Two bright spots in the Spurs’ gloomy loss to Celtics

Daniel Dunn-USA TODAY Sports

Patty Mills and Trey Lyles stood out among a field of “meh”.

There were very few positives to take away from the Spurs blowout loss to the Celtics. Although Boston is the hottest team in the league, there was little excuse for the Spurs’ listless performance (perhaps beyond the awkward 4:00 PM starting time on a Saturday).

One positive was Patty Mills, who has been on a tear that continued against Boston with 20 points on 7-12 shooting (3-6 from three) and has him sitting near the top of the league in three-point shooting.

The other bright spot was Trey Lyles, who after a slow start to the season is beginning to take and make three-pointers for the Spurs. After shooting just 0-7 from three in their first 6 games (including two games with zero attempts), Lyles has shot 6-10 in the last three games, including 3-5 against Boston on his way to a season-high 10 points, boosting his percentage to .375 on the for the season.

It would not be unreasonable to expect him to sustain those numbers considering he has shot over 38% from three twice in his career already, including in 2017-18 when he had three attempts per game for the Nuggets.

When someone isn’t red hot, the Spurs starters need all the help they can get to space the floor on offense. Lyles becoming a willing and able three-point shooter will go a long way in accomplishing that goal and justify his starting job even more.