SAN ANTONIO: On Friday night, the San Antonio Spurs defeated Anfernee Simons and the Portland Trail Blazers 116-100 thanks to the 31 points and 14 rebounds of Jeremy Sochan and the 23 points and 12 rebounds of Victor Wembanyama.
Simons finished with 10 assists and 40 points, just one short of his season high.
Sochan, who was restricted to two points in Wednesday night’s 140-114 loss to Oklahoma City, was two points shy of tying his career high.
“I think I forget how athletic I can be sometimes and I go up,” Sochan added. I get pushed around and a little weak sometimes. Recently, the focus has been on just finishing the two with strength.
Devin Vassell scored fifteen points, and Keldon Johnson added twenty-one for San Antonio. The Spurs improved to 9-36 in January after winning four games, the most of any month this year.
For Portland, Deandre Ayton finished with 20 points and 12 rebounds. The Trail Blazers are at 13-32 after dropping three straight games.
Even with 16 points from Simons in the fourth quarter, Portland was unable to come back from a double-digit deficit.
Simons stated, “I just want to go back to just kind of being a little bit more aggressive in the last couple of games, especially early on.” “Simply figure out how to get the shots I wish to take.”
In the fourth quarter, the Spurs increased their lead to eighteen points—their first double-digit advantage since defeating Charlotte on January 12.
Sochan continued to improve after a slow start, scoring 20 points in the second half.
As the Spurs experimented with 6-foot-8 Sochan as their starting point guard in a large lineup that included Zach Collins and Wembanyama, two players who are 7 feet tall, Sochan struggled in the first few months of the season. After San Antonio abandoned those ambitions in December, Sochan has become even more successful.
Against Portland, he matched a career record with four 3-pointers and had rebounds that exceeded his season total.
Wembanyama remarked, “I’m glad to see that he is a great player in every aspect of the game when he is playing like that.”
Wembanyama had both his and San Antonio’s games on the rise; he went 7 for 18 from the field.
Simons’ jump shot was squarely blocked by Wembanyama, allowing the Spurs to assemble and setting up Jones for a three-pointer. Wembanyama scored his first basket three possessions later on a running slam off a lob from Tre Jones.
San Antonio completed with 42 shots and 25 assists.
This season, “they’ve done that a lot,” according to Spurs coach Gregg Popovich. “We’ve shot poorly and turned the ball over too often at times, but overall we’ve been pretty consistent in passing the ball and getting the assists we need to have a chance to win.”
It was the second of the Spurs’ seven games at home before they left for their yearly three-week road trip, which was made necessary by the San Antonio Stock Show & Rodeo taking over Frost Bank Centre.
