The San Antonio Spurs played well enough to beat the Dallas Mavericks on Tuesday night. But a problem that's plagued them for the entire season didn't excuse itself in the 113-107 Mavs victory.
Two questions into the post-game press conference, head coach Gregg Popovich junped right into the constant issue.
“Look, you guys got stat sheets over there?” the Hall-of-Fame coach asked reporters after the first two questions focused on the Spurs nearly knocking off a quality team and keeping Luka Doncic in check.
“We out-rebounded them. We shot better than they did. We outscored them in the third quarter, outscored them in the fourth quarter. We had the same number of assists basically. I think had one more than we did. But we had 16 turnovers. That's the difference of the game,” Popovich continued.
Turnovers again plague the Spurs
The Silver and Black average nearly 15 turnovers per game. That registers near the bottom of the league, ranking 24th out of the NBA's 30 teams.
“That's been our problem for the main part of the season, just been turning the ball over,” Spurs guard Devin Vassell said. “It's tough playing in transition. They have closers like Kyrie [Irving] and Luka and special players like that do we can't give them more opportunities to put the ball in the basket.”
Kyrie Irving's 28 points were easily a game-high Tuesday night. Though he recorded a triple-double, Doncic struggled shooting the ball in tallying 18 points.
Tre Jones led the Spurs with 22 points.
“We've just got to finish these games,” the former Duke Blue Devil admitted.
Vassell added 19 on a night in which Spurs super rookie Victor Wembanyama struggled. The French phenom scored 12 points and was charged with 5 turnovers.
“Maybe forcing plays,” Vassell responded when asked if there's a common thread as to why his team has trouble keeping possession.
“Trying to make the spectacular play when really we've just got to make the right read. I think most of our turnovers are usually live ball turnovers so we were trying to get back in transition instead of it even going out of bounds. If we set our defense up, it's usually us trying to run back in transition. It's just tough,” Vassell concluded.
More lessons for San Antonio
The Mavericks are still within striking distance of the fourth spot in the Western Conference. At the same time, they're not far from tenth in the West, which serves as the cutoff for postseason play. Now at 15-54, the Spurs have the third-worst record in the league and are headed for the worst season in franchise history.
“You learn lots of things in the game. But it doesn't matter who you're playing, you learn stuff,” Popovich said. “If you beat somebody by 20, you lose by 20, there are things that you're going to work on because it's a game of mistakes. So, there's all kinds of things you learn at both ends of the court.”
“I couldn't be more proud of the way we played,” Popovich continued.
The Spurs put themselves in position to add to good wins they've enjoyed against the Minnesota Timberwolves and Oklahoma City Thunder, two of the best teams in the West.
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