Kevin Jairaj-USA TODAY Sports It was raining threes, but there was a ray of sunshine. The Spurs’ struggles continue and their renewed losing streak extends to four, as, sarcastically said, NBA games continue to have third quarters — which is when the Spurs routinely lose their lead, or, more commonly, lose touch entirely. The latter was the case on the road to the Mavericks last night. Alas, when your opponent’s starting five plus their sixth man have 5-10, 2-2, 5-11, 3-5, 4-6 and 3-4 shooting clips from beyond the arc, there’s practically nothing you can do. One Spur did do an awful lot last night, and his name’s Jeremy Sochan. Having Luka Doncic drop almost 40 on you and dishing out of 10 assists happens to the very best perimeter defenders, and you can’t say that Jeremy didn’t do everything humanly possible to make life difficult for Doncic. Jeremy came advertised as a very good defender, though, so the surprising part of his performance last night came on the offensive end. Star analyst John Hollinger last season acknowledged he saw star potential in Jeremy, and draft guru Sam Vecenie had said even before that if Jeremy’s shot came around, he would likely have a star future. Well, Jeremy’s shot did come around last night. He was three out of three from three at half-time (and four out of six overall): .@JeremySochan 3/3 from downtown at the half pic.twitter.com/SCzHVRoNa5— San Antonio Spurs (@spurs) December 24, 2023 And Jeremy didn’t just shine as shooter, he dished out a number of beautiful passes and assists, this one on dunker Zach Collins being one of them: the dime the dunk pic.twitter.com/7LnSyhxsDY— San Antonio Spurs (@spurs) December 24, 2023 Needless to say, Jeremy continues to be the Spurs’ most dynamic dunker. I never get tired of his seemingly effortless two-handed slams: THE DESTROYER pic.twitter.com/BFo2v7VoFl— San Antonio Spurs (@spurs) December 24, 2023 https://www.youtube.com/embed/evFzjWZHdIo?rel=0
He wasn’t the only Spur to, as Sean Elliott usually and beautifully puts it, “throw it down with authority”. Mamu did, too: cleared for takeoff @Mamukelashvili5 pic.twitter.com/yuDqg19ODl— San Antonio Spurs (@spurs) December 24, 2023 Neither of the Spurs’ two primary wings had a particularly good night, but it was at least encouraging to see Devin continuing to make it all the way to the rim and score through contact: thru the paint pic.twitter.com/YMQFQZSoDX— San Antonio Spurs (@spurs) December 24, 2023 Unfortunately, Devin’s struggles from long distance continued, he was zero out of six from three, and his wing partner Keldon Johnson, who strangely didn’t start, wasn’t much better with two out of eight. But he gave us this nice post-up and turnaround on Derrick Jones Jr: KJ to the house! pic.twitter.com/9W7xZt1JQL— San Antonio Spurs (@spurs) December 24, 2023 Finally, the Spurs will play the also-tanking Portland Trail Blazers twice and the Utah Jazz once before the year is over. All three games are clearly among the more winnable ones the Spurs have played thus far this season. Meanwhile, if you missed last night’s game, here are the full highlights:
https://www.youtube.com/embed/dOJwDVB9iik?rel=0
Source: https://www.poundingtherock.com/2023/12 ... -mavericks