The NBA Cup allows teams to experience playoff-level intensity early in the season and the Spurs rose to the occasion tonight against the Nuggets in Denver. Nikola Jokic had a below average night scoring the ball but impacted the game in every other way, with a triple double as he helped Jamal Murray to a 32 point game and Cam Johnson to 28. The Spurs overcame the scoring onslaught from the Nuggets with a 35 point outburst from Devin Vassell and 25 points from Julian Champagnie. DeAaron didn’t score as many points as he usually does, but he was instrumental to the win with 12 assists. The Spurs had only 8 turnovers and the Nuggets had 16, which helped the Silver and Black overcome a 44-35 rebounding deficit. The Spurs were down at one point in the third quarter by 18 points, and they fought back to almost even it up going into the fourth. Both teams were missing some key players, but it was still an impressive achievement for the Spurs to take a game from the Nuggets in Denver without their best player and Stephon Castle, who has been a key player on both ends of the court so far this season.
* When I signed up to write this recap, I didn’t realize that there was a schedule conflict with the Texas/Texas A&M football matchup. I’m going to try to follow both games while writing this recap. Let’s see how that turns out. It could be a pretty shambolic recap tonight, folks, but this is probably the biggest game of the season for the Horns, and I don’t want to miss it completely. Hook ‘em! That game finally wrapped up in the fourth quarter of the Spurs game, so I had some time to catch up …
* The pinkish/cranberry shade of the Denver NBA Cup floor is really hard to look at. Most of the floors this year have been big improvements over previous years, but this one isn’t. Not quite as bad as the weird green floor in Minnesota, but it’s bad.
* Devin Vassell started off the game hot, scoring 7 of the Spurs’ first 12.
* Danny Green is getting better in the announcing booth. He has a tendency to mumble a bit when the action is moving faster than he can call it, but he’s starting to catch up and gain confidence. He has good chemistry with Jacob Tobey.
* Sochan ended up as the backup center and was on Jokic much of the time. The Spurs scheme was to help him out with some double teams, and it wasn’t nearly as bad as you would expect. Jokic was bothered some of the time, and his offensive efficiency was reduced by at least 20%. It’s just science.
* Lindy Waters III got in the game early and hit a triple. It’s good to see him getting playing time. He’s going to be an important contributor going forward as the Spurs need to rest their top players.
* The Spurs led 41-33 at the end of one quarter, using a late 17-3 run to grab a lead in the last couple of minutes.
* The size of the Nuggets bothered the Spurs early in the second as they erased the deficit on second chance points with Zeke Nnaji giving quality minutes for Denver.
* It was nice to Tim Hardaway and Ron Harper’s kids play each other. Their dads had plenty of head to head battles in the old days when men were men and fouls really hurt a lot.
* Jonas Valanciunas really sells fouls well when he’s battling in the paint. It just looks like guys battling for postion, but Jonas is never called for it. It’s kind of magic, actually.
* The Spurs defense started to fray in the second quarter as the Spurs were drawn into fouls and bad matchups. Second choice points were damaging for the Silver and Black and the Nuggets got their first double digit lead late in the second as they converted turnovers into fast break points as they ripped off a 15-0 run to take a 13 point lead. The half ended as Murray drew a foul on Kornet with a second left, which gave the Nuggets a 74-59 lead at the half after he hit his free throws.
* Jamal Murray and the rest of the Nuggets got really hot in the third, and the Spurs were only able to keep the game from getting out of touch because Devin Vassell was unconscious, and with a timely four point play from Julian Champagnie, the Spurs were able to keep pace halfway through the quarter … barely. As the quarter wore on, they took Denver’s best shot and survived, and were actually cutting into the deficit, briefly taking the lead before Murray hitting a triple at the end of the quarter. The Spurs finished the quarter on a 20-6 run and trailed 103-104 going into the final frame.
* The fourth quarter was a hard-fought affair, and Tim Hardaway Jr. was a flamethrower for the Nuggets. Devin Vassell brought his own flamethrower as he hit clutch shots late in the quarter, and gave the Spurs a 6 point lead with just less than a minute left with a pair of triples. The last minute was a parade to the free throw line for the Spurs as they hit their foul shots and won 139-136, with the Nuggets making it interesting by hitting some difficult triples.
Well, that’s it for the group stage of the NBA Cup. The Spurs travel to Minnesota to play the Timberwolves on Sunday, then return home for a single home game against the Grizzlies on Tuesday. They go back on the road for three games in the next week, against the Magic, Cavs, and Pelicans on December 8, which happens to be my birthday. What currently looks like an open week in the schedule after that is the dates that the league is holding open until the NBA Cup knockout tournament is set. The Spurs will play in the quarterfinals on Wednesday, December 10. If they win the first game, they will play in the second round on Saturday the 13th in Las Vegas. The winners of the semifinals will get an additional game \[which won’t count in the standings\] on Tuesday, December 16. On December 17, almost everybody will have forgotten about the Cup, especially the curmudgeon class at Pounding the Rock, who never liked it in the first place.
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