Victor Wembanyama gave the Austin crowd the kind of show it came for. The Houston Rockets still had the last word.
With the San Antonio Spurs pushing for a late comeback Saturday, Wembanyama was found on the block with a chance to tie. He rose for the finish, only for Amen Thompson to wipe it away with a huge block that sealed Houston’s 114-110 win and dropped San Antonio to 0-2.
It was a sharp response from Wembanyama after the roughest shooting night of his career in the opener. He finished with 25 points and 13 rebounds, and San Antonio did a solid job of feeding him near the rim all night. But on the play that mattered most, the Rockets shut the door.
Houston had built an 11-point lead before the Spurs clawed all the way back. The finish turned into a duel between Wembanyama’s length and Thompson’s timing, and Thompson won it with what looked like one of the game’s defining defensive plays. The Rockets moved to 2-0.
San Antonio had chances elsewhere, too. De’Aaron Fox scored 19 points and handed out nine assists, Dylan Harper added 20, and Stephon Castle chipped in 15 points, seven rebounds and five assists.
But the Spurs couldn’t quite get their spacing and execution in sync when those three guards shared the floor. As a group, San Antonio shot 7-for-21 and 2-for-12 from 3-point range in those lineups, and Houston outscored them by 12. Harper and Castle combined to go 1-for-9 during those stretches, most of it coming in the first two runs to start each half.
The bench helped spark a fourth-quarter push while Wembanyama rested, and when the starters returned to finish, that unit delivered San Antonio’s best stretch of the night.
“Late, when we played properly and appropriately - how we’re supposed to - our offense looked really good," Johnson said.
Still, the Spurs were fighting a few rough edges all night. They shot 32 percent from deep and committed 15 turnovers. They stayed within striking distance the whole way, but never managed to string together enough clean possessions to grab the lead by more than a point.
“I feel like details are the biggest thing when it comes to games like this," Harper said afterward. "We've got to get stops and run, that's the biggest thing."
The slow start is not exactly what San Antonio wanted, but the mood after two losses wasn’t panic. When Harper was asked about the concern level, he wanted to know how many games were left. Once told there are 80 before the playoffs, he made it clear he isn’t losing sleep over 0-2.
"It's not gonna be perfect from day one," he said. "Obviously we're still figuring it out with the group we have... obviously you need to have a type of poise and a type of energy to get it right, but at the same time having it in the back of our mind that we've got a long way to go with this group.
Mitch Johnson was even more direct when addressing the fans uneasy after the opening two losses.
"I hope they stay around for the next 80," he said.
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Still, the early spark has not erased the larger worry around this teams start, and the second quarter in Houston has only added to the sense that there is more work to do. The Spurs now head toward a meeting with the Mavericks looking for something more complete than a fast opening from Wembanyama, because the real question for San Antonio is whether the rest of the roster can match his urgency soon enough to steady the season. [Read more 🡒]