The San Antonio Spurs edged the Cavaliers on Monday night, defeating Cleveland 112-111. Josh Richardson led the Spurs with 24 points. Keldon Johnson added 21. Devin Vassell knocked in 16 points and Tre Jones scored 15 to give the Spurs four players in double-figures.
Post Game Quotes:
Spurs Head Coach Gregg Popovich
(On what he believes to be the common denominator in the last three games…)
“Playing with a little bit of grunt, more physicality, more purposeful movement, people being responsible for who they’re guarding, taking some pride in it and it follows through the board. That’s what kept us in the game, and we’re fortunate. We made some shots tonight on top of that, but we’ve made shots before and not had that measure of defense on the board. It was a good all-around game. [Josh Richardson] was fantastic defensively and offensively. Romeo [Langford] did a good job on Mitchell. It’s just a hell of a basketball team that they have, so we feel very good about the win.”
(On whether the three-day break before Houston was a reset…)
“Yeah. They were good days for us, because we had two practices and then the shootaround, we used it as a practice. We worried that maybe we’re running them down a little bit, but there are so many things that they need to go over and catch up with. Especially with the guys out, other guys have to understand what we’re doing. They did a fine job. I’m really happy for them.”
Spurs Forward Keldon Johnson
(On his block and how he got there so quickly…)
“He was pushing transition. Honestly, what was going through my mind was like, ‘I’m either going to block it or it’s going to be a goaltending. I got to make some kind of play because if not, he’s going to lay the ball up.’ I wasn’t really aware of how much time we had left to get something going. It’s just instincts. Just move, move, move, then I just made a play on it. They always tell us to make a play, so I made play. We won the game.”
(On what’s been different for the team lately…)
“We’re getting bodies back. We have Josh [Richardson] back. He’s playing great. We have Doug [McDermott] back, so we’re getting people back. We had Jeremy [Sochan] back today as well. A big presence on defense, a big energy guy, a young stud. So right now, it’s just Jakob [Poeltl], Blake [Wesley], and we’re missing KBD, too. We’re missing those guys, and when we were making our runs, they were key players. They’re rotational. Blake was playing good, Jak has been amazing all year, and KBD was a rotational player as well. To have those guys out, and have so many injuries, and bounce back, and this and that, to see us go three in a row is big. It shows that we keep fighting regardless of what we’re getting in front of us. We have some things that we can’t control, but we stuck together. We keep trusting each other, keep trusting the coaches, and we’re going to persevere.”
Spurs Guard Josh Richardson
(On if one win after a losing streak can flip a switch…)
“Of course. It’s ‘oh, we can win. We can compete.’ I’m proud of how we’ve played the last few. I’m proud of how we’ve played all season, honestly. We showed a lot of growth. A lot of bodies down; we haven’t had our whole team since I don’t even remember when. Going into the season with our roster, it’s tough as a team in our position to have any injuries to rotational players. We’ve had multiple all season. So, it’s next man up and come out ready to pop every night.”
(On what he saw in the last 13-14 seconds…)
“Honestly, I came across the court when Donovan [Mitchell] had the ball, because no one was guarding him. So, I picked him up. He was by me, so I thought he was going to lay it up. We were going to come back down one, but three (Keldon Johnson) came flying out of nowhere. That was a huge block. They got a couple of good looks at it, but I’m thankful that it did not drop. I’m happy for these guys to come out with that win.”