Fans in New York are looking forward to the opportunity to watch potentially generational talent Victor Wembanyama for the first time Wednesday night.
Wembanyama and the rest of the San Antonio Spurs are just looking to avoid once again flirting with making an ignoble bit of history.
The Spurs will aim to bounce back from another lopsided defeat Wednesday, when they conclude a two-game road trip by visiting the New York Knicks in the first game of the season between the teams.
Both teams were off Tuesday after playing Monday, when the Spurs were routed by the Indiana Pacers 152-111 and the host Knicks mounted a fourth-quarter surge to beat the Los Angeles Clippers 111-97.
The 152 points were the most allowed in regulation by the Spurs under Gregg Popovich, who is in his 28th season as head coach. San Antonio edged the Washington Wizards 157-153 in double overtime on Feb. 25, 2022.
The defeat also marked the second time this season the Spurs have lost by at least 40 points. They fell to the Clippers 123-83 on Oct. 29. The 41-point margin of defeat Monday was the third-largest for San Antonio in the Popovich era behind a 143-100 loss to the Toronto Raptors on Nov. 2, 2022, and a 111-69 loss to the Chicago Bulls on March 5, 1997.
The Spurs, generally known for stingy defense under Popovich, are allowing 125.9 points per game this season, second-most in the NBA. They allowed an NBA-worst 123.1 points per game last season.
“It’s embarrassing to get beat like that, not to be able to get a stop any time down the floor,” Spurs guard Doug McDermott told the San Antonio Express-News. “It’s on all of us.”
Wembanyama, the 7-foot-4 Frenchman the Spurs selected with the first pick in June’s draft, played the second game of a back-to-back set for the first time Monday, when he was just 3-of-12 from the field while scoring 13 points in 21-plus minutes.
“I just felt not as fresh,” Wembanyama told the Express-News. “But it was not as bad as I expected.”
The Knicks looked fresh in the fourth quarter Monday, when they blew open a tie game by outscoring the Clippers 35-21, earning their first home win of the season.
The decisive run was fueled by RJ Barrett, who returned to the starting lineup Monday after missing two games with a sore left knee, and reserves Donte DiVincenzo, Josh Hart and Isaiah Hartenstein.
The quartet combined for 28 points in the fourth, when Hart hit the tiebreaking 3-pointer to open the period and DiVincenzo drained a 3-pointer that gave New York a double-digit lead for good, 92-81, with 8:42 remaining.
“Honestly, I thought we played a good game all throughout,” Barrett said, “I think just toward the end, we really picked up the defense a little bit more and got a lot of easy buckets. Donte had a crazy stretch for us, blew the game open.”
Julius Randle capped his best game of the season by scoring five points in the fourth quarter. He finished with 27 points on 9-of-21 shooting after entering Monday averaging 13.7 points per game on 27.1 percent shooting.
“It was good,” Randle said. “We took a step forward today. Just got to keep building on it.”
–Field Level Media