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Michael C. Wright
Multiple Authors
SAN ANTONIO — As Spurs coach Mitch Johnson addressed reporters after a 116-112 win on Friday over the LA Clippers, jubilation rumbled inside the team’s locker room a few feet behind him.
On the second night of a back-to-back, San Antonio had just overcome a 25-point deficit, the club’s second-largest comeback in the play-by-play era (since 1997-98), to run its record since Feb. 1 to a league-best 14-1. That’s the team’s best mark in a 15-game span since the 2015-16 season, when the Spurs captured a franchise-record 67 wins, according to ESPN research.
“I’ve got zero left right now,” said Victor Wembanyama, who told ESPN during his postgame on-court interview that he was “about to pass out.”
“That was one of the best wins,” he added. “That was one of the best games, best parts of my career, my basketball life.”
Wembanyama scored a team-high 27 points, including the go-ahead score in which he hauled in a long strike in transition from De’Aaron Fox and dunked it in with 16 ticks remaining, sending Frost Bank Center into a frenzy.
“That was probably the last [fast] break I had in my body,” said Wembanyama, who also had 10 rebounds and four blocks in 22 minutes.
Fox, meanwhile, scored or assisted on 25 of San Antonio’s 35 fourth-quarter points and finished the night with 19 points and 9 assists.
“This one felt good,” Fox said. “This one felt better than yesterday.”
Against the East-leading Detroit Pistons on Thursday, Wembanyama and Fox scored 38 and 29 points, respectively, to become the first San Antonio teammates since 2018 to each score 20-plus points in the same half of a game, according to ESPN Research. The combined effort lifted the Spurs to a decisive victory that moved them to 6-1 against the leading teams in each conference.
After Friday’s victory, with the hood of a grey sweatshirt pulled over his head, a visibly exhausted Wembanyama called the conclusion of the team’s latest back-to-back “the best 30 hours of basketball” of his life.
“The best three hours of my life for sure,” he said. “[My] favorite part is we faced some very different trials over these last two games, and we’ve been able to answer the call in every single one of them.”
Clippers center Brook Lopez, Johnson’s former college teammate at Stanford, made that more difficult for San Antonio. He lit up the Spurs for a game-high 17 points on 7-of-11 shooting in the first half, leaving San Antonio with its largest halftime deficit of the season at 20 points.
By the 9:23 mark of the third quarter, the Clippers had extended their lead to 75-50.
“Hard-fought game last night [against Detroit], second night of a back-to-back, guys are banged up,” Johnson said. “The competitive response and the character the guys showed to really try to band together and fight through the mental, physical, and emotional fatigue was commendable.”
Former Spur Kawhi Leonard, who was booed every time he touched the ball, scored a game-high 30 points with nine rebounds, three assists and two steals.
Spurs rookie Carter Bryant drew praise after the game from Leonard, Johnson and Wembanyama, who called the forward’s production on the night “the loudest five points.” Bryant, 20, guarded Leonard down the stretch. His father, D’Cean Bryant, coached Leonard in high school as an assistant at Martin Luther King High School in Riverside, California.
“I used to be on the other end of the court when my dad was working Kawhi out, just mirroring what he was doing,” said Bryant. “I was eight, nine, 10 years old watching Kawhi go to San Diego State. He came up to me after the game. He was like, ‘Man, your little ass used to be running around on the court. I’m proud of you. Just keep going. Keep trusting the process.'”
San Antonio outscored the Clippers 66-37 over the final 21:20 of the second half. The fourth quarter featured seven lead changes. With 52.3 seconds left, Derrick Jones Jr. converted a three-point play to put the Clippers ahead 112-111, before Fox and Wembanyama connected for the go-ahead dunk.
Wembanyama produced his 16th game with four 3-point field goals and four blocks, the most in NBA history, according to ESPN research. The Spurs plan to take Saturday off before resuming their homestand Sunday with a matchup against a physical Houston Rockets squad.
In the middle of finishing his postgame media availability, Wembanyama asked what time it was as he started calculating in his head how much sleep he could get before the next outing.
“I’ll get two good nights of sleep,” Wembanyama said. “The good thing is I didn’t get any super sore points in my body. So, I don’t have anything specific that needs to be covered. It’s just the whole system, which is the best. It means I’m healthy. Two good nights sleep, recovery, massage, whatever, cold contrast, hot and cold, all these things. I recover really quickly. So, I’m not worried about two days from now.”
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