GAMEDAY AT A GLANCE
Spurs (7-6) vs. Los Angeles Clippers (8-5)
When, where: Thursday, 9:30 p.m., Los Angeles
Last season: Spurs won series 2-1
All-time series record: Spurs lead 126-40
Last meeting: Clippers 113, Spurs 110, April 3, 2018, Los Angeles
Spurs' last game: Lost to Suns, 116-96, Wednesday, Sacramento
Clippers' last game: Beat Warriors, 121-116, OT, Monday, Los Angeles
Spurs' last 10 games/streak: 5-5, lost two
Clippers' last 10 games/streak: 6-4, won two
Spurs' injury/inactive report: Forward Drew Eubanks (playing with G League team), out; center Pau Gasol (left foot soreness), out; guard Dejounte Murray (right ACL), out; guard Lonnie Walker IV (right medial meniscus), out.
Clippers injury/inactive report: Guard Avery Bradley (ankle), questionable; forward Luc Mbah a Moute (knee), questionable.
Notable: The Spurs have lost their last two games against teams they have dominated in recent years. They had won 14 of their last 15 meetings with the Suns before getting blown out by 20 points Wednesday night in Phoenix. San Antonio had rolled to a 30-point victory against the Suns in their last meeting on Halloween night. The Kings beat the Silver and Black 104-99 on Monday, snapping San Antonio's 14-game winning streak in the series . . . The Spurs end their three-game road trip Thursday night, and host reigning NBA champion Golden State in their next game Sunday . . . DeMar DeRozan is one of five players to have 4,500+ two-point field goals since he was drafted in 2009. The other four: LeBron James, LaMarcus Aldridge, Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook.
GAME PREVIEW
It’s still early in the season, but the Spurs are falling into a troublesome pattern that veteran forward Rudy Gay warned about almost three weeks ago.
With the Silver and Black coming off a 110-106 win over the Los Angeles Lakers that followed a 20-point beating at home from the Indiana Pacers three days earlier, Gay talked about the importance of building on the momentum of a victory.
“We don’t want to be one of those teams, obviously, that have the big win and lose a couple and then have another big win,” Gay said. “That’s not us. That hasn’t been the Spurs in 20 years. I think we have to continue to build on our wins and our losses.”
The Silver and Black beat the Dallas Mavericks 113-108 in overtime that night and won four straight before falling to the Orlando Magic on Nov. 4 at the AT&T Center. A road loss to the Miami Heat followed, but the Spurs stopped the two-game skid with a 96-89 home win over the Houston Rockets last Saturday.
San Antonio has gone 0-2 in a three-game road trip since then, losing to Sacramento 104-99 on Monday and Phoenix 116-96 on Wednesday.
See the pattern? The only thing that’s been consistent about the 2018-19 Spurs, who have four of their last five games, is their up-and-down play.
San Antonio (7-6) will try to salvage something from the three-game road trip Thursday night when the play the Clippers (8-5) in Los Angeles.
What made Wednesday’s lopsided loss puzzling was that the Spurs had beaten the Suns by 30 on Halloween night. Guard Devin Booker, Phoenix’s leading scorer, did not play in the Suns’ 120-90 loss on Oct. 31 because he had a hamstring injury.
Forward/center Pau Gasol (left foot soreness) and Gay (rest) did not play in the rematch. The Silver and Black had beaten the Suns in 14 of their last 15 meetings, and Sacramento’s win Monday night snapped San Antonio’s 14-game winning streak in the series.
Phoenix jumped on the Spurs from the get-go, taking a 19-point lead in the first quarter before the visitors whittled the deficit down to four at halftime. The Spurs drew to win two in the third quarter, but the Suns made a run and took an 87-70 lead into the fourth period.
Booker scored only 13 points and committed seven turnovers, but he dished out a career-high 12 assists. Phoenix shot a season-high 56 percent (47-84) and buried 15 of 31 three-pointers. T.J. Warren led the Suns’ scoring with 27 points.
DeAndre Ayton finished with 17 points and 10 rebounds for Phoenix, and Isaiah Canaan added 19 points, hitting all five of his three-point attempts.
San Antonio shot only 42.2 percent (35-83) and made only 7 of 23 three-pointers.
DeMar DeRozan led the Spurs with 24 points and Derrick White added a career-high 16. LaMarcus Aldridge finished with just six points, but he had a game-high 12 rebounds.
“I think it was on us,” DeRozan said, when he was asked about the different outcomes in the two games against the Suns. “We’ve just been terrible defensively. We’ve got to step that up, get a lot better at that, extend our communication, our strategies, everything. Just go out there and play, being disciplined at 100 percent effort for 48 minutes, especially defensively. We lacked that tonight.”
White also stressed the importance of playing better defensively.
“You’ve got to get stops to win,” he said. “It’s a little bit of everything right now. We’ve just got to come together and figure it out.”
The Spurs’ next home game is against reigning NBA champion Golden State on Sunday. Tipoff is at 6 p.m.
