Game 1: Spurs 109, Mavs 120

1) What went wrong in the Spurs' loss to Dallas? 2) Players observations on Wemby, Julian Champagnie, Harrison Barnes, Jeremy Sochan, and more Spurs players.

The San Antonio Spurs opened the 2024-25 regular season with a road loss Thursday in Dallas.

The game was close for two quarters, but then in the third quarter, Dallas began the quarter with a run. The Spurs battled back to cut the Mavs’ 14 point lead to 3, but in the beginning of the fourth quarter, Luka Doncic and Klay Thompson helped the Mavs open a 21-point lead. With six minutes left, San Antonio Spurs Head Coach Gregg Popovich pulled the starters out of the game.

“I think we’ve got to get better at reducing how bad those runs the opponent make are,” said Victor Wembanyama of the Mavs building the 14-point lead in the third quarter. Wemby said he knows his team will fight back, but he wants them to stop the opponent run even sooner.

“I loved the fight that we showed,” said Chris Paul after the game. “There’s no moral victories, but we played against a team that went to the Finals. There’s a continuity that they have, but I think for me not knowing what to expect, preseason is one thing, the regular season is another thing. But I’m honestly so excited about the spurts that I’ve seen and knowing what’s capable of our team.”

“When they went on that run, we've got to figure out what are we going to do to settle down,” said Paul of the third quarter. “That team over there, they knew.”

“The goal is to learn all that stuff and win at the same time,” finished Paul on how winning has to be part of the learning process this season.

“I thought we showed some character there in the second half, after going through some adversity in the third,” said Harrison Barnes after the game. “I thought we did a good job for the group to just battle back.”

Now let’s analyze the loss for the Spurs, beginning with what went wrong on both ends. After that , I shared my observations on a few players.

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What went wrong on offense?

• Turnovers - The Spurs turned the ball over 19 times in the game, and Dallas scored 17 points off those turnovers. In the second half, the Mavs applied more pressure when the Spurs were trying to bring the ball up the floor, and that allowed Dallas to get on a run and open their first double digit lead of the game. Dallas was able to outscore the Spurs 23-13 in fast break points because of the Spurs’ difficulty holding onto the ball.

• 3-point shooting - The Spurs shot just 33% from outside. Aside from Julian Champagnie (4-of-8) and Barnes (2-of-5), the other Spurs players who attempted over 4 threes, made just one each (Paul, Wemby).

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What went wrong on defense?

• Opponent 3-point shooting - The Mavs outscored the Spurs by 21 points from the 3-point line, as Dallas knocked down 43% of their triples. From the corner in particular, Dallas shot 6-of-9 (67%). While there’s little a defender can do when Luka Doncic has his step-back three going, too often the Mavs were generating open 3-point looks for players like Klay Thompson and Jaden Hardy, when the Spurs started to send two defenders toward the ball when Luka or Kyrie Irving were running the offense. This will be an area where the Spurs will have to work on their rotations and communication out on the perimeter.

• “Obviously he’s been doing it his entire career,” said Barnes of Klay after the game. “I thought we could have done a better job of making him work for his baskets, but when you leave a Hall-of-Famer open for threes, he’s going to knock them in. He does that at a high clip.”

• Rebounding - While the Spurs won the glass overall by 2 rebounds, there was a stark difference in offensive rebounds. Dallas collected 17 offensive boards compared to the Spurs’ 12 offensive rebounds. Dallas outscored the Spurs 24-10 in second chance points.

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Wemby - 17 points on 18 shots (1-of-8 from three), 6/6 free throws, 9 rebounds, 1 assist to 4 turnovers, 1 block in 28 minutes

• After playing limited minutes in just two preseason games, it wasn’t a surprise that Wemby was rusty, both with his ball handling when seeing multiple defenders, and with his jump shot.

• After the game Wemby said his conditioning still wasn’t quite where he’s used to after not playing since the summer (the Olympics), but he said it won’t take long for him to get back to his normal conditioning. “One or two games, should be quick,” said Victor of how fast he’ll be adjusted to the speed of the NBA game.