Here’s what Mitch Johnson, Devin Vassell, and Harrison Barnes had to say after the Spurs’ loss to the Heat.
SAN ANTONIO — The San Antonio Spurs lost to the Miami Heat 128-107. San Antonio was outscored 46-27 in the third en route to the loss versus Miami.
Victor Wembanyama finished with 21 points and 10 rebounds. Harrison Barnes had 10, and Chris Paul had 10 and nine assists.
Devin Vassell recorded 23 and 10 rebounds, and Keldon Johnson had eight and three rebounds. Stephon Castle had 11. Julian Champagnie added five.
Head coach Gregg Popovich was also out due to illness, and Jeremy Sochan was out due to back issues. Assistant coach Mitch Johnson continues to assume head coaching duties for the game.
The Spurs are 19-22 this season and will face the Pacers on Thursday in Paris.
Here’s a sample of what the teams said after the game.
Mitch Johnson:
“This hasn’t been our good stretch basketball, and there’s some things that we need to shore up. And we played some really good teams, and they’ve exposed some things. We’re looking forward to Paris, but I don’t think we did look forward to overlooking this team or the metrics. We played some really good teams, I think it’s been more we haven’t played our best basketball, and some really good teams that have exposed some things.”
“We’ve been getting killed in transition. We’ve been getting killed off a straight line drives. I think that’s it.”
“We have to take more pride in guarding the ball one on one. I think that’ll help us out a lot.”
“I just think that a lack of communication of breakdowns happen during those runs… those big runs, that’s when we have our breakdowns happen. Specifically, in transition defense. So I think it’s just an area that we talked about. We have to just make that commitment.”
Terry Rozier III, Tyler Herro, Bam Adebayo, Kel’el Ware and Erik Spoelstra