The Sacramento Kings defeated the San Antonio Spurs, 115-112 on Thursday night. De’Aaron Fox recorded 26 points, 6 rebounds and 9 assists for the Kings, while Harrison Barnes added a team-high 27 points in the victory. Dejounte Murray tallied 29 points, 12 rebounds and 7 assists for the Spurs in the losing effort. The Kings improve to 24-41 on the season, while the Spurs fall to 24-39.
Postgame Comments:
Spurs Head Coach Gregg Popovich
(Opening statement…)
“The best thing about this team is they don’t give in. They were down at half and got down even more in the beginning; the first three, four, five minutes, whatever it was in the third quarter. They didn’t give in. They got back in it. That’s the good side. The bad side is you can’t win an NBA game playing 22 minutes. Physically, and hard, and fundamentally, we didn’t do that. We played about a quarter and a half, tonight. That’s disappointing. We have to take responsibility for that and be more mentally ready to go. We can’t play soft for half the game. That’s the bottom line. There’s really nothing else to say.”
Spurs Guard Lonnie Walker IV
(On building confidence on consecutive good performances…)
“It’s not even from game to game. I’m building off what I did last game, and it’s the simple fact of my teammates letting me hoop and trusting me. Dejounte Murray and Keldon Johnson, they’re always reminding me to stay aggressive and that I’m way too good to be chilling and relaxing. My teammates and my coaches instill an immense amount of confidence in me and let me just play freely.”
(On getting a green light when he’s on a roll…)
“I think I want to stay aggressive with the time I’m given. I don’t know if I’m going to play 30 minutes. I don’t know if I’m going to play 20 or 10 or five minutes. If I’m playing five, I want to play to the best of my ability for those five minutes for my team to win. That’s something that’s really helped me. Control the controllables. Things that are out of your control, don’t worry about it. But when you’re on that court, play as hard as you can. Make or miss, go on to the next one. Play some defense. Be better, myself, the next game. Go on and watch film and continue to get better.”
Spurs Center Jakob Poeltl
(On the mental grind of long road trips…)
“Of course, it can be hard. It’s never easy being on the road for a long time. It’s the same thing for any other team. We’ve done this before. We did this last year. The guys know what playing games like this is like, being on the road for a long time. It’s not an excuse. We still have to come out ready.”
(On Lonnie Walker IV’s hot streak…)
“We all know Lonnie is a very talented scorer. He’s very explosive, he’s aggressive, and he’s super tough to guard. It seems like he’s just playing freely. He’s not thinking about it too much. There were times when he was thinking about his shots, and he wasn’t taking open ones. Now he’s just shooting with confidence, and he’s knocking them down. He’s going on these runs where he’s running hot. He had a couple of stretches in this game where it was really important for us, and he got us back into it.”