The San Antonio Spurs will look to hold onto their home-court advantage and build on the experience gained from their first playoff game since 2019 when they square off against the Portland Trail Blazers on Tuesday in Game 2 of their Western Conference first-round playoff series.
The Spurs, the second seed in the West, own a 1-0 lead in the best-of-seven series after a 111-98 win on Tuesday in the Alamo City. The series moves to Portland for Games 3 and 4.
San Antonio star Victor Wembanyama hit for 35 points in Sunday’s victory and broke Tim Duncan’s franchise record (32 in 1998) for points in a playoff debut. He led all first-half scorers with 21 points — a league record for most in the first half of an NBA playoff debut going back to 1997, the start of the play-by-play era.
“I thought (Wembanyama) was ready, and he probably settled in a little bit later when he made some shots and his talent popped,” Spurs coach Mitch Johnson said. “He really settled in there at a point when our defense kicked it into another gear, and we got organized, we got set, and he was doing a really good job of talking. He obviously made some shots, but he set some good screens, too.”
But Wembanyama did not score in the third quarter, as it was the other Spurs players that were the catalysts in a decisive run that turned a two-point advantage into a 21-point lead two minutes into the final period. Stephon Castle and De’Aaron Fox added 17 points apiece for San Antonio, with Devin Vassell scoring 15 and Luke Kornet hitting for 10.
Vassell had eight straight points and two blocked shots in the Spurs’ third-quarter surge with Wembanyama on the bench.
“(Vassell), obviously, he made some shots, and during that stretch, (he) had some winning plays like that,” Johnson said. “Kornet had some monster plays like that. Julian Champagnie did — I mean, that’s what it’s going to take in these games.
“It’s a lot more than the shot-making, especially when teams are making runs. To minimize their run and maximize ours, depending on the circumstance of the game, those are the plays that will do that for you.”
Deni Avdija racked up 30 points and 10 rebounds to lead the Trail Blazers, who are the West’s seventh seed. Scoot Henderson scored 18, Robert Williams III had 11 (including his first career playoff 3-pointer), Shaedon Sharpe hit for 10 and Jrue Holiday distributed 11 assists.
The latter two players combined to go 8 for 28 from the floor and 1 for 11 from beyond the arc in a game Portland shot just 26.3% on its 38 3-point attempts.
“The Spurs put you in tough positions, and you’ve got to shoot the ball well from three, and we didn’t,” Trail Blazers coach Tiago Splitter said afterward. “You’ve got to shoot the ball better in a postseason game.”
It was the first time this season that the Trail Blazers faced Wembanyama after the French standout missed the first three meetings with injuries. Splitter said his team would learn from Game 1 and focus on what it needs to do to get better.
“There’s a lot of things to learn from him because he changes the game so much,” Splitter said about how the Trail Blazers would approach stopping Wembanyama as the series progressed. “You got to go back, watch film, more practice and go from there.
“We played hard, (and my players) fought. Wasn’t our best night. But you know, this is a series, and we got to adjust and go fight again and point out about it being a series.”
