San Antonio (51-9) improved to 29-0 at the AT&T Center this season, extending its record for the best home start by a Western Conference team.
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The big question: Will San Antonio head coach Gregg Popovich rest some of his key players in this spot or let them all play against the Pelicans?
The Pistons struggled to contain San Antonio’s one-two punch of Kawhi Leonard and LaMarcus Aldridge throughout the evening.
San Antonio joins Golden State as the only teams to clinch spots in the postseason.
“It’s not about (making the playoffs)”, said LaMarcus Aldridge, who scored 23. “It’s not about that”.
Stay hot from deep: On the most recent edition of the DBB podcast, I noted that even though the Pistons’ offensive output has been inconsistent all season, one of the things they have done relatively well is generate open three-point shots.
Stanley Johnson and Anthony Tolliver are not expected to play for Detroit, and Manu Ginobili is out for the Spurs.
The Pistons starting backcourt of Reggie Jackson and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope were a combined 5 for 22 from the field in scoring only 15 points. Tim Duncan hit for 12 points and gathered eight rebounds in 20 minutes of court time and Tony Parker scored 10 points for San Antonio.
Tobias Harris and Marcus Morris scored 16 points each to lead the Pistons.
The Spurs, who have dropped four of the past six meetings with the Pelicans (23-36), shot just 3 for 14 from 3-point range and went to the foul line nine times against the Pistons. Holding the Pistons to just 30 points in the second half and 39 percent shooting sealed the win.
“They play great defense, so you can give them a lot of credit, but we were very individual in the second half”, he said.
Aldridge, Duncan and Parker knocked down a series of mid-range jumpers in scoring four points each in a 12-2 run beginning early in the third quarter.
“We just quit moving the ball in the second half”, Detroit coach Stan Van Gundy said. The Spurs outscored the Pistons 27-14 in the third quarter.
After trailing by double digits for much of the game, the Clippers overcame the Thunder in the final five minutes. He went through shoot-around with the Spurs on Wednesday, but the team will hold him out of game action until at least next week.
The San Antonio Spurs took care of the ball Wednesday night as they had a total of eight turnovers in the game.
But Leonard closed the half with a layup and short jumper to give the Spurs a 52-51 lead at halftime.
Veteran guard Andre Miller, who signed with the Spurs on Monday after negotiating a contract buyout with the Minnesota Timberwolves, entered the game with 1:06 left in the third quarter.
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“It felt pretty good”, Miller said. “If you do that against a good defensive team like them, you have no chance”. Over the last four games, the Pistons offense has generated 26.5 three point attempts per game (exactly their season average), but they’ve converted almost 41 percent of those.
