San Antonio vs. Portland Final Score: Spurs get burned by the Blazers 117-110

The San Antonio Spurs headed to The Moda Center to face the Trailblazers after a brutal 132-95 loss to the Golden State Warriors yesterday. Noticeably absent was Tre Jones, who was out of the Warriors game due to a stomach illness (Side note: The stomach virus seems to be going around in San Antonio lately).

His presence was missed against the last night, since the Spurs weren’t as effective on transition, and had offensive struggles throughout the whole game. Luckily for the Spurs, he was in for tonight’s game against the Blazers and gave the Spurs an offensive boost, but it wasn’t quite enough as they fell again, 110-117 thanks to some costly mistakes down the stretch.

Observations

• The Spurs got off to an early start. After missing the first shot of the game, the Spurs got an early lead at 13-4. This was a combination of poor shooting from the Blazers in the first few minutes, and Devin Vassell shooting back-to-back threes. Keldon Johnson kept up that momentum behind the perimeter and nailed another three shortly after. Sochan and Poeltl were aggressive at rebounding and playing good defense, and before you knew it, the Spurs were 6-of-7 shot attempts to start the game.
• Shortly after a time out was called, there was a shift in momentum. The Spurs committed a few costly turnovers, and the Blazers were able to capitalize and go on a 18-7 run. Despite Charles Bassey being a blocking bully on the court and Doug McDermott hitting a beautiful three, they couldn’t keep the momentum and fell short in the first quarter, and Josh Richardson hit a buzzer beater giving the Spurs 29-30 to end the 1st.
• Seeing Drew Eubanks and Jakob Poeltl guarding each other is very twilight zone-is. Is anyone still not used to seeing former Spurs in new jerseys?
• Devin Vassell hits a 3 to start the 2rd quarter, and quickly follows it up with a moving quick in transition after a missed Blazers shot, and tossing it up for a quick under-handed 2-pointer.
• Tre Jones came off with a nice steal which led to Richardson making a quick 2. It’s nice seeing Jones back playing aggressive. His presence was missed in the Warriors game, where is was evident that he was needed for his speed and accuracy in transition. He is all over the place tonight.
• Vassell nails another 2 inside the paint. This. Guy. Is. Underrated.
• Sochan’s athletic rebound outside of the bounds and pushing the ball off into the open court definitely gave Dennis Rodman vibes. It was super fluid.
• Also want to give credit to the beautiful dye job Sochan has. Pink hair is by far the most complimenting color he’s had on his noggin this season. It’s a nice beautiful pastel, goes well with the fiesta jerseys, and is much more flattering than a hot pink that people normally tend to lean towards as far as hair color is concerned. It’s much easier to dye your hair hot pink if your hair is naturally dark (although pastel and hot can both be achieved with bleached hair). Pastel is more of a risky color though, and it blended evenly across his whole head and didn’t get patchy as hair color can sometimes get when you don’t distribute the color properly, or if you don’t leave the color on for the correct amount of time before rinsing it off.

• Here’s a deep dive on what pink hair symbolizes in case you’re curious:

• Seems like there was an uncalled foul on Damian Lillard after he hit Doug McDermott’s arm on the last play right in front of the referee. Where was the foul call? Do you all think it was a foul? This lead to a Spurs turnover.
• The 2nd quarter has just been brutal tonight, and it seems like all season Spurs tend to struggle in the 2nd quarter and come back in the third. Blazers went on a 16-3 run and absolutely dominated in the final minutes of the 2nd quarter to lead by half 62-56.
• Tre Jones starts the 2nd half one fire with a nice steal and layup, Poeltl capitalizes off that momentum by scoring quickly shortly afterwards.
• Keldon Johnson hits his 3rd three and is 3-of-3 from downtown. His 3-point shooting is elite.
• Keldon Johnson looks incredibly sharp tonight along with Devin Vassell and Jakob Poeltl. All three players are emerging in the 3rd quarter to keep the game close.
• Jakob Poeltl is 12-14 from the floor and has a career-high 31 points tonight. THIS JAKOB is THE JAKOB the Spurs need. If he could be like this every single night, the Spurs would be unstoppable.
• Keldon Johnson gets a layup and a foul with 8 minutes left in the fourth quarter. The way they’ve been able to do a great job exploiting every single mismatch tonight has been great to watch.
• Spurs call a timeout with 4 minutes left in the game after having a 6-point lead but came up shooting blanks on the offensive side of the board.
• Keldon Johnson just travelled and had a costly turnover while the Spurs are trying to hold on to a two-point lead, and Drew Eubanks capitalizes off getting a 2-pointer and one against Jakob Poeltl.
• Keita Bates-Diop got blocked by Dame Lillard and got fouled. The crowd at the Moda Center is going crazy off of the Blazer’s renewed energy.
• Dame hits a deep three. Score is now 110-106. Pop, please call a time out.
• Eubanks gets called for goaltending. The Blazers do not think this was not goaltending, but call still stays and score is now 108-110.
• Keldon Johnson gets another turnover. 2 costly turnovers at the worst times. Pop looks upset on the side of the court.
• Anfernee Simons hit a three at the buzzer, the crowd is so insane, I can hear it through the TV.
• Keldon gets an easy floater and puts up some points to keep the game close, but Keldon got the ball stolen (3rd turnover in less than 5 minutes from Keldon) and cost them another 2 points.
• Sochan was smart to foul with 33 seconds left in the game.
• Spurs were up by 6 less than 5 minutes ago, but unfortunately cannot close out the game. Those 3 turnovers by Keldon were super costly, and a ton of minor mistakes in the last five minutes cost the Spurs the game 117-110, Blazers.

For the Blazer’s perspective, visit Blazer’s Edge.

The Spurs continue their road trip and head to Sacramento to face the Kings Thursday, November 17th at 9:00 PM CST.