The Morning After: Spurs vs. Suns

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Tim DuncanBox | Gameflow

The San Antonio Spurs won their fifth straight game and improve to 34-14 on the season with a 107-100 victory over the Phoenix Suns.

While the game stayed very close through three quarters, the Spurs used a 10-0 fourth quarter run to start pulling away from the Suns for the eventual win.

The Spurs needed big games from Tim Duncan and Tony Parker to counteract Shannon Brown’s 32 point performance. Duncan lead the Spurs with 26 points and 11 rebounds, and Parker had another MVP-night, finishing with 24 points, seven assists and four rebounds in his matchup with Steve Nash.

In Retrospect

Paul Garcia talked about the Spurs’ depth in his game preview yesterday.

As Sean Elliot said the other night, this offense can be “scary” good. There’s times when the Spurs get on a run, where it looks like they won’t be stopped. There’s times where their defense is inside of every offensive set and making opponents either turn the ball over or force a bad shot.

The Suns have a few playmakers, but the Spurs’ depth should be too much for Phoenix to handle so long as the Spurs follow their initial game plan. I’m not sure who’s starting, who’s sitting, etc, but this team is boasting some lineups that just don’t have lots of lag time.

Quotable

“Shannon Brown was making crazy shots so we felt like if we could hang in there things were going to turn and they’re going to miss at some point,” Parker said, “and they started missing and we played better defense.” 

By the numbers

  • 34 – The Spurs’ bench scoring compared to 22 from the Suns.
  • 48 – Rebounds by the Spurs. Suns had 38.
  • 16 – Duncan’s 16th straight double figure scoring night. 

Fantasy Focus

Kawhi Leonard has seen very consistent minutes in the month of March, which has been a big month for the rookie forward. He has scored in double figures in 10 of 13 games and is averaging anywhere from five to 10 rebounds a night along with a few steals. He is definitely worth adding or watch listing, especially after a 14 point, seven rebound night. Duncan may also be sitting on the waiver wire of a not-so-deep team and it’s safe to say he’s having a great month.