Keldon Johnson #3 of the San Antonio Spurs goes to the basket past Domantas Sabonis #10 of the Sacramento Kings in the first half of an NBA In-Season Tournament game at Frost Bank Center on November 17, 2023 in San Antonio, Texas. Photo: Ronald Cortes / Getty Images Sport / Getty Images
The Spurs losing streak continues after a 129-120 loss to the Sacramento Kings last night at the Frost Bank Center. Zach Collins led the Spurs with 28 points. Victor Wembanyama added 27 points in the loss. The Spurs will try to pick up a win Saturday night when they host the Memphis Grizzlies.
SPURS POSTGAME QUOTES
SPURS HEAD COACH GREGG POPOVICH
(On Jeremy Sochan competing against De’Aaron Fox…)
"That’s why De’Aaron is an All Star. This is an education for five, six, seven guys out there every night, and they’re taking it all in. As long as they’re competing the way they’re competing, I think over time the mistakes will be reduced, that kind of thing. Hopefully, it’ll result in some wins.”
(On Sandro Mamukelashvili…)
“I love the way he plays. He hasn’t gotten many minutes, but he moves as well as anybody on our team. Probably he and Doug [McDermott] move better than anybody.”
SPURS FORWARD VICTOR WEMBANYAMA
(On having patience…)
“There are sacrifices to do, and we are ready to do [it]. Of course, it's hard to be to be patient sometimes. Just like everything in life. But it's an everyday fight. I know that the end of the season will not look like the beginning of the season. We got a good way to go in progression.”
(On Zach Collins…)
“On offense, he was just playing right and on defense he was doing a great job getting into the guys. I think for all of us, it was a pleasure playing with him and seeing him play that way tonight. Also the guys who got some more playing time, and Julian got his second start, starting the season, so it was good to see.”
SPURS CENTER ZACH COLLINS
(On what he likes about how they came back…)
“We’ve had games very similar to this one where we start off really good, and then they come back, and we put our heads down, and we don’t fight back. We didn’t do that tonight, and that was the biggest thing. We just kept our heads, we had a good attitude, we stayed positive. We came out in the third quarter and didn’t get our heads down even when we were fighting back. They were still hitting shots, but we still made it a game at the end. We’re happy with that, but we know we can play better.”
(On what he’s seeing at the end of halves …)
“Like I said, that’s kind of our biggest thing. We feel like we’ve had a good half, and then we’re just waiting for that clock to go to zero and then to get into the locker room. But we got to shore that up for sure as being a young team. I think that sense of urgency just needs to be there. If we could shore that up, we’re in all these games.”
(On what he felt about Sandro Mamukelashvili’s play…)
“Great. I’m so happy for him. He’s a guy who just stays ready. He obviously was playing great for us last year and this year. Just the way the lineups were working and what coaches are doing, he through no fault of his own, kind of fell out of the lineup. He stayed ready, and he came in, and he was Mamu. Super happy for him. He plays so aggressive. He’s not the biggest guy out there, but he’s so strong, and when he drives that straight line drive, he hits you in the chest, you feel it. That’s a very valuable thing to have. A couple of times tonight, our offense wasn’t executing, the play broke, and we just swung it to him, and he attacked the rim and got some free throws, got some reach in fouls, put pressure on the defense, it was great.”