Highlights:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4i_fJNIOcBY
The San Antonio Spurs have overcome slow starts in their past four games to win. However, on Thursday – their luck ran out as the Silver and Black fell on the road for the first time all season.
Kawhi Leonard had 24 points, but it was not enough as the Spurs fell 95-91 to the Chicago Bulls inside the United Center on Thursday night, ending their perfect 13-0 run on the road.
Patty Mills added 16 points and Pau Gasol chipped in 13 in his return to Chicago for the Spurs, who closed out another stretch of three games in four nights.
San Antonio scored a season-low 32 points in the first half and shot 31 percent. The Spurs would trail by as many as 18 before cutting the deficit to four points late.
”Our opponents have outplayed us physically and execute-wise in most first halves for most of the season, and somehow we pull it together in the second half and play harder and smarter than we did in the first half,” San Antonio coach Gregg Popovich said. ”We got it to four, then some execution mistakes. That’s the disappointing part, that we’re not a very consistent team and we haven’t learned as a group the game is 48 minutes.”
The Bulls were led by Dwyane Wade’s 20 points. Taj Gibson, Rajon Rondo, and Robin Lopez all added 12 for Chicago (12-10), who snapped a three game losing streak.
”It’s a long season,” Wade said of his team’s recent struggles. ”We have time to fix it. We could play with good teams in this league home or road, but we still have time to fix that. As long as we understand what we need to do, what we have 60 games left, whatever it is, we have a lot of games to fix that so hopefully we can.”
Up next: The Spurs are now 18-5 on the season and will return to the court on Saturday against the Brooklyn Nets at the AT&T Center at 7:30 p.m.
