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

[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.

 

[scott]

Great chart @LeBowen - where did you get this one from?

The giant Julian-sized hole in the 3rd going into the 4th stands out to me, and Keldon's rotation also look particularly egregious.

 

[LeBowen]

Great chart @LeBowen - where did you get this one from?

I was actually trying to find if any site has the data on largest leads in the game without having to do it manually, then stumbled upon it on basketball-reference.

Spurs vs Rockets, January 20, 2026 | Basketball-Reference.com

SAS (106) vs HOU (111). Get the box score, shot charts and play by play summary of the Spurs vs Rockets, January 20, 2026.

www.basketball-reference.com

It's the plus/minus thing.

Play-by-play is also nice.

Yikes.

And the 4th quarter shot chart:

 

[brazil]

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.

tbh fwiw...

 

[Weeks]

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.

yep, i remember very few garbage time minutes for this team

 

[scott]

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.

In addition to Brooklyn, feels like every game we've played against NOP this season went that way (we get to play them again on Sunday, fwiw)

 

[spurraider21]

In addition to Brooklyn, feels like every game we've played against NOP this season went that way (we get to play them again on Sunday, fwiw)

yep. very early in the season they frankly should have won but harper saved us and got us into OT

and then more recenty i recall Fox's first game back where he actually hit a dagger shot, but again, pelicans stormed back and took a late lead iirc. and then most recently derrick queen nearly single handedly beat us but we were able to close, harper with the layup to put us up 1

 

[spurs2112]

View attachment 514
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.

Thats my biggest gripe with Mitch so far (if I remember correctly Pop was the same). It sucks when a player gets pulled after making bucket after bucket after bucket just because their preset time to get benched comes up. Shits annoying and costing the Spurs games. It's like he can't or is scared to make any in-game adjustments or get a feel for the flow of the game.

 

[RC_Drunkford]

 

[BatManu20]

Good thing we kept chucking 'em anyways.

https://twitter.com/x/status/2013834051694501892

 

[KDKSpurs24]

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.

OKC shouldn’t be in this discussion. OKC is in year 4 of being a good/great team. Or however you want to put it. We are in year 1. Even if you want to say that OKC did it last year, that means that we can’t judge this team until about 2 seasons from now. We are in the equivalent year 1 of when OKC went 40-42. And we are already better than that. We won’t win it this years anyways. But if we are still doing this next season THEN you can start saying what you’re saying.

 

[Ice009]

Why not get ahead of it and say it now? Who says we have to wait. Why does there have to be rules that we must wait? Doesn't make sense to me.

 

[Dex]

View attachment 514
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.

Good stuff.

I was so excited because we actually had a solid third quarter last night...then the 4th happened.

 

[DTW]

I could see this one coming a mile away. Wembanyama and Johnson were due for significant regression to the mean from 3, while no one was due for significant progression.

As a whole, the Spurs were multiple games up on their expected record, which seems to be an automatic loss for this team, while the Rockets were multiple down on theirs.

No less predictable but more disappointing was how they lost it, with low IQ offense.

 

[scott]

These L2M reports for the NBA are useless since there is no accountability for missed calls... but the NBA at least acknowledges that this should have been called a foul.