San Antonio Spurs to work on ‘details’ for NBA visit to Washington Wizards

WASHINGTON – The San Antonio Spurs will look to shrug off consecutive one-point defeats and rediscover their winning ways when they square off on Feb 10 (Feb 11, Singapore time) against the hosts Washington Wizards.

The Spurs captured the first game of the season between the teams 139-130 at home on Nov 13, but there have been plenty of changes since. Both squads welcomed new faces at the trade deadline, most notably De’Aaron Fox joining the Spurs and former National Basketball Association Defensive Player of the Year Marcus Smart now a member of the Wizards.

Washington remain at home for the third contest of a five-game homestand before the All-Star break but have dropped their past two contests, most recently a 125-111 setback to the Atlanta Hawks on Feb 8, after a season-best three-game winning streak.

Bub Carrington paced the Wizards with 23 points in the Feb 8 loss while Jordan Poole added 21.

The Wizards have just nine wins after regular-season 52 games but three of those have been produced since Feb 1.

Against Atlanta, Washington trailed by 23 early in the fourth quarter. They trimmed the deficit to 112-104 on a Poole basket with seven minutes left but never got closer than seven points the rest of the way.

“We’re playing a lot more together,” Carrington said. “But that was gonna come. No one knew each other on the team.

“We’re just getting a lot more comfortable with each other and playing more together on both ends of the floor, defensively especially. We’ve had a lot of growth on that end.”

The Spurs head to Washington after a 117-116 defeat by Charlotte Hornets on Feb 7 and a 112-111 loss at the Orlando Magic the next day, when Devin Vassell led San Antonio with 25 points while Harrison Barnes scored 21, Victor Wembanyama added 18 points, nine rebounds and four blocks.

The newly acquired Fox had just nine points for the Spurs on three-of-11 shooting in his third game with the team.

The Spurs led by seven points after a Fox free throw with over three minutes to play but were outscored 10-2 down the stretch.

After the Magic went up by a point with 25.3 seconds left, San Antonio had a final possession but Wembanyama missed a 20-foot jumper.

San Antonio have dropped three of their first four games of a six-game road trip. The loss to Orlando dropped the Spurs (22-28) to a season-worst six games under .500.

“Crunch time execution is just something that we have to continue to improve upon because that’s how close the games are in the balance,” Spurs acting coach Mitch Johnson said.

“Whether it was a free throw block out in the first half, that didn’t feel like that had the attention or the last play, it’s a possession, right?”

Said Barnes: “It comes down to the details. It is little things like that. Obviously, you can always nitpick last possessions and over-analyse those but there are fundamental things that we are not doing that in game 50 we should be doing.”

In action on Feb 9, Damian Lillard scored a season-high 43 points to lead the Milwaukee Bucks to a 135-127 win over the visiting Philadelphia 76ers on Feb 9.

Lillard added seven rebounds and eight assists for Milwaukee, who played without All-Star Giannis Antetokounmpo (strained left calf).

Six other Bucks scored in double figures, led by 23 from reserve Gary Trent Jr, who shot seven of 15 from three-point range.

Lillard went eight of 15 from distance as Milwaukee made a season-high 24 threes on 55 attempts (43.6 per cent).

In Texas, Dillon Brooks scored a team-high 19 points, Jalen Green added 18 and the short-handed Houston Rockets rode a strong performance from their reserves to a 94-87 victory over the visiting Toronto Raptors, snapping a six-game skid.

Elsewhere, Cade Cunningham recorded a triple-double with 19 points, 12 assists and 10 rebounds and the Detroit Pistons never trailed while earning a 112-102 victory over the visiting Hornets. REUTERS