A class away. The young San Antonio team did not start with the favor of the predictions against the L.A. Clippers, that is clear. Merciless confirmation on the floor of the Frost Bank Center on Monday, with the 124-99 victory of Paul George (28 pts), Kawhi Leonard (21 pts) and company. Beaten for the ninth time in a row, the Spurs held the distance rather well in the first period (55-66 MT) before exploding in the third quarter (66-86), despite the exploits of Cedi Osman (17 pts). “SA” suddenly found some color defensively, it’s no joke, finally making the right choices in attack (75-86, then 77-91 at the end of the 3rd QT). Discreet in the first period, Keldon Johnson (22 pts) came out of his box, for example with a powerful dunk in the last quarter to delight the fans who really needed it. But the Californians recited their basketball again, “PG” in the lead, with the help of Kawhi, James Harden (13 pts, 10 pts), Daniel Theis (19 pts), Norman Powell (17 pts) and Russell Westbrook (10 pts ). Too much for San Antonio.
The score was 94-116 when the two coaches opened their bench, 4’15 from the end. The opportunity to see two French people at work, Sidy Sissoko for the Spurs, the very first minutes in the NBA for the 19-year-old Ile-de-France leader, and Moussa Sissoko for the Clippers. In the end, L.A. pushed its lead to 28 to win by 25 points (99-125). It was less worse than at the end of October, with a 123-83 card from Ty Lue’s men… “I enjoyed the match,” Gregg Popovich enthused. Nobody likes to lose, they fought and executed well against a very good and very talented team, very well coached too. So I’m going to sleep well, we’re going to watch the videos of the match, we’ll continue tomorrow but I liked a lot of things, individually and collectively,” he said again. Of which act.
What about Victor Wembanyama? He didn’t have his best game, let’s face it. Earlier Monday, Vincent Collet explained this about his former foal, on beIN SPORTS: “Decision making is where Victor has room for improvement. When we take better shots, we have better chances of making them…” Words which took on their full meaning in this meeting, with a certain number of bad decisions from the French giant (2.24m), as discreet as his statistics suggest: 9 points on 4/12 shots, including 0/4 from long distance, 3 rebounds, 4 assists and 2 blocks in 27 minutes. We sometimes felt physically cooked, he who involuntarily put his finger in George’s eye at the start of the match, the latter missing part of the first quarter. “Pop” in any case took out the Frenchman 9’07 from the end of the match and we did not see him again afterwards. A stroke of pomp, for “Wemby”, who, for once, did not do the post-match conference? The Spurs will meet these same Clippers on Wednesday, still at home.