The San Antonio Spurs and visiting Toronto Raptors hope to end disappointing campaigns on a winning note when they square off Sunday on the final day of the NBA’s regular season.
Neither the Raptors (30-51) nor Spurs (33-48) will participate in the postseason. Toronto will miss the playoffs for the third straight year — and fourth in the past five seasons — while the Spurs have not reached the postseason since 2019.
San Antonio returns home after a 117-98 loss in Phoenix on Friday in which the Spurs led early, faltered in the second quarter and were all but lapped in the third, when they trailed by as many as 31 points.
Julian Champagnie led San Antonio with 23 points while Sandro Mamukelashvili added 19 off the bench. Teammate Stephon Castle, the top candidate for the NBA’s Rookie of the Year award, racked up 16 points and 10 assists.
“Some of our young guys took awhile to settle into the game,” Spurs acting coach Mitch Johnson said afterward. “Obviously we’ve got a lot of bumps and bruises and it was a bit of funky lineup, so that’s part of it.”
San Antonio, which has been without star center Victor Wembanyama since Feb. 19 and De’Aaron Fox for the final month because of injuries, also sat key players Devin Vassell, Keldon Johnson and Jeremy Sochan for Friday’s game. Vassell and Johnson are likely to play on Sunday in the finale.
Harrison Barnes and Chris Paul played 14 minutes for the Spurs on Friday and, along with Champagnie, will appear in all 82 games for the Spurs if they take the court — as expected — on Sunday.
The loss to Phoenix assured San Antonio that it would carry the eighth-best odds into the NBA draft lottery, which includes a 26.3 percent chance of a top-four pick and a 6 percent chance of the top overall choice.
The Raptors head to San Antonio on the heels of a 124-102 loss in Dallas on Friday. Toronto, which had a two-game winning streak snapped, trailed by 28 points at halftime, by 38 in the third and never got closer than 22 in the final period while playing with just a seven-man rotation.
Scottie Barnes led the Raptors with 26 points and grabbed nine rebounds while Ochai Agbaji added 24 points on 6-of-7 shooting from 3-point range.
Toronto started its 39th different group of five for the season, the most in the team’s 30-year history. The Raptors have been in rebuilding mode the whole year and see plenty of signs that they are on the right track.
“They’re really invested into each other,” coach Darko Rajakovic said. “They’re spending a lot of time off the court together, same generation, all of the guys, like more or less the same age, the same interests, playing video games together and all of this stuff.
“So, you know, it starts with that, but also, the guys are very coachable. They keep each other accountable.”
The Spurs took the other meeting between the teams this season, 123-89 in Toronto on March 23.
–Field Level Media
