The San Antonio(11-10) had an unforgettable two-game set against the Memphis Grizzlies(9-6) at AT&T Center, including Monday night’s 133-102 beatdown by the Grizzlies.
Before the two-game set with Memphis, San Antonio was on a three-game winning streak and playing terrific basketball, including wins over Boston and Denver. However, against Memphis, it was a different story. In the two games with the Grizzlies, San Antonio was outscored by 48 points.
The two games against Memphis was a disappointment for the Spurs, but it’s a long season. According to Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich, Memphis was just the better team in these two games against San Antonio.
“Give a lot of credit to Memphis,” Popovich said after the game. “They played great, both games. They were just tougher in so many ways than we were, their physicality on defense, their execution on offense. We were really behind. In a 48-minute game, I say, probably, in the third quarter, we looked like we’ve looked lately for about six minutes, but other than that, they sliced us and diced us and deserved the wins for sure.
“It had nothing to do with we didn’t shoot well or we did this or we did that. They kicked our butts, and we did not play the basketball we’ve been playing for whatever reason, so we’ll stick together; we’ll go back to work, but those were two very tough losses by a team who really executed well, and I give them full credit.”
Spurs’ Keldon Johnson, who had a team-high 25 points for San Antonio, added: “We know we have a lot of work to be a good team. These are games we definitely wish we could get, and we need it, but it’s gone now. We just gotta look forward, put our big boy pants on and go out there and get it down the next time.”
When you consider Memphis is on a seven-game winning streak, losing two straight games to the Grizzlies could be understandable but not acceptable. San Antonio should have least gotten a split against Memphis.
However, the Spurs are a young team, so these types of performances are not surprising. San Antonio finishes their five-game homestand on Wednesday night against the Timberwolves.
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