The Spurs defeated the Thunder, 118-96. Dejounte Murray led the way for the Spurs with 23 points, 10 rebounds and 14 assists in 3 quarters of play, his 8th triple-double of the season and the 12th of his career, while Josh Giddey tallied 9 points, 11 rebounds and 8 assists for the Thunder in the losing effort. The Spurs improve to 17-28 on the season, while the Thunder fall to 14-30.

Post Game Comments:

Spurs Coach Gregg Popovich

(On starting five being back…)

“Any team is better when they have their starting five, but for us being a young team and not having played long enough together, it’s very nice to have that luxury. They’re all healthy, and we even got Tre back tonight. So, it’s good to have that complement of players. They played well at both ends. We were aggressive, solid on defense and on the boards, and I thought we shared pretty good. We had 32 assists, so that’s a good sign.”

(On Drew Eubanks’ return…)

“He looked fine. He’s been playing. He’s been practicing. He’s a pro. He’s ready whether he starts, doesn’t play, or comes off the bench. He did good. I thought this was a good night for him, because of the physicality of OKC. He did fine work.”

(On Dejounte Murray setting the tone on both ends…)

“Like I say after every game, he’s playing All-Star basketball, and he’d be in consideration if we had a better record. He’s just grown by leaps and bounds in every way.”

(On the number of three-pointers tonight…)

“We’re getting more. We’re finding more understanding that that’s the game we’re in. Shooting 10 or 15 threes doesn't work really well.”

Spurs Forward Doug McDermott

(On starting five back together…)

“It’s huge. Honestly, when we’ve had that starting five out there, I feel like we’ve played some really good basketball. We’ve beat some really good teams. Unfortunately, the virus hit us, but here we are. We’ve got about halfway to go, and we feel like we can still make a pretty big run at this. DJ is playing incredible right now, and we all thrive off of him. He does it on both ends of the floor every single night, and he likes to get it going in transition. That’s a shooter's dream, and guys are just playing really hard right now.

(On Dejounte Murray telling him to keep his head up…)

“It was a good tip. It’s something I usually do. I haven’t played a ton of live ball lately, so I’ve kind of been rusty in certain areas. Just in transition to always have my eyes up because he’s always looking. Sometimes I get in a habit of running with my head down and maybe have a shot and I miss it, because I wasn’t looking up. He did a good job, and we came out firing there in the third quarter. It worked, obviously.

(On Jakob Poeltl’s screen setting…)

“He’s up there for sure. He’s the best screener on our team, and he knows how to control his body. He does a really good job of staying still, and he’s a very underrated passer as well. It’s great with an unselfish guy like that, and obviously what he does on the defensive end of the floor goes without saying. Just an incredible player all in all.”

Spurs Guard Dejounte Murray

(On having everyone back from protocols…)

“I always preach this is a professional sport. We get paid to do this, so next man up mentality. But it’s always good to be healthy, because we got familiar faces. We know what we are doing each and every day, because we’ve been doing it since open gym, to training camp, to preseason, all the way to regular season. It’s good to have everybody, because it makes the game easy for just all of us, as one.”

(On his between the legs pass…)

“Just having fun. That’s a big thing for me. It's hard when you are losing. For me, I got to understand it’s a process. A lot of us was put in situations this year and getting opportunities to play. We are used to having vets around. Now we are a young team, so everybody’s getting opportunities, and we are all new to it. But mainly that's just having fun and trying to win basketball games.”

(On his interaction with Pop tonight…)

“I think the thing with me and Pop, we are both are competitors, we want to win, but we both also know that it's bigger than basketball. So, it was good to see him smiling. I love to see him smiling, and obviously getting the win for us as one, the coaches, and the players. It's just the relationship we have. We can joke around, we get serious, we yell at each other. I think at the end of the day, it's us being competitors and wanting to win.”

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