Atlanta 97, San Antonio 99
57-20 overall, 34-5 home
If you wanted to know if Tim Duncan–with a healthy dose of Kawhi Leonard–could still single-handedly beat an average to mediocre NBA team, the answer is ‘yes’.
Duncan was magnificent tonight; Leonard was very good (which is becoming his norm). That is about all there is to say about tonight’s game.
With a cumulative inactive list that seemed to outnumber the active list, the game started without any excitement or sense of urgency. Much like the game against Orlando, the end result never really seemed in doubt, but the Spurs were really unable to get any separation. They did just enough to win. And my “just enough”, I mean that they had Tim Duncan, and the Hawks didn’t.
So while the win was nice (though expected), it really didn’t do anything to advance the team or give any positive thought moving forward. Outside of Leonard and Duncan, I thought Joseph played very well; Blair was active and patient and gave the team big minutes in both halves; De Colo was steady, and had a good back-up PG game, but only an average starting PG game. Neal and Green were near disasters, Bonner and Jackson were mostly invisible (save for 4 blocks from Bonner, in a statistical aberration to end all aberrations); and Diaw left the game after one shift with back spasms.
Honestly, the wins and losses mean very little at this point. What matters is moving into the playoffs with momentum and positive play. And health. Right now, we’re 0 for 3.
We have about 2 weeks to change that.
