{"id":1904296,"date":"2026-04-26T22:27:01","date_gmt":"2026-04-26T19:27:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1904296"},"modified":"2026-04-26T22:27:01","modified_gmt":"2026-04-26T19:27:01","slug":"victor-wembanyama-spurs-suffocate-blazers-in-second-half-to-take-3-1-series-lead-takeaways","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1904296","title":{"rendered":"Victor Wembanyama, Spurs suffocate Blazers in second half to take 3-1 series lead: Takeaways"},"content":{"rendered":"
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After returning from a one-game absence, Victor Wembanyama and the San Antonio Spurs rallied from a 17-point halftime deficit to defeat the Portland Trail Blazers 114-93 in Game 4 of their first-round series on Sunday afternoon. San Antonio now leads the series 3-1.<\/p>\n

Wembanyama, who missed the Spurs\u2019 Game 3 win while recovering from a concussion he sustained in Game 2, scored 27 points with 11 rebounds, three assists, four steals and seven blocked shots. The Blazers scored just 35 second-half points while being held to 40 percent shooting for the game.<\/p>\n

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Spurs guard De\u2019Aaron Fox scored a game-high 28 points with six rebounds and seven assists, and Stephon Castle added 16 points and eight assists for the Spurs. Portland turned the ball over 18 times, leading to 29 Spurs points.<\/p>\n

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Here are some takeaways with Game 5 set for Tuesday in San Antonio.<\/p>\n

Portland\u2019s offensive second-half output<\/h2>\n

The Trail Blazers will head back to Texas on the brink of elimination knowing they squandered two prime opportunities to make the Spurs sweat in this series. On Friday, with Wembanyama sidelined in Game 3, Portland gave up a 15-point lead. Two days later, Portland again watched a sizable lead it built at home melt away in the second half.<\/p>\n

The Trail Blazers couldn\u2019t hold on against the Spurs, despite leading by 17 points at halftime. Portland\u2019s offense went ice cold in the second half, when it managed to produce only 35 points. With Wembanyama controlling the paint, the Trail Blazers tried to keep pace by launching 3s, but Portland converted just 3 of 15 looks from behind the arc in the second half.<\/p>\n

Scoot Henderson, who averaged 23.3 points per game in the first three games of the series, went scoreless in 27 minutes. Donovan Clingan, Portland\u2019s starting center, wasn\u2019t much more effective, scoring five points on 2-of-10 shooting. The Spurs seemed content to let Clingan jack up 3s. The 7-foot-2 big man went 1 of 6 from distance.<\/p>\n

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Deni Avdija scored a team-high 26 points, but Wembanyama was able to limit his slashing-oriented game in the second half. Wembanyama swatted Avdija with 1:41 remaining for the last of his seven blocks.\u00a0\u2014 Christian Clark, NBA senior writer<\/em><\/p>\n

Spurs make a brilliant halftime adjustment<\/h2>\n

It\u2019s obvious that Wembanyama had a stellar performance in his first-ever road playoff game, but Spurs coach Mitch Johnson and his staff deserve outsized credit for another dramatic second-half turnaround in Portland.<\/p>\n

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In the first half, Wembanyama had the ball in his hands for much of the time. The Spurs could not create advantages and the spacing stalled out.<\/p>\n

So Johnson reconfigured the Spurs\u2019 spacing in the second half to put Wembanyama at the elbow and corner off the ball, often bunched up with a teammate, in an attempt to pull Portland\u2019s centers away from the paint. Suddenly, the Spurs got uncontested dunks at an alarming rate. Portland couldn\u2019t figure out how to pass off help assignments to deal with the downhill speed San Antonio\u2019s guards and wings got once the Blazers center was distracted on the perimeter tracking Wembanyama.<\/p>\n

When Blazers coach Tiago Splitter tried throwing a curveball and bringing in wing Kris Murray off the bench to guard Wembanyama, the Spurs\u2019 giant left him in the dust multiple times in a short span for open buckets at the rim. The Blazers then tried putting Jrue Holiday on Wembanyama, as they did in the first half, but that gave De\u2019Aaron Fox more room to cook mismatches without worrying about getting trapped.<\/p>\n

The Spurs were down 19 before Fox hit a layup at the halftime buzzer. The Spurs went up 20 by the beginning of crunch time. It happened because Fox completely took over this game as Wembanyama turned into a terror off the ball working around him.<\/p>\n

The Spurs have shown their championship bona fides in Portland with their gameplan management and execution. The deeper this series has gone, the more they have shown they can find Portland\u2019s vulnerabilities and exploit them repeatedly in a variety of ways. It\u2019s the wide range of answers the Spurs have shown that makes them look like serious title contenders as they move a win away from their first playoff series win in nine years. \u2014 Jared Weiss, Spurs writer<\/em><\/p>\n

The Fox says it\u2019s over<\/h2>\n

What do the San Antonio Spurs really<\/em> need from De\u2019Aaron Fox? It\u2019s a question that\u2019s been hard to define all season, with Wembanyama being Wembanyama and backcourt mates Castle and Dylan Harper being well ahead of schedule. Fox\u2019s leadership has been universally lauded, so he\u2019s clearly contributed immensely to this Spurs team. But it\u2019s still been odd at times watching the Spurs play so well without even needing their 27-year-old two-time All-Star and one-time All-NBA point guard needing to play like it on the court.<\/p>\n

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But there\u2019s always been an answer to that basic question: The Spurs need Fox when they\u2019re in a tight spot in a pivotal playoff game. A game like Game 4 in Portland, for example, with Castle in foul trouble and an opportunity to step on an opponent\u2019s neck.<\/p>\n

And Fox answered the call. For the first time in these playoffs, the 2023 NBA Clutch Player of the Year played like it. He supplied seven straight points on a layup, midrange fadeaway and stepback 3, then dished a rope to Keldon Johnson for another 3 to put San Antonio up 13. The Spurs never looked back.<\/p>\n

Fox isn\u2019t the same explosive player he was in Sacramento. He sometimes appears reluctant to finish in the lane, at least off one leg. But he\u2019s twice as crafty as he was in his Kings days and has displayed a knack for knowing when to take over and when to hang back on this talented Spurs team. San Antonio will need Game 4 De\u2019Aaron Fox to show up in critical moments as this playoff run continues.\u00a0\u2014Mike Prada, NBA staff editor<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After returning from a one-game absence, Victor Wembanyama and the San Antonio Spurs rallied from a 17-point halftime deficit to defeat the Portland Trail Blazers 114-93 in Game 4 of their first-round series on Sunday afternoon. San Antonio now leads the series 3-1. Wembanyama, who missed the Spurs\u2019 Game 3 win while recovering from a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[226,241],"class_list":["post-1904296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crawlmanager","tag-nytimes-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1904296","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1904296"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1904296\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1904296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1904296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1904296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}