Here’s what coach Mitch Johnson, Victor Wembanyama, and De’Aaron Fox said following the Spurs’ big road win over the Thunder.
SAN ANTONIO — The San Antonio Spurs beat the Thunder 117-102 on the road to go 3-0 in the regular-season series. De’Aaron Fox led the team with 29 points to power the team to its eighth consecutive win.
Luke Kornet had six points and four rebounds. Dylan Harper scored 12, Victor Wembanyama recorded 19, and 11 rebounds off the bench. Harrison Barnes added 15 points. Stephon Castle had 19 points and seven assists. Devin Vassell added five. Keldon Johnson recorded nine points.
The Spurs are 23-7 and will next host the Jazz on Saturday night.
Here’s a sample of what the Spurs and Thunder said after the game:
Mitch Johnson:
“I think we learned that when you play a team multiple times in short stretches, there’s a familiarity, obviously, that it breeds, and when you play a team (Thunder) of this caliber. The details are that much more magnified because of the familiarity, and I thought we did a good job, and I thought we did a phenomenal job as the game progressed.”
“He’s (Fox) probably one of the few guys in our team that’s played in an environment like this, with circumstances surrounding a game like this, and I thought he just was a very steady hand when we needed it most. We needed a bucket. His defense was phenomenal, and that was without getting to it much outside of himself, to be that aggressive and to be in that attack mode for that long on both sides of the ball is one of credit to his fitness level and the stamina and the stamina and all the work he puts in.”
Wembanyama:
“This is like a playoff series. We played them (Thunder) three times in 10 days. So we learned a lot on the tactical side, but I think I don’t want to say too much, but I want to keep some for us, but we definitely got some intelligence.”
“All of us are happy to come into work. We know we’re going to have fun, we know we’re going to go out there and produce competitive basketball. So we’re just so lucky, and we want to entertain this.”
“This being my first Christmas game, I just wanted to have a good game and come out with a win. I think we did that, and we did it from the jump, you know, outside of the first couple possessions, I think we were really good throughout the course of the game.”
Coach Daigneault, Jalen Williams, and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander: