SAN ANTONIO -- The San Antonio Spurs survived a resilient Washington Wizards squad 107-105 Friday for their first home win since Nov. 21, yet reserve guard Manu Ginobili winced as if success had just drop-kicked him between the shoulders when pondering his club’s prospects.
“It’s taking us a while to get into the rhythm, the aggressiveness we need to get leads,” Ginobili said. “So yeah, we’re not playing well. But the good thing is that meanwhile, we are getting wins, and we are maintaining a good record. We have an 80 percent winning percentage, and we don’t feel like we are playing that well.”
That was pretty much the sentiment all around San Antonio’s dimly lit locker room in the bowels of the AT&T Center for a 16-4 club owning the second-best record in the NBA and lofty expectations apparently second to none.
With the score tied at 105 with 6.1 seconds remaining, Kawhi Leonard nailed the go-ahead shot off an assist from Ginobili. The shot registered as Leonard’s third bucket in his last four go-ahead attempts in the last 10 seconds of the fourth quarter or overtime, according to research from ESPN Stats & Information.
Perhaps making this run even more significant is the fact Leonard had made only one of four such shots before this stretch in his entire career. The NBA average over the past five seasons on such shots is 24.9 percent. Leonard currently sits at 50 percent in that area.
“It felt good,” Leonard said. “Coach [Gregg Popovich], a great mind, drew up the play, taught me how to execute it. I came off probably about a half a second open, and Manu delivered a great pass, and I just made the shot.”
The Spurs finished with five double-figures scorers, led by Leonard, who scored 23 points, while LaMarcus Aldridge and Pau Gasol contributed 19 apiece. Gasol produced his second double-double (19 points, 10 rebounds) with the Spurs.
“That’s what I came here to do: to help this team be better and be a winner and adjust as well and as quickly as I possibly can, knowing it’s going to take a little bit of time,” Gasol said.
Ginobili and Patty Mills came off the bench to score 13 and 10 points, respectively, while combining for 15 assists -- more than all of San Antonio’s starters had combined.
The Spurs' bench outscored the Wizards’ reserves 36-17, and each of the home team’s backups finished on the positive side of plus-minus. Conversely, every San Antonio starter ended on the negative side of that statistic.
“We’re at a time where we’ve seen glimpses of how we need to play, both defensively and offensively, and now we’re at the point where we just need to be consistent and do it for longer periods of time, no matter if it’s at home or if it’s on the road,” Mills said. “Obviously, we have that, whatever it is, where we come home and we don’t have that energy. Tonight was another one for the first half.
“We’ve seen what we’re capable of on both ends of the floor, and we just need to string it all together. The best thing is we know what we can do, and we know what we need to do to be the last team standing.”
Actually, doing those things consistently appears to be a tall order, even for a veteran club with a championship pedigree like the Spurs.
The truth is San Antonio continues to churn out up-and-down performances, which is why the Spurs -- who finished 40-1 at home last season -- are 5-4 at the AT&T Center. The Spurs racked up 17 assists on 22 buckets in the first half against the Wizards, yet surrendered 60 points for the second time at home this season, and trailed at the break 60-57.
The Spurs also entered the contest Friday leading the NBA in free throw percentage (83.3 percent), yet managed to connect on just 8-of-15 in the opening half and concluded the outing at 63.6 percent from the line.
“Well, we moved the ball really well,” Popovich said. “But the defense wasn’t very good [in the first half]. It seems like in the second half, our defense always picks up, and we get back into games because of the defense. That’s a good thing, I guess, that it gets better as the game goes on. But we’ve started out poorly here at home quite often.”
Whether that changes remains a question mark as the club inches toward concluding the first quarter of the season. But the flashes definitely are there as the group continues to gain chemistry despite ever-changing lineups. The Spurs held out point guard Tony Parker on Friday for the second consecutive game with what they’ve diagnosed as a left quadriceps contusion, and that led to Nicolas Laprovittola manning the starting spot.
It’s also worth noting the Spurs started the season without shooting guard Danny Green, who missed several games due to a groin injury, while Parker has been in and out of the lineup with knee and quadriceps issues. Popovich already has held out Aldridge, Gasol and Ginobili for rest, moves that play at least some small role in delaying full cohesion.
“I think we have the potential to be special. It’s still very early,” Green said. “We’re still trying to put it together for 48 [minutes]. Once we start clicking and having everybody healthy, it will be interesting to see how far we take it.”
All of San Antonio’s losses have come at home, and the team remains undefeated on the road, where it heads now starting with a game Monday in Milwaukee, followed by outings at Minnesota and Chicago.
“Hopefully when we start improving, the wins are gonna keep coming, and we’re gonna feel even better about ourselves,” Ginobili said. “So we’ve got to keep fighting, got to keep working. We lost, maybe of the four we lost at home, maybe three we feel like we should have won. We can do much better. And that’s a good feeling in the sense of, with all that, we still manage to have a great record.”