Here’s what Victor Wembanyama, Harrison Barnes, Chris Paul, and others had to say following the Spurs’ loss to the Bulls.
SAN ANTONIO — The San Antonio Spurs lost 114-110 on the road to the Chicago Bulls despite building a 19-point lead. The Spurs finish the regular season series 0-2 to the Bulls.
Victor Wembanyama led the team with 23 points and 14 rebounds but only scored one point in the fourth period. Harrison Barnes had 10, and Chris Paul had 18 and nine assists.
Devin Vassell recorded 11 and four rebounds, Keldon Johnson had 11 and three rebounds, and Jeremy Sochan finished with 11. Stephon Castle had 10. Julian Champagnie added 12.
Head coach Gregg Popovich was also out due to illness. Assistant coach Mitch Johnson assumed head coaching duties for the game.
The Spurs are 18-18 this season, are on a two-game skid, and will visit the Bucks on Wednesday night.
Here’s a sample of what the teams said after the game.
Mitch Johnson:
“You have to fight the human nature of being complacent or happy with yourselves when things are going well in the middle of a game. And you felt the game flip. It flipped. And I think that lack of respect at times for some of the details played a part.”
“You have to impose your will on the game as an individual and as a team. And that’s how teams close wins out in this league.”
“I think you know there can always be a magnification of the fourth quarter, a magnification of the last two minutes, but I think the third quarter rhythm that’s what changed the game.”
“I think it’s also part of the maturation process, right? You get up 15 (points), the discipline, the hard work it takes to push that to 20 by the end of the third, to maintain that.”
“We can’t get into that situation where they get a chance to decide if it is or isn’t. We just got to figure out how to how to win these games, because we work too hard, play too hard, and give ourselves opportunity, night in and night out. We got to find a way to win these games.”
Wembanyama:
“I think it was really a mix of things and I don’t think there was one area where we were really, really bad. We had turnovers, but it was a mix of things. But that should be compensated by the effort, you know effort and the attention to details. It’s very frustrating. Right now we should have more wins, but we don’t deserve more wins because this is where we’re at.
Coby White:
“We just wanted to come out in the second half and still run our run, our race, stay the course, and keep playing hard. We kept telling each other things are going to flip all night.”