The San Antonio Spurs entered tonight’s Thanksgiving Eve game with the Lakers snapping a season-best four-game winning streak, their longest winning streak since March 2022. However, they fell short early on, and even though they were able to Keeping within striking distance for most of the night, they finally succumbed in the 4th thanks to a balanced effort from the Lakers. Los Angeles put the game away late in the fourth quarter, sending the Spurs on their way with a loss that reset their aforementioned streak counter to 0. The Spurs now have a few days off to digest tomorrow’s Thanksgiving dinner before hitting the road and returning to action on Sunday night against the Sacramento Kings.

Observations

• Dalton Knecht was picked on more than a few times on defense, but the rookie sniper more than made up for it with his shooting. Knecht led a balanced Los Angeles scoring attack with 20 points, getting the Lakers off to a great start and setting the tone for their offense for most of the night.
• After putting up some impressive games during this winning streak, Victor Wembanyama and Stephon Castle struggled with their offense in this one. Between them they scored just 30 points tonight, with Wemby’s 20 being his lowest since scoring 12 in a win over the Trailblazers in early November. They had a handful of highlights, with Wemby finishing off some crazy shots and Castle finding and setting up teammates, but compared to what’s been going on lately, it was a bad night.
• Watching this one, it honestly felt like Lebron James didn’t exist for most of the night because of the attack. But anyone looking at the box score afterwards would see that he somehow finished with a triple double, his sixth of the season and his second straight against the Spurs. He only scored 16 points, but 8 of those points came in the 4th quarter and helped the Lakers put this one away.
• Devin Vassell made a piece of Spurs history tonight with a 14-point performance off the bench in his return from a knee injury:

• The Lakers had seven players finish the game in double figures tonight, compared to five for the Spurs. Off the bench, Los Angeles got big contributions from D’Angelo Russell and Max Christie, adding 29 points. Christie in particular was huge in the third quarter, scoring 4/4 for 10 of his 12 points. Both stifled more than one point of the Spurs run that threatened to tie them with the Lakers.
• Julian Champagnie had a great game scoring the ball and had more than enough big shots to slow the momentum the Lakers were trying to build all night. His 18 points are the most he has scored in a game since the 21 he had in a loss to the Clippers on November 4.

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