Game Thread Spurs (30-13) @ Rockets (25-15) (Tue 1/20/26) [7:00PM CDT]

[Ed Helicopter Jones]

https://twitter.com/x/status/2013857539826610289

Truth bombs from KD. I think we're a better team when we're attacking the basket, and trying to find easy looks for everyone, including Victor. Obviously other teams know this, too, and are playing us better, defensively, but we seem too complacent right now, especially when we're up in a game. When our defensive intensity lags, and we quit attacking we start to falter. We take our foot off the gas a little bit when Wemby's in the game lately, and that wasn't the case early on. It seems like the chemistry is off a bit since he came back from injury. I'm sure we'll regroup, but it's obvious there's a crack in the armor at the moment that needs to be fixed.

 

[Dbreiden83080]

So we're just going to rely on Wemby hard carrying every game?

As I wrote, 24th ORTG over the past 15 games.
Wemby played 13 of those (missed Indiana W and Portland L), averaging 25ppg on 50/40/87.

How the hell can you have 24th ORTG with your franchise player averaging 25pgg on elite efficency and being one of the best floor spacing bigs in the league?
What are we talking about?

We are talking the Spurs being up comfortably most of the game on the 2nd end of a back to back with their best player playing like shit.. Pretty simple for me.. Rockets are NOT better from what I saw..

 

[onechance87]

So we're just going to rely on Wemby hard carrying every game?

As I wrote, 24th ORTG over the past 15 games.
Wemby played 13 of those (missed Indiana W and Portland L), averaging 25ppg on 50/40/87.

How the hell can you have 24th ORTG with your franchise player averaging 25pgg on elite efficency and being one of the best floor spacing bigs in the league?
What are we talking about?

Wemby wasint even carrying us today.He played bad today.Its true if he plays a lil better,we win this shit.

 

[Dbreiden83080]

Wemby wasint even carrying us today.He played bad today.Its true if he plays a lil better,we win this shit.

If Wemby went for 20/10 on 50% Spurs win by 5-7 pts easy.. He shot 5/21.. He was shit.. Flush it and he will be crazy motivated for a rematch Next Wed.
No doubt..

 

[Ice009]

Wemby wasint even carrying us today.He played bad today.Its true if he plays a lil better,we win this shit.

Has he ever had a great game against the Rockets. Maybe the last home game was a good one, but he usually plays bad against Houston.

 

[LeBowen]

We are talking the Spurs being up comfortably most of the game on the 2nd end of a back to back with their best player playing like shit.. Pretty simple for me.. Rockets are NOT better from what I saw..

I said it while the game was slipping away, Rockets don't have the firepower, but we'll gift the game to them. And it happened.

I don't really buy the B2B excuse since we had 3 straight home games, 2 of which were fairly easy.
And we have a young squad that averages way less minutes than important Rockets players do.

KD played 39 minutes, none of our starters played 35.
Castle played the most, which also says a lot about Mitch's ideas.

Harper had a good sequence in the 4th with 4 points, but Mitch decided to go back to Castle who then proceeded to shoot 0-5 with 0 assists in 10 minutes.

 

[scott]

If the players feel he is holding them back the FO would have little choice.. Wemby in particular. The question would be do you bring in a vet coach like a Mike Malone? A coach who had his own players revolt. But the rest of this season will be interesting. Mitch has to get better with line ups, managing min, X's and O's yeah everything.

Good point, and you are right and I think ultimately Vic - and really only Vic - is the guy who can force a change.

With that said, Vic appears nowhere near this cliff because despite being young he’s level headed and understands the team is ahead of schedule and many of them (including himself and Mitch) are learning as they go.

It’s one thing to talk about whether or not the Spurs should have hired someone else, or if the process should have been better/different… but talk of replacing him is futile because it isn’t going to happen.

Odds are that Mitch will eventually be fired, because all coaches get fired save for a very small few (Pop, Spo, etc) and I don’t have any ambition that Mitch is going to rise to that stature. Who we replace him with… who knows who will be available then, so it’s not really worth wasting brain power.

But, for the record, I wanted us to hire Becky.

 

[Dbreiden83080]

I said it while the game was slipping away, Rockets don't have the firepower, but we'll gift the game to them. And it happened.

I don't really buy the B2B excuse since we had 3 straight home games, 2 of which were fairly easy.
And we have a young squad that averages way less minutes than important Rockets players do.

KD played 39 minutes, none of our starters played 35.
Castle played the most, which also says a lot about Mitch's ideas.

Harper had a good sequence in the 4th with 4 points, but Mitch decided to go back to Castle who then proceeded to shoot 0-5 with 0 assists in 10 minutes.

Look we tried to go to Wemby down the stretch which was a mistake because he had zero rythm. That is where Fox needs to step it up but he has been mediocre AF of late.. It is possible long term Castle and Fox is NOT going to work. We will see?

 

[LeBowen]

Wemby wasint even carrying us today.He played bad today.Its true if he plays a lil better,we win this shit.

Please read the entire discussion.
That's the point I've been trying to make

We should have more than enough firepower to win a game or two without him carrying, especially when we're already up double digits.
As I said earlier, we went from looking unstoppable at times even when Wemby is injured to looking completely lost when he's not carrying games by himself.
If not for his carry jobs against the Jazz and Timberwolves, we'd be on a 1-5 streak right now.

 

[Ice009]

I'd rather fire him now. Didn't really want him in the first place, but the guy I wanted probably wouldn't have worked any better (Mike Malone).

 

[Dbreiden83080]

Good point, and you are right and I think ultimately Vic - and really only Vic - is the guy who can force a change.

With that said, Vic appears nowhere near this cliff because despite being young he’s level headed and understands the team is ahead of schedule and many of them (including himself and Mitch) are learning as they go.

It’s one thing to talk about whether or not the Spurs should have hired someone else, or if the process should have been better/different… but talk of replacing him is futile because it isn’t going to happen.

Odds are that Mitch will eventually be fired, because all coaches get fired save for a very small few (Pop, Spo, etc) and I don’t have any ambition that Mitch is going to rise to that stature. Who we replace him with… who knows who will be available then, so it’s not really worth wasting brain power.

But, for the record, I wanted us to hire Becky.

I wanted Becky as well and it looked like for a while she was going to be the replacement for Pop. But either she got impatient or maybe thought it was NOT going to happen..

 

[024]

Loss was definitely on Wemby and the coaching. Was still a winnable game if the Spurs shot just slightly better on 3s.

Speaking of 3pt shooting, the Spurs just don't have a good shooting team. I think Castle's role on this team may have to be addressed sometime in the not so distant future. With guards who can't shoot and wildly inconsistent shooters like Champagnie, Barnes, and Vassell, the Spurs have to find a way to address the problem.

Having Wemby constantly be okay catching the ball at the 3pt line also doesnt help as he should be more in the interior drawing defenders for quality looks outside.

 

[LeBowen]

Look we tried to go to Wemby down the stretch which was a mistake because he had zero rythm. That is where Fox needs to step it up but he has been mediocre AF of late.. It is possible long term Castle and Fox is NOT going to work. We will see?

Going to him down the stretch was too late.
We had multiple turnovers in situations when Rockets looked done and we were like 12 to 15 points up, but then gave the ball right back. Castle did it three times in the second half.
But Mitch kept giving him the ball.
He was obviously dead tired, but for some reason we're developing him as he's going to be the next heliocentric star. Then he resorted to stepbacks and the Rockets caught up.

I'm not going to make excuses for Fox, getting blocked at the rim so many times is seriously concerning, but he constantly gets thrown off his rythm whenever he gets hot by Mitch's rigid rotations.
Then when we start falling apart Mitch gives him the ball as if he was an all-time great that can score out of nothing at will.
Fox is good, but not that good.

 

[scott]

Sometimes players are not going to make shots, and that happens.

My concern, and perhaps one that is best discussed in another thread, is we keep banging our head against the wall with this disjointed Castle-led offense. I saw a headline this morning that the team (which I assume is Mitch and teammates) praising Castle’s grit last night. Who GAF about his grit when it’s his poor decision making partly at fault for sending our offense into a tailspin? He’s starting to remind me of the most inefficient eras of Vassell’s career when he would go Main Character mode and play ISO ball for 20 seconds.

Get the ball in Fox and Harper’s hands and get Castle moving off ball already.

 

[spurs2112]

Has he ever had a great game against the Rockets. Maybe the last home game was a good one, but he usually plays bad against Houston.

This is what I noticed too about Vic and mentioned in an earlier post. He doesn't seem to have good games against Houston. He seems to struggle against Sengun for some reason. I think its Senguns aggressiveness. I notice a lot of times Senguns puts hands on him even when Sengun doesn't have the ball. Almost every time when Houston was on offense Sengun would give Vic a little push, a nudge, just rough him up a bit. I don't think theyre fouls either (even though I think NBA refs are the worse and just straight up ass cheeks) just old school big on big back and forth. Well let me correct my self because I'm not really seeing any "forth" coming back from Vic. And when he does have the ball he bodies his way in like KJ does for the Spurs. From my observation Sengun literally bullies him and Vic doesn't respond well to it. It boggles my mind how that happens because we all seen him rise up and ball out against the Chets, KATs, Giannis's of the game.

 

[SpurSpike]

I'm not even a huge fan of Durant but my gut says it was a mistake not going after him last offseason. Would have probably cost Vassel, Sochan, Bryant and some seconds but it would have been worth it. Just having his basketball mind near Wemby (or even Mitch tbh) would have paid dividends and he can still ball.

 

[LeBowen]

Sometimes players are not going to make shots, and that happens.

My concern, and perhaps one that is best discussed in another thread, is we keep banging our head against the wall with this disjointed Castle-led offense. I saw a headline this morning that the team (which I assume is Mitch and teammates) praising Castle’s grit last night. Who GAF about his grit when it’s his poor decision making partly at fault for sending our offense into a tailspin? He’s starting to remind me of the most inefficient eras of Vassell’s career when he would go Main Character mode and play ISO ball for 20 seconds.

Get the ball in Fox and Harper’s hands and get Castle moving off ball already.

Exactly.
As I said, Mitch is full on pounding the rock mode with Castle.
I'm just a basketball peasant, but I think his take that Castle just needs to keep doing what he's doing and push through it is wrong.
Castle is struggling not because he's playing poorly, but because the way he's playing has been figured out and can't work against any competent paint defense.

I don't get their obsession with developing him into a point guard when they just extended Fox and Harper looks way better as a traditional playmaker than both of them.
Where's the rush? Butler wasn't a good playmaker until his 5th season. We got DDR at 29 and made him into a way better passer.

Again, just my peasant take, but I don't think tasking young players with developing multiple, unrelated aspects of their game simultaneously is optimal. Especially not since Castle is also the POA defender for us.
Have him focus on his shot this season with limited creation as the secondary/tertiary ballhandler.
Let him have the ball when he's doing well, but don't force the issue when he's struggling because a young player doesn't know any better than to double down in order to show his coach he's trying his best.
When in fact his best would be admitting defeat in that specific matchup and trying to win the game by adapting.

 

[Ice009]

This is what I noticed too about Vic and mentioned in an earlier post. He doesn't seem to have good games against Houston. He seems to struggle against Sengun for some reason. I think its Senguns aggressiveness. I notice a lot of times Senguns puts hands on him even when Sengun doesn't have the ball. Almost every time when Houston was on offense Sengun would give Vic a little push, a nudge, just rough him up a bit. I don't think theyre fouls either (even though I think NBA refs are the worse and just straight up ass cheeks) just old school big on big back and forth. Well let me correct my self because I'm not really seeing any "forth" coming back from Vic. And when he does have the ball he bodies his way in like KJ does for the Spurs. From my observation Sengun literally bullies him and Vic doesn't respond well to it. It boggles my mind how that happens because we all seen him rise up and ball out against the Chets, KATs, Giannis's of the game.

I could be wrong, but I just don't remember him having many great games against the Rockets (I think he may have had one). Sengun seems to really get up to play him, sort of like how Victor does for Chet.
The only reason I bought it up was because people were saying if Vic has a good game, Spurs win the game and they'll have no problem is a series against Houston. Well, my thoughts are, since he doesn't seem to have great games against Houston, how do you expect to beat them in a series if you're relying on Victor to play like he usually does against other teams to beat them.

 

[KDKSpurs24]

wrong. Just because we are ahead doesnt mean coach gets a pass blowing leads in nearly half the games. He is a bad coach. Young Ime didnt do this. Young Daignault didnt do this. Young Muzzula didnt do this. Young Brown etc etc

That Paul Garcia tweet on the most recent page states that we have only lost 3 games when leading by 15 or more.. 20-3. By your post I’m assuming you think it was way more than that. He doesn’t get a pass and I don’t think he’s a great coach or anything but those other coaches had different situations. Let’s not forget to factor in all these injuries and Wemby’s minutes restriction set by the organization/medical team. Let’s wait until Wemby is back playing over 30mins consistently without having to find minutes for our scrubs to make up for it. By the way, Daigneault only won 22, 24 and 40 games in his first 3 seasons. I’m also assuming you thought it was way better than that.

 

[spurraider21]

That Paul Garcia tweet on the most recent page states that we have only lost 3 games when leading by 15 or more.. 20-3. By your post I’m assuming you think it was way more than that. He doesn’t get a pass and I don’t think he’s a great coach or anything but those other coaches had different situations. Let’s not forget to factor in all these injuries and Wemby’s minutes restriction set by the organization/medical team. Let’s wait until Wemby is back playing over 30mins consistently without having to find minutes for our scrubs to make up for it. By the way, Daigneault only won 22, 24 and 40 games in his first 3 seasons. I’m also assuming you thought it was way better than that.

a better question is in those 23 games where we have led by 15 or more, how many of them have opponents come back to tie the game or take the lead at any point?

early in the season i recall even brooklyn storming back for a late lead before we were able to close. that's happened a lot too. our recent win againt minnesota a more recent example.

 

[spurs2112]

I could be wrong, but I just don't remember him having many great games against the Rockets (I think he may have had one). Sengun seems to really get up to play him, sort of like how Victor does for Chet.
The only reason I bought it up was because people were saying if Vic has a good game, Spurs win the game and they'll have no problem is a series against Houston. Well, my thoughts are, since he doesn't seem to have great games against Houston, how do you expect to beat them in a series if you're relying on Victor to play like he usually does against other teams to beat them.

Thats fair but they're also not wrong. If Vic shows up like we know he can Spurs chances of winning goes way up.

 

[KDKSpurs24]

a better question is in those 23 games where we have led by 15 or more, how many of them have opponents come back to tie the game or take the lead at any point?

early in the season i recall even brooklyn storming back for a late lead before we were able to close. that's happened a lot too. our recent win againt minnesota a more recent example.

It’s been quite a few times. No excuses but this happens all over the NBA. More often to mid to bad teams. The positive side to it is that we just so happen to find a way to win the majority of them. “Good teams find a way to win, bad teams find a way to lose”. But yes it definitely needs to be fixed, of course.

 

[Spursgenius]

Fire the horrible coach. Cant learn on the job with a generational talent.

 

[LeBowen]

Harper the only one who had a positive stretch in the 4th, but mastermind Mitch sat him after 4 minutes because rotations shall not be adjusted.

 

[spurraider21]

It’s been quite a few times. No excuses but this happens all over the NBA. More often to mid to bad teams. The positive side to it is that we just so happen to find a way to win the majority of them. “Good teams find a way to win, bad teams find a way to lose”. But yes it definitely needs to be fixed, of course.

doesnt happen with OKC. when they take a big lead, they keept their foot on the opponent's throat. they dont stop attacking the basket, they sure as hell dont stop hounding defensively. its wire to wire with them.