The San Antonio Spurs appeared headed for their fourth win of the season after they took a 15-point lead into the fourth quarter of their Monday night tilt against the Toronto Raptors. However, some of the Spurs' past demons came back to haunt them once more. Similar to their Thursday night contest against the Phoenix Suns, Victor Wembanyama and the Spurs ended up blowing a 20-plus-point lead, but this time, they ended up choking away the game altogether in a 123-116 overtime loss to the Raptors.

In the end, the Raptors outgunned the Spurs in the fourth quarter; they made seven threes, with three of them coming from the much-improved Scottie Barnes, as they stormed back from a huge deficit and the Raptors were also able to hold the Spurs to just one triple over the final 17 minutes of the game — a crucial mathematical deficit that Wembanyama and company were unable to compensate for in other areas.

After the game, Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich was quick to credit the Raptors for locking in defensively all the while making shots from beyond the arc with the three-pointer serving as “the great equalizer”.

“They went for the three-point shots and made 12 in the second half. They knocked them down and we didn't,” Popovich told reporters following the game, per Paul Garcia of Project Spurs. “We didn't have as much down the stretch scoring-wise. We had a little bit more trouble with their length, their aggressiveness, their ability to get in passing lanes.”

Of course, aggressiveness and swarming defense has been ingrained in the Raptors' DNA for years, so it's not like Gregg Popovich and the Spurs didn't prepare for it entering the night. But with the Spurs squad, led by Victor Wembanyama, still lacking in experience, securing the game was going to be an uphill battle for them — and it was.

“It's a young group playing against a very experienced group. [Toronto] is like the biggest small team you can imagine with their length and their athleticism,” Popovich added.

At the end of the day, given how fast this Spurs core seems to learn from their mistakes, expect them to be a more resolute team when it comes to protecting leads moving forward.