Game 64: De'Aaron Fox scores 32 in Spurs' win over Dallas

(1) De'Aaron Fox's 32 points and 11 assists. (2) Spurs attacked Dallas inside. (3) Improvement from Spurs on the glass and in forcing Mavs into turnovers.

Photo credit: @Spurs on X

For one half of Wednesday’s rematch between the San Antonio Spurs and Dallas Mavericks, the game was close, with the Spurs going into halftime with a 2-point lead. In the third quarter though, San Antonio would create some separation, outscoring Dallas by 8 points, and going into the fourth with a 10-point lead. In the fourth, Dallas matched San Antonio with 29 points each, but that only meant the Spurs were able to build a lead as large as 15 points, and they eventually went on to win by 10.

Though they’ve only led by 15 points in 22 of their games this season, the Spurs have taken care of business for the most part when that happens, improving to 18-4 when leading by 15 points.

The win gave the Spurs their 27th victory of the season (27-37), where they still sit 13th out West. Here are the play-in race and lottery order updates following the win as of 10:00 PM CT on Wednesday.

• Play-in race update: The Spurs are now 4.5 games behind the Mavericks (10th out West), 2 games behind the Phoenix Suns (11th out West), and they’re tied with the Portland Trail Blazers (12th out West), though Portland is ahead by just a few percentage points.

• Lottery order update: The win moves the Spurs back to 9th in the lottery order, being just 0.5 games ahead of the Chicago Bulls (8th). They’re also now 5 games ahead of the Toronto Raptors (7th), and 5.5 games ahead of both the Brooklyn Nets (6th) and Philadelphia 76ers (5th).

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On Offense

Just like the Spurs are dealing with a lack of size in the frontcourt, so are the Mavs, and San Antonio took advantage, by attacking Dallas inside over and over again. Over half of the Spurs’ shots came from the paint (52%), where San Antonio scored 66 paint points and finished well in the paint (67% accuracy).

De’Aaron Fox (14 paint points), Keldon Johnson (14 paint), Jeremy Sochan (12 paint), and Harrison Barnes (10 paint) led the way inside, with each player finishing with double digit paint points.