De’Aaron Fox scored 13 of his 21 points in the fourth quarter as the host San Antonio Spurs defeated the Portland Trail Blazers 114-95 on Tuesday to close out a 4-1 victory in the teams’ first-round Western Conference playoff series.
Victor Wembanyama racked up 17 points, 14 rebounds and six blocked shots as the second-seeded Spurs secured a berth in the conference semifinals vs. either the third-seeded Denver Nuggets or sixth-seeded Minnesota Timberwolves. It is San Antonio’s first trip to the second round of the playoffs since the 2016-17 season.
San Antonio was in cruise control from the opening minutes and led by as many as 28 points in the first half, by 20 at halftime and by 21 points after three quarters.
“It was as sharp as we’ve been in terms of five guys on the court with just game plan execution and then putting really, really solid fundamentals on top of it,” Spurs coach Mitch Johnson said. “We’ve talked about all year — we got talented guys.”
The Trail Blazers pulled within 97-88 on a three-point play by Jrue Holiday with 5:46 to play but never made a serious run the rest of the way as Fox made big play after big play to help San Antonio close out the victory.
“For me, especially in this fourth (quarter) it was just continue to move,” Fox said. “You know, I was denied a lot this series. They were physical with me off the ball, those things happen. Get used to it, and we put things in to try to negate that. And that fourth quarter was a lot of that, a lot of me moving without the ball. ”
Julian Champagnie added 19 points for the Spurs, with Dylan Harper scoring 17, Stephon Castle hitting for 15 before fouling out with 4:36 remaining, and Devin Vassell tallying 10 points. Fox dished out a game-high nine assists.
Deni Avdija’s 22 points paced Portland. Jerami Grant added 12, Robert Williams III and Sidy Cissoko scored 11 points each, and Donovan Clingan hit for 10.
“(San Antonio) is a great basketball team,” Portland coach Tiago Splitter said. “They have a superstar that changed the game. They deserve it. They play better. That’s it. Now, it’s bad to lose a game.”
Champagnie hit three 3-pointers, and had his toe on the line for a fourth, while scoring 11 points in the first quarter and helping the Spurs to a 36-24 advantage after 12 minutes of action.
San Antonio poured in on the second period, pushing its lead to 54-28 after a Wembanyama 3-pointer at the 6:45 mark. The Trail Blazers reeled off nine straight points capped by a dunk from Clingan to cull the margin to 17, but San Antonio swung back, with a three-point play by Luke Kornet highlighting a 12-2 run that built the lead to 65-37.
The Spurs were up 65-45 at the break even though Wembanyama took just three shots (and made them all) while scoring seven first-half points. Champagnie led the way with 14 points and Fox dished out seven assists in a first half that saw San Antonio outshoot the Trail Blazers 66.7% to 36.5%.
Avdija led all scorers with 16 points before halftime.
–Field Level Media
