NBA Game Preview - Charlotte at San Antonio

Sat Feb 1, 2020 9:00 PM EST

If there is any game that can be considered a must-win in the middle of the NBA season, one could point to the Saturday's dustup at home against the Charlotte Hornets as incredibly important for the enigmatic San Antonio Spurs.

That's because the game with the Hornets is the last before the Spurs' arduous, annual Rodeo Road Trip, in which this season San Antonio will play eight consecutive games away from home in 21 days -- seven contests against teams ahead of it in the Western Conference standings.

The Spurs take some needed momentum into Saturday's contest after beating Utah 127-120 at home on Wednesday in a game they dominated against one of the hottest teams in the league despite playing without forward LaMarcus Aldridge.

DeMar DeRozan poured in season-best 38 points and Patty Mills added 18 off the bench as San Antonio snapped a three-game losing streak.

"We're fed up," DeRozan said after the game. "It's been tough the last three games, it sucks, losing the games we should have won. We knew we would have to bring it (against Utah), and, you know, we did well. We went out there by being aggressive. We didn't think too much; we went out there and played. We made mistakes but we didn't let the mistakes get us down."

Dejounte Murray added 16 points for the Spurs, with Rudy Gay, Marco Belinelli and Derrick White scoring 10 points apiece for San Antonio.

"Everybody's contributed tonight and we made adjustments," San Antonio coach Gregg Popovich said. "We had guys on the same page. Everybody responded pretty good to whatever was going on out of the court."

Aldridge is day-to-day with a thumb injury.

The Hornets head to San Antonio on the heels of a 121-107 loss at the Washington Wizards on Thursday. Miles Bridges paced Charlotte with 23 points and Terry Rozier added 21 in the loss.

P.J. Washington scored 15 points for the Hornets before he was forced from the game in the third quarter with a sprained right ankle. Willy Hernangomez and Devonte' Graham scored 12 and 11 points, respectively, for Charlotte, which has lost nine of its past 10 games and dropped 15 of 18.

Washington dominated the rebounding battle 57-38, a statistic that had Hornets coach James Borrego boiling mad after the loss.

"A lack of physicality, presence and pride about getting a rebound out there," Borrego said. "We didn't deserve to win tonight. It was a very disappointing second half."

"You can't teach pride and physicality," he added. "(Our guys) have to figure that out. If they want to win a game, if we want to win a game, they have to go get rebounds. That's the bottom line. This isn't tricky. We could do 20 minutes of rebounding drills, but in the end, they have to have pride about rebounding the ball."

Just two of the Hornets' wins this season have come against teams that are currently above .500. Which means that they should give the Spurs, a team that's lost five times this year at home to squads that are below the break-even mark, a real tussle.

This will be the first of two games between the two teams this season. Charlotte swept the Spurs last year but San Antonio has a 41-17 all-time advantage over the Hornets and a 21-8 edge in games played in the Alamo City.

--Field Level Media