The San Antonio Spurs will be the de facto home team when they square off against the Phoenix Suns on Thursday in Austin, Texas, but they won’t have the game’s most popular player in their huddle.
That’s because the contest will be a homecoming for the Suns’ Kevin Durant. It will mark the first time the former collegiate player of the year has played as a professional in Austin, where he starred for the University of Texas in 2006-07 during his lone college season.
Thursday marks the first of two games for the Spurs in the Texas capital on consecutive nights; San Antonio plays Detroit at the University of Texas’ Moody Center on Friday.
The Spurs won’t have Victor Wembanyama after the shocking announcement Thursday that the All-Star center is expected to miss the rest of the season with deep vein thrombosis in his right shoulder. He had been listed as questionable for the game due to an illness.
Durant said last week that Thursday’s game will “mean a lot” to the 11-time All-Star and four-time NBA scoring champ.
“I’m excited that we get to go back to play a regular-season game there,” Durant said. “Austin is a place where I kind of started this journey, and to have so many friends and family that are still there from, what, 16, 17 years ago is pretty sweet. So, I appreciate the NBA for setting this up. This is a unique time.”
The Suns return from the All-Star Break in search of a reboot. Phoenix has lost three games in a row and six of its past seven, including a 119-111 setback Feb. 12 in Houston. Durant was brilliant in defeat, scoring 37 points and dishing out a team-high nine assists, but the short-handed Suns couldn’t break their losing streak.
Bol Bol added 15 points for Phoenix, which played without Devin Booker, Bradley Beal and Grayson Allen in the second game of a back-to-back.
With 26 wins and 28 losses at the break, the Suns have plenty of work to do over their final 28 games.
“We’ve got to think about the day ahead of us and trying to get better,” Durant said. “And figure out how to win the next game and go on from there. We expect a lot out of ourselves individually, and it just hasn’t materialized the way we want it to.
“It’s been disappointing to see us play this way.”
The Spurs return from the break also looking to get back on track after dropping three of their last four games — most recently a 116-103 loss Feb. 12 at Boston. De’Aaron Fox led San Antonio with 23 points while Wembanyama had 17 points, 13 rebounds, four assists, and two blocks, and Harrison Barnes chipped in 14 points in a game the Spurs trailed by as many as 24 points.
At 23-29, San Antonio has matched its season-worst showing in relation to .500.
The Spurs have emphasized physicality and finding easy shots on offense, but they have sputtered at times — especially when teams have been able to limit Wembanyama. Now the team looks to get back on track without its second-year big man, who is averaging 24.3 points, 11.0 rebounds and a league-leading 3.8 blocks per game.
Adding Fox at the trade deadline was expected to help right the ship in San Antonio, but the Spurs are just 2-3 since the mercurial guard was added to the lineup.
“A lot of things that we preached and a lot of things that when we’ve had rough patches, they’ve been a common theme, so we need to improve in some of those areas,” interim coach Mitch Johnson said. “The team has made tremendous strides in their consistency and their maturity and trying to play and execute in what we ask.
“Any time you improve, expectations come with that. Any time you add a good player, expectations come with that. And I think that we will be stubborn and not skipping steps and trusting that we’re going to go about this the right way.”
–Field Level Media
