SAN ANTONIO – The San Antonio Spurs were back inside the Frost Bank Center to address some of the issues from last night’s loss.
Even though the Spurs led for more than half of the game and built a lead as large as 14 points, they couldn’t get things going offensively as smoothly as they would have liked.
The Spurs didn’t play to their usual standard.
The Silver and Black turned the ball over 13 times, leading to 19 points for their opponent.
“It didn’t take too much film or too deep a dig to find the second-chance points,” said Spurs head coach Mitch Johnson. “It’s clearly one of them. Sixteen assists is not a reflection of this program ever since I’ve been here, and decades before I was. We can be much sharper on a lot of game-plan execution stuff.”
Spurs veteran forward Harrison Barnes echoed those sentiments, saying many of their mistakes from Game 1 were self-inflicted.
“I think there were a lot of possessions offensively that we had where it took us a long time to get into our set, or it was our connectivity when we got to the set,” said Barnes. “Those are little things that we can clean up. When you play a group like these guys who can make you pay for the mistakes that you do make, especially in terms of rebounding, those things add up over time.”
Victor Wembanyama finished Game 1 with 26 points, 12 rebounds, two assists, three blocks and one steal. The Defensive Player of the Year said he didn’t play to his standard, but the Spurs have already put Game 1 behind them.
“Really, I think the reason we lost that game isn’t even technical. It’s not even tactical,” Wembanyama said. “We need to approach the game with a better mental state. We just need to play our game. We just need to be normal.”
The Spurs and Knicks will be back at Frost Bank Center for Game 2 on Friday, June 5, at 7:30 p.m. The game will air right here on KSAT 12.
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