Season 49, Game 67

San Antonio 108, Los Angeles 87

57-10, 2nd in the West

Last night, the San Antonio Spurs took down the Los Angeles Condors Clippers at home to improve to 57-10 on the season, while extending their home-game winning streak to an impressive 42.

Clippers guard Chris Paul was a terror – as he always is against the Spurs – scoring 22 points to go along with eight assists. DeAndre Jordan notched a double-double with 16 points and 14 rebounds, but it wasn’t enough to take the season series against San Antonio.

Kawhi Leonard and LaMarcus Aldridge turned in what’s become a workmanlike effort for the pair of superstars, with 20 and 17 points respectively. Hasn’t it been magical watching those two become such a great fit together on offense? I don’t even think I could put into words, how happy it makes me to see how well they’ve come together.

Sometimes I tear up when Aldridge makes what feels like his 40th mid-range jumper in a row. Sometimes I just close my eyes and wait for that swish sound. Sometimes I scream at the television when he doesn’t get the pall passed to him because he’s clearly not open, but I know in my heart he would catch and shoot that ball and I’d get to hear that heavenly swish sound because it goes in 100% of the time.

… And sometimes I exaggerate the greatness of LaMarcus Aldridge, but let me tell you something: When you’re, like, 40 years older than you are right now, it’s going to be a lot of fun to bore your completely disinterested grandchildren to tears talking about where you were when you saw Leonard and Aldridge make the Clippers look like a bunch of ninnies. I’m already disappointed with my unborn child for not caring more about this.

At any rate, as casually dominant as Aldridge and Leonard were last night, the real story of this game was how the benches played.

Or should I say how the Spurs’ bench played? Because it didn’t look like the Clippers’ bench came to play (yet again) at all.

Patty Mills couldn’t keep his shoe on his foot, but managed 15 points including a couple threes, and Old Man Manu scored 13 points of his own.

Ginobili finished 5 for 8 on the night, which was great to see, considering he was 3 for 17 in his last three games combined. It’s hard to get too excited, however, until we see him string together multiple hot-shooting games in a row. Something tells me San Antonio is going to need Ginobili to be a playmaker and a scorer off the bench if they are to make a deep playoff run.

David West came up huge off the bench as well, putting back consecutive tip-ins and setting a screen that pushed San Antonio’s lead to 10 with nine minutes left to play. You have to imagine play like that is exactly what Coach Pop had in mind when West fell into his lap in the off-season. And like Manu’s playmaking ability, West’s gritty, efficient play is going to be necessary when the second season begins.

As for the Clippers, their bench looks like a group that’s almost proud of the fact that it’s holding them back from winning a championship. They added just 21 points to the 67 LA’s starters scored, and only one bench player – Cole Aldrich – hit more than one shot in the game.

I know we all thought that the Clipper bench was going to be their undoing in last year’s Spurs/Clippers playoff series, but games like this have to make you think favorably of Los Angeles as a potential second round opponent for San Antonio in the 2016 playoffs, right?

No, no, I definitely didn’t just jinx anything. Stop being crazy.

The Spurs continue their five-game home stand with a matchup against the up-and-down Portland Trail Blazers tomorrow night.

  • Tim Duncan scored his 26,399th point in the game, surpassing John Havlicek for the 14th most career points.
  • Danny Green made 4 of 5 three pointers! But the jury’s still out on whether or not he can be reliable from behind the arc night in and night out.
  • Does anyone have a stat on how often Patty Mills loses a shoe during a game? He’s got to be leading the league in this category.
  • San Antonio finished 8 for 20 (40%) from three-point range Tuesday night. They were 18 for 88 (20%) in their previous four games.
  • The Clippers are 3-4 since unveiling that stupid, stupid Condor mascot.