The Spurs and Kings played exactly the roles you'd expect in the biggest comeback of the season
Some NBA teams have very clear public images. Take, for example, the San Antonio Spurs and Sacramento Kings, who met at the AT&T Center on Wednesday night for a study in contrasts. The Spurs are the NBA’s great professionals, a group that competes hard (and usually wins) no matter how many key players are missing. The Kings are pretty much the opposite, representatives of a listless organization that can’t take advantage of positive moments on the rare occasions when they actually happen.
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So it’s probably pretty easy to guess which side played which role in the biggest comeback of the NBA season, even with the knowledge that both Kawhi Leonard and LaMarcus Aldridge were resting for the Spurs.
The Kings started the night in excellent form, out-scoring the short-handed hosts 37-15 in a dominant first quarter. The Spurs offense understandably struggled without its two best players, with 5-of-20 shooting serving as the best evidence of those issues. San Antonio seemed to steady itself to begin the second period, but Sacramento gained the upper hand again and took a commanding 59-31 lead on a Buddy Hield three-pointer with 4:41 remaining. Believing in the Kings over the long term hasn’t made sense for some time, but they looked on their way to a nice road win to inspire minor confidence in the post-DeMarcus Cousins era.
Then, naturally, the Spurs did what they do. Lacking a star to take over, the Spurs went about chipping away at the margin until it disappeared entirely. They closed the second quarter on a 19-4 run to cut the score to 63-48 at the half and continued to put the pressure on in the third. Patty Mills got the margin to single digits for the first time with a three-pointer at the 3:15 mark, and Pau Gasol tied it at 82-82 with two free throws in the final minute. The Kings still entered the fourth quarter with the lead, but the shift in momentum was clear. Under the circumstances, it felt right to expect the battle-tested, non-Kings group to come away with the win.
A 32-18 fourth quarter for the Spurs proved that line of thinking to be wise. The Spurs controlled crunch time against the Kings, turning a two-point lead at the 2:32 mark into a comfortable 114-104 victory, their ninth in a row. The 28-point comeback is the largest of the NBA season and the Spurs’ biggest comeback in a very long time:
This would also be San Antonio's largest comeback win in 20 seasons, per @ESPNStatsInfo
— Michael C. Wright (@mikecwright) March 9, 2017
Of course, a team doesn’t have to come back from big deficits often when it handles the opposition on a regular basis. At 50-13, the Spurs have also now extended their record run of 50-win campaigns to 18 seasons.
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Leonard has built a strong MVP case in recent weeks by taking over late for the Spurs, but no one player stood out in his absence on Wednesday. The Spurs won with balance — five players scored at least 14 points with Manu Ginobili leading the way at just 19. They shared the ball and limited mistakes — a tally of 33 assists, including 10 from Mills, indicates how they did it.
The result isn’t just a sign of the Spurs’ team philosophy — it also puts them in excellent shape to challenge the slumping Warriors for the No. 1 seed in the West. Golden State’s rough home loss to the Boston Celtics later in the night helped the Spurs pull to within just 1 1/2 games for the top spot, and the teams’ recent performances suggest that they could have a chance to overtake them when they face off on Saturday night. That’s not a bad way for Gregg Popovich to finish out a day in which he chose to rest his top two scorers.
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Eric Freeman is a writer for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at efreeman_ysports@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
