San Antonio vs. Washington, Final Score: Spurs ride Wemby’s first 50-point game to 139-130 win over Wizards

Another day, another historic match for Victor Wembanyama. The Spurs entered tonight’s matchup against the struggling Washington Wizards looking for their third win in four games during this five-game homestand, and while the second unit gave up a pair of double-digit leads in the first and fourth quarters, they built on the back of Wemby’s red-hot shooting, and the Spurs were able to hold on down the stretch to secure the 139–130 victory.

Wemby scored a career-high 50 points with the help of another career-high 8 threes on 15 attempts, along with 6 rebounds and 3 blocks. His big night actually overshadowed an equally big one from Jordan Poole, who had 42 points and led the Wizards in their last-ditch effort to keep the game interesting down to the final seconds.

Observations

• In case you missed it, the Spurs announced earlier today that the medical episode Gregg Popovich suffered back on Nov. 2 prior to the Timberwolves game was a mild stroke. He is now in a rehabilitation program and is expected to make a full recovery, but there is no timetable for his return. Pop and his family remain in our thoughts and prayers and hopefully he can return to the sidelines again.

• Jonas Valanciunas continued his Spurs-killer ways, recording a double-double of 10 points and 11 rebounds in just 10 minutes of action in the first half alone. Fortunately, he never got going in the second half as Spurs pulled away.
• Sometimes the Box Score plus/minus doesn’t lie, and that was the case in the first half. All the starters had a plus/minus from +9 to +17, while everyone off the bench had a negative, double-digit plus/minus except for Blake Wesley, who was 0. It certainly passed the eye test as the Spurs built an early 16-point lead, before almost immediately giving it back when the bench came on for the first time and the teams played fairly evenly from there, tied 67 at halftime.
• Wembanyama are on an absolute tear in this home stand and that continued today. He had 24 points at halftime and didn’t slow down in the second half. For the third straight game, he matched the career high for threes in a game (6) early in the third quarter – only to soon break it with another. Although he attempted 15 threes (maybe he’ll keep taking them and break the franchise record after all), he made 8 of them. The real test will come when Spurs return to the road on Saturday as his split between home and away is night and day.
• One thing the Spurs didn’t do well in this game was protect leaders. They came out of the gate hot from three early to build a 16-point lead in the first quarter, but the bench blew it almost completely and the lead was down to one at the end of the first quarter. The Wizards would eventually take the lead by three a couple of times before a big 26-7 Spurs run to end the third quarter. The Spurs then built the lead all the way to 21 in the fourth, but again the Wizards began to chip away when Mitch Johnson went to the bench and the starters had to return with five minutes left to close things out. Thanks to the wizards for not giving up.
• To end on something the Spurs did well that they haven’t done in previous games: Protect the ball. They had just nine turnovers and only conceded 4 points from them. On the other hand, the Wizards had 18 turnovers, giving 20 points from them to the Spurs. Turns out the Spurs needed every bit of that difference tonight.

For Wizards fans’ perspective, visit Bullets forever.

The Spurs wrap up their homestand on Friday for the NBA Emirates Cup opener against the Los Angeles Lakers. Tip-off will be at 6:30pm CT on ESPN.