Looking to get their first win of the Rodeo Road Trip, the San Antonio Spurs walked into the home of the Atlanta Hawks not just looking for a big night in De’Aaron Fox’s debut as a Spur, but also knowing they have the Hawks draft pick. After a great first half that saw the Spurs get up by as much as 20, a turd quarter, where they gave up 43 points, let the Hawks back in the game. Trae Young got hot in the fourth, and the Hawks were able to tie the game with 8 seconds left, but the Spurs made just enough plays at the right time, including Victor Wembanyama’s decision to purposefully miss his second free throw with 2.9 seconds left to deny the timeout-less Hawks a good final look, and they held on for a 126-125 win.

Fox had an amazing debut with 24 points, 13 assists, 5 rebounds and 3 steals, and Wemby and Vassell contributed 24 point apiece. Young led the Hawks with 32 points, mostly in the second half, and Onyeka Okongwu had a big night with 30 points on 13-16 shooting.

Observations

• Fox’s first moments as a Spur went about as well as could be expected. In 8 minutes, he had 3 assists and six points on two pullup threes in transition: something the Spurs have not had in a while. Unsurprisingly, the biggest new threat he brings to the Spurs is speed. He can drive by players in the halfcourt and push it in transition, which helps either prevent the offense from bogging down or get it unstuck, where otherwise the Spurs have trouble with falling into too many iso-ball scenarios.
• As predicted, Devin Vassell greatly benefited from Fox’s presence, which drew more defensive attention away from him and opened more lanes for driving or taking open jumpers. He responded in front of his hometown crowd with 20 points on 9-18 shooting, despite only hitting 2-8 from three.
• Wemby only 8 points on three shots (5 free throws) in first half. Perhaps he was just letting Fox have his moment, but overall he looked exhausted much of the night after dealing with an illness a few games ago. Still, he picked his spots to go on spurts, including seven quick points to start the third quarter and a massive put-back dunk with 30 seconds left to retake the lead and the aforementioned free throws. You know Wemby is reaching to upper echelon when he mostly look terrible in a game and still have such an impact and post his normal numbers.
• With the Hawk’s lack of size, Jeremy Sochan had himself a night diving to the basket with 15 points on 7-8 shooting, with his only miss being a three. However…
• Before the game, it was announced my favorite backup center target, Jonas Valanciunis, had been acquired by the Kings for…Sidy Cissoko and two second round picks. My first reaction was disappointment because the Spurs could have made the exact same offer, although Jesus Gomez talked me off the ledge a bit, explaining that the Spurs actually would have needed to include more than Cissoko for salary purposes since they only had about $3 million in cap space. Regardless, the point still stands that the Spurs need to add depth at the center position with Zach Collins gone and Bassey out with a sprained MCL. The small ball worked tonight since the Hawks have similar injury issues with their front court, but it won’t work out so well on a lot of nights.