In the end, the Spurs had a chance. Maybe that’s all they could have asked for.
The Spurs were missing five of their top 10 scorers Wednesday, had not played in 10 days after four coronavirus postponements and were all kinds of out of sorts.
To call the 10-man roster that arrived at Chesapeake Energy Arena in Oklahoma City a skeleton crew would be an insult to skeletons.
The Spurs might have won anyway had they managed not to give Luguentz Dort the most wide-open 3-point attempt he had seen since his boyhood driveway in Quebec.
Dort’s 3-pointer at the horn lifted OKC to a 102-99 victory, putting the kibosh on what might have been a Cinderella-type night for the plucky Spurs.
No DeMar DeRozan, Derrick White, Keldon Johnson, Rudy Gay, Devin Vassell or Quinndary Weatherspoon, and the Spurs still almost managed to win an NBA game.
Dort supplied the final dagger for the Thunder, but it was up-and-coming guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander who did most of the heavy lifting.
He finished with a career-best 42 points against the Spurs’ decimated guard corps.
It was a game the Spurs might have pulled out anyhow.
With Dejounte Murray shouldering most of the scoring load, with 27 points and nine rebounds, the Spurs led by 11 points in the second half and by eight with 9:19 to play.
The Spurs played hard, played through mistakes and did their best to overcome disjointed periods wrought by unfamiliar lineups that ought to have been wearing nametags.
Nevertheless, the Spurs couldn’t maintain their fourth-quarter cushion. And hen Dort drilled a check-the-wind 3-pointer out of a timeout at the buzzer, it put an inauspicious ending to the Spurs’ first game since a Feb. 14 victory in Charlotte.
With the loss, the Spurs dropped to 13-1 this season when forging a double-digit lead.
On the bright side, the Spurs (16-12) still finished their COVID-interrupted rodeo trip 2-1, posting their first winning record on the annual trek since 2016-17.
Here are three more takeaways from the Spurs’ short-handed defeat:
Patty Mills deserved a better ending
The veteran guard didn’t have his best game Wednesday, but he was all guts down the stretch.
The Spurs had fallen behind by seven on a full-of-foreshadowing Dort 3-pointer with 3:36 left and seemed almost done for.
Mills, the team’s longest-tenured player, wouldn’t let the Spurs throw in the towel. He answered Dort’s 3-pointer with one of his own, then wiggled for back-to-back tricky layups in the paint.
In all, Mills scored seven of his 15 points in a span of 1:47 of the fourth, and when Lonnie Walker added a layup, the Spurs had knotted the game at 99 with 29.9 seconds left.
Gilgeous-Alexander missed a 3-pointer on the other end, and the Spurs rebounded and called timeout with 10.7 seconds left.
This is where Mills’ night took an unfortunate turn.
The Spurs should have been able to get off the final shot of the fourth quarter. Worst-case scenario should have been overtime. Instead, Mills got caught in a soft trap on the right sideline and double-dribbled.
That turnover gave OKC the ball with 3.9 seconds left, setting up Dort for the game-winner.
Mills was involved in that play as well, diving to help Jakob Poeltl defend Al Horford in the paint.
Horford beat the double-team by shipping the ball to Dort, who in turn beat the Spurs.
It was an entertaining point guard showdown at least
So Gilgeous-Alexander vs. Murray isn’t going to draw in the TNT crowd the way, say, Steph Curry vs. Damian Lillard might.
Virtual fans at Chesapeake Energy Arena were treated to an epic point guard showdown Wednesday.
Gilgeous-Alexander reached his career best with 34 points late in the third quarter, then added to that tally in the fourth.
He made 6 of 11 3-point tries, and was aggressive in getting to the foul line, where he was 10 of 11.
The 22-year-old Gilgeous-Alexander — who is averaging 25 points in February — was at times the only OKC player who seemed capable of hurting the Spurs. And yet, they still could not get him corralled.
Murray was no slouch either.
The Spurs’ 24-year-old lead guard flirted with a career-high of his own and came within two points of matching the 29 he logged earlier this season against the Lakers.
He also had less help, perhaps, than Gilgeous-Alexander did.
Typically, the Spurs would have had multiple defensive options to try and cool off a scorching-hot guard such as Gilgeous-Alexander.
With White and Johnson both in health and safety protocols, it was mostly Murray or bust Wednesday. Gilgeous-Alexander was close to unstoppable.
LaMarcus Aldridge is back but comes off the bench
The 35-year-old Aldridge returned from a three-week injury layoff Wednesday and found himself in an unfamiliar place.
On the bench.
It marked the first time Aldridge played but did not start since Feb. 26, 2007, his rookie season in Portland.
With a handful of cards missing from the deck, Spurs coach Gregg Popovich opted to reshuffle everything.
He started Murray, Walker, and erstwhile G Leaguer Luka Samanic in the backcourt with Trey Lyles and Jakob Poeltl in the frontcourt.
Aldridge did his best to adjust to all of this, while playing for the first time since Feb. 1.
He finished with 11 points, grabbed seven rebounds — his most since Jan. 22 — and made 2 of 3 attempts from 3-point range.
Aldridge also made 1 of 7 shots from 2-point range, a driving baseline dunk in the third quarter.
With the way Poeltl in particular and the Spurs in general played in Aldridge’s six-game absence, it would not be a shock to see the seven-time All-Star remain a fixture on the bench once the roster is at full strength again.
If that is the case, it will be interesting to see how Aldridge adapts.
Jeff McDonald reported from San Antonio.
jmcdonald@express-news.net
Twitter: @JMcDonald
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