Here’s what coach Mitch Johnson, Julian Champagnie and Chris Paul had to say following the team’s road loss to the Pelicans.
SAN ANTONIO — On their Rodeo Trip, the San Antonio Spurs lost to the New Orleans Pelicans 114-96. The Spurs are now 3-6 on the extended road trip.
De’Aaron Fox finished with 13 points and four rebounds. Keldon Johnson finished with 18 points. Chris Paul had four and seven assists.
Devin Vassell recorded five and three rebounds, and Jeremy Sochan added four and eight rebounds. Stephon Castle finished with two, and Julian Champagnie added 18.
Victor Wembanyama is out for the remainder of the season due to deep vein thrombosis, and Charles Bassey exited the game with an ankle injury.
The Spurs are 24-31 this season and will take on the Pelicans on Monday night.
Here’s a sample of what the teams said after the game.
Mitch Johnson:
“Knee jerk reaction. I’ll have to go back and watch it. Obviously, I think the rebounding is obviously a little bit disproportionate just because of how many shots we missed. They had 17 offensive rebounds, which is not anywhere where we want to be, but we had thirteen.”
“It just kind of snowballed in a catastrophic way there in the second half, we missed a ton of shots. The momentum swing, and you felt the confidence dissipate a little bit.”
Champagnie:
“Now it’s time to hunker down and figure it out. Whether that means the team go out to dinner or doing something, we get in the gym more or figure something out or talk about it more, I don’t know what it’s going to be but we got to figure something out.”
“The good thing about this league, for the most part, until you get to the last game of the season or the playoffs, there is always another game. So, this is like a playoff series where we’re playing again (Monday), so we got to flush this one and get ready for that one.”
Willie Green:
“Our defense was really solid tonight. I thought we did a great job. The big sort of emphasis of all season has been finishing possessions. I thought we did a great job of that tonight. It’s evident, and having 69 rebounds, close to 70 rebounds.”