by The Silver & Black begin their home season at Frost Bank Center against arch-rival Houston Rockets. The Spurs suffered a season-opening loss to last year’s Western Conference Champions, the Dallas Mavericks, while the Rockets opened the season 1-1.
Houston lost its first game of the year to the visiting Charlotte Hornets, who came back by as many as 18 points and surprised the Rockets late before Houston bounced back in a 20-point loss at home to the injury-plagued Memphis Grizzlies last night. The Rockets are now traveling for the first time this season, where they posted a 14-27 road record last year.
While the Spurs played three solid quarters in their opening game this season, Luka Doncic, Kyrie Irving and newcomer Klay Thompson took over the contest and split the scoreboard. The San Antonio Ball Club certainly took positives from their second game, but most importantly, their superstar Victor Wembanyama put in a better performance than he did in the first game of his second season.
San Antonio Spurs hosts Houston Rockets
October 26, 2024 | 7:30 CT
Watch: KENS5 | Listen: WOAI (12:00 p.m.)
Spore injuries: Devin Vassell – Out (foot) Tre Jones – Out (ankle)
Missile injuries: N/A
What you should pay attention to:
Wemby versus Sengun
The last time these two met, Alpren Sengun scored the highest score of his career when he set up Victor Wembanyama. Wemby managed to hold his own in this duel, stopping eight shots, the majority of which went against the Turkish centre-back. With these two international stars competing against each other, the winner of the duel will most likely decide which team wins the game. After signing Sengun to a 5-year/$185 million contract just days before the start of the season, both are now faces of their respective organizations and will be entrusted with enormous responsibility in this competition.
Pop’s bench rotation
With Devin Vassell still out and Tre Jones added to the injury report and out against the Rockets, Pop will be tasked with tinkering with his rotations just two games into the season. Against Dallas, Pop played minutes with a five-man bench unit consisting of Tre, Stephon Castle, Keldon Johnson, Zach Collins and a touch of Blake Wesley while the game was still in progress. It was just one game, but the bench wasn’t particularly productive and with one of their more consistent players, Tre Jones, now out, Coach Pop will be looking for answers. One option could be to increase the minutes of Blake Wesley, who was impressive in pre-season, and have Castle at No. 2. The other option is for Pop to hand the reins to the rookie early in his career and give point guard responsibilities to the No. 4 overall pick, possibly Malaki Branham alongside him in the backup backcourt. The Rockets have a reasonably strong team, so it will be important for the Spurs bench to stand up to them and prevent the game from getting out of reach when the starters head to the bench.
For the Rockets fans’ perspective, visit The Dream Shake.
The PtR game thread will be available tonight for those who want to chat about the game. You can also follow the action through PtR Twitter feed.
