from an adductor strain. "We just got to go in knowing that's how teams are going to approach it. We knew that's how New Orleans was going to play this game and if they were going to win this game, it was going to be because they were crashing glass and being more physical. That's what they did."

"So just going forward, we just got to have that mindset. We can't be kind of a finesse team or somebody who's just going to let somebody just get pushed around and stuff like that," Vassell said. "I mean, I'm not saying have a hard foul and hurt nobody, but at the end of the day we got to show that we're here. You don't want to be a team that's looked at as being soft."

The Spurs trailed by as many as 20 in the third quarter before locking in for a 22-3 run to tie it at 85. It came after a hockey substitution from Johnson. As good as the run was, the team will have to talk a lot about why they didn't come out of the locker room at that level.

San Antonio built a five-point lead late, but squandered it down the stretch. They missed five free throws in the final five minutes, including four in a row with a chance to make it a one-possession game.

Victor Wembanyama led the team with 16 points, 16 rebounds and 4 blocks, but he shot just 2-10 from deep. De'Aaron Fox added 12 points and 7 assists, while Stephon Castle logged 5 points and 5 assists on 1-6 from the floor.

The loss drops the Spurs to 31-15 and a tie at second in the standings with the Denver Nuggets. San Antonio is now 5.5 games behind the first-place Thunder and 4 games up on the seventh-seed Timberwolves.

Mitch Johnson has a chance to go to the All Star Game in his first year as head coach, but only if the Spurs hang on to the second spot. More importantly, losses like these could drop San Antonio into a much less advantageous playoff position.

Depending on how the standings shake out at the end of 82 games, San Antonio may come to regret this loss more than any other. They also might look back on it as the night they committed to playing with the focus and physicality necessary to avoid such an outcome.