San Antonio vs. Sacramento, Final Score: Spurs win ugly against the Kings in OT, 105-104

Scott Wachter-USA TODAY Sports

A win is a win no matter how you get there.

The Spurs got another wild win in overtime, this time against the Kings, for their first set of consecutive wins since October, but it wasn’t pretty. After a building a double-digit halftime lead, the inconsistent Spurs once again made an appearance, getting behind by as much as nine and withstanding a super streaky fourth quarter to win 105-104 in overtime. A win is a win, no matter how ugly.

LaMarcus Aldridge returned from injury to give the Spurs 19 points and 13 rebounds, and Jakob Poeltl had a season-high 13 points on 5-5 shooting while continuing his block fest with another 3 on the night. Buddy Hield led the Kings with 23 points, albeit on 10-27 shooting.

Observations

  • With all this hype about #FlashbackFriday and use of the old logo tonight, you’d think maybe there was a possibility the Spurs were going to release new alternate uniforms and surprise us all by being Fiesta-themed. (Last season’s Earned Editions were released around roughly the same time, so why not?) But alas, it was not meant to be. They just wore their generic home uniforms. At least Dejounte Murray, Trey Lyles and Patty Mills were in on the fun with some colorful shoes.
  • It was certainly interesting having Joey Crawford in the building as a “referee evaluator,” of all things. Hopefully Tim Duncan was minding his Ps and Qs on the bench.
  • With two threes in the second quarter, DeMar DeRozan has now hit a triple in three of his last four games. It’s also the first time he hit multiple threes in a game since the third game of last season, when he hit two against the Lakers. With another clutch three in the fourth, it was his first game with three 3’s since the 2018 playoffs when he was with the Raptors.
  • Lonnie Walker IV came in off the bench to a nice round of applause in the first quarter. He was solid, but Marco Belinelli entered in the second quarter and hit two straight threes, along with some nice movement off the ball for a layup. Spicy Meatball isn’t going down quietly.
  • The Spurs held the Kings to an opponent season-low 42 points in the first half for a 10-point lead, but as they are wont to do just when things start feeling comfortable, they came out slow in the second half, allowing the Kings a 13-5 run right out of the gates. They ultimately outscored the Spurs by 13 to take a three-point lead heading into the fourth quarter. The inconsistency of this Spurs team from game-to-game, half-to-half, and quarter-to-quarter is mind blowing.
  • DeRozan got his third technical foul of the season for spiking the ball in the third quarter. It’s unclear if it was out of frustration with himself or the refs (maybe he wanted a foul called when the refs had just called a simple out-of-bounds on the Kings), but that’s still going to get called every time.
  • The fourth quarter was a streak fest and yet another example of the Spurs’ maddening inconsistency. The Kings continued to build their lead to eight points before the Spurs responded with an 8-0 run to tie things up. The Kings responded to that with a 6-0 run. Later, the Spurs used another 7-0 run to tie things back up again with just under four minute left, only to immediately give up a 9-0 run. They responded again with an 8-0 run to get within 1 with 47 sec left. Then chaos…
  • Both coaches used their coach’s challenge in the final minute. Luke Walton tried to get an offensive foul on Harrison Barnes overturned with no success, but the Spurs couldn’t make anything of it (although it’s arguable Aldridge should have gotten free throws). On the Kings’ next possession with 15 sec left, the Spurs got a clean steal and appeared ready for a breakaway to take the lead, but the refs called a foul on Murray. Pop successfully challenged the call, but unfortunately the result in that scenario is a jump ball, which the Kings technically won after Aldridge tipped it out of bounds. Fortunately, Belinelli came to the rescue after the Kings hit their FT’s with a game-tying three to force OT and save the refs’ behinds.
  • Overtime was super ugly with both teams tired and struggling to even get shots up. The only points in the first four minutes was two DeRozan free throws and a Hield jumper. Mills missed two of three free throws before Hield hit another jumper to take the lead. Murray responded with a jumper to retake the lead by one, then chaos again.
  • In the last 30 seconds, the Kings got FOUR shots up on THREE offensive rebounds. Perhaps in a bit of justice for the refs’ mishap in the fourth, they missed all the shots, and the Spurs held on to win consecutive games for the first time since starting the season 3-0 in October and three of their last four. Like they always say, it’s not how you win, but how many.

For the King’s fans’ perspective, visit Sactown Royalty.

The Spurs now get a rare five nights off before completely their three-game homestand against the Cavaliers on Thursday. Tip-off will be at 7:30 PM CT on FSSW.

San Antonio vs. Sacramento, Final Score: Spurs win ugly against the Kings in OT, 105-104
San Antonio vs. Sacramento, Final Score: Spurs win ugly against the Kings in OT, 105-104

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