HOUSTON -- Of the first seven letters of the alphabet, it’s words starting with the last two that San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich likes to use when discussing how he wants his team to finish games.
Fiber and grit, Popovich preaches, and that’s precisely what the Spurs showcased Tuesday night in a slugfest of a 102-100 victory over the Houston Rockets.
“That was the best part of the whole game,” Popovich said. “They showed some toughness mentally as much as physically. We went down there at the end, and I think [the deficit] was 12 at one point. We could’ve just cashed it in, but they just kept working. The defense got a little bit better. The physicality got better. We got a break or two, made a couple of shots. But they never hung their heads. They just kept on pushing because in this game, it really is 48 minutes, and anything can happen in an NBA game. It takes forever."
The Spurs trailed by 13 points with less than 4 minutes, 30 seconds to play, and entering Tuesday teams behind by 13 points or more in that situation owned a record of 1-1,388 over the past three seasons, according to ESPN Stats & Information research. That’s not a typo.
(Interestingly, the only team to have notched a win in that scenario was the Rockets -- in their game Saturday against Minnesota.)
The win over the Rockets marked the first such triumph under those conditions in the Popovich era.
“This game had a playoff-type of feel to it tonight against a team that has a lot of momentum, that’s been playing great basketball,” Spurs reserve David Lee said. “This was a game of runs, and a game where both teams had their chances. I thought we made some great individual plays. Everybody contributed, and it truly was a 48-minute game tonight. Every last possession ended up counting. I thought we hung in there great. We played great basketball to finish the game. I’m just really, really proud of our guys; especially on the road. That’s a tough win to get and we got it.”
Houston certainly helped by shooting an uncharacteristic 15.8 percent from 3-point range. Still, Houston had that late 13-point lead and seemed to be gaining momentum. After turning over the ball just twice in the opening quarter, San Antonio committed seven turnovers in the second quarter and another 10 over the last two quarters. At one point, the Spurs had more turnovers than assists, and finished the game one turnover shy (19) of their season high, resulting in 26 points for the Rockets. Kawhi Leonard committed the majority of the turnovers (seven), which marked a career high for the small forward.
“Just basketball,” Leonard said. “[It was] slipping out of my hand, [I was] dribbling off my toe, making the wrong pass. It’s just the game. That’s why you come back every game. It’s humbling.”
Yet Leonard, who scored a team-high 21 points, called Tuesday’s performance “pretty much” the team’s grittiest to date.
“You know the Rockets were on that 10-game winning streak,” Leonard said. “They fought back in the third and fourth quarters, got a 10-point lead, got it back from us. It’s just tough. Both teams are out there competing, and we just wanted to win. These are the types of games that are fun. You’ve got to come down to the end and execute.”
San Antonio racked up 20 points over the last five minutes, and knocked down 8-of-10 from 3-point range, led by Danny Green, Tony Parker, and Manu Ginobili, who combined to hit 6-of-6. Patty Mills also drained 2-of-4 from deep in the fourth quarter as the Spurs completed the contest on a 20-11 run.
“We got a break because they shot terribly,” said Ginobili, who finished with nine points. “We did a pretty good job on contesting many of them, but they missed some open ones, too, [and] they usually don’t do that.”
Houston also gave the ball away down the stretch. San Antonio scored 14 points off eight Rockets turnovers in the final quarter.
Popovich joked that the Spurs “drew it up like that,” before complimenting his squad on its perseverance despite difficult circumstances against a hot team on the road. The Spurs led by 10 points in the second quarter of a game that featured eight lead changes and 12 ties.
After falling behind late, the Spurs didn’t take the lead for good until Mills hit a 25-footer with 12.9 seconds remaining.
“If you’ve got guys that never stop, you’ve got a shot all the time. And I was really proud of them for that,” Popovich said. “They did a good job against a team that’s just really, really difficult to guard. They and the Warriors probably are the two toughest teams to guard for all the obvious reasons, with their personnel and the systems they have. I was really happy with our stick-to-it-ness. We won by a couple of points. It doesn’t mean that we played any better than they did. We just made a shot or two down the stretch. But it was a really competitive game both ways.”
LaMarcus Aldridge agreed.
“I thought guys competed,” said Aldridge, who scored 17 points, pulled down 10 rebounds and had a team-high five assists. “It was a long game. It was up and down. I thought the guys stuck with it. They’re really a tough team to play against. They take a lot of 3s, make a lot of tough shots. Big-time win for us.”
The Spurs headed into Tuesday having played 25 games without allowing a 30-point scorer, the longest active streak in the NBA, per Elias Sports Bureau research. But James Harden scored 31 points to break that streak, marking just the third time in 26 regular-season games against the Spurs in which he has scored 30 points. The Spurs hadn’t allowed a 30-point scorer since DeMarcus Cousins on Oct. 27.
“Today, I don’t think we played a great game,” Ginobili said. “We fought hard. We stuck with it, and we ended up winning it. But I think we can play much better than that.”
