SAN ANTONIO — The San Antonio Spurs' 18-game losing skid is over after beating the Los Angeles Lakers 129-115 at home.
Victor Wembanyama finished with 13 points and 15 rebounds. Malaki Branham recorded 12 points. Zach Collins had 16 points and six rebounds in the win. Jeremy Sochan had 11 points and two assists. Keldon Johnson added 17 points and two rebounds. Devin Vassell recorded 36 points to lead the team.
The Spurs are 4-20 on the season, and will next host the New Orleans Pelicans on Sunday and honor Tony Parker for his Hall of Fame induction.
Here's a sample of what the teams said after the game.
SPURS
Gregg Popovich:
"Tonight we made shots. Overall, the defense was pretty good. Been improving significantly. Offensively, we still have a ways to go but I thought they competed well and it's tough to go up 20 against a team run by LeBron (James) on that court since he knows how to manipulate everything and do what has to be done to win a game."
Johnson
"Any win feels great but this feels good. I can get used to this feeling. It felt great. You want to know what really felt great to me was seeing Jeremy (Sochan) playing amazing defense tonight. I seen Vic (Wembanyama) block shots, rebound, and do what he do but did you all see Devin Vassell? He had a couple of bad games and as I tell you all the time that what he do. He put in the time for that. I felt good to see my teammates flourish."
Wembanyama
"It does feel good. It kind of felt like a playoff game to me. We have to feel good about it. We love the feeling. We want to repeat it. We're going to keep on working."
Vassell
"At the end of the day, as a competitor, you want to win every game. When you're going through a stretch like that, that's tough. For us to be resilient, that's a good group out there. It's a tough team (Lakers) so for us to stay resilient even though we were up in the first quarter, it's good for us to get this win."
Collins
"It's great. We won! It's fantastic. This is big. We know we've been trending in the right direction. Nobody is shocked as far as the players go. We just knew we just had to catch a couple of breaks and make some more shots because we knew our defense was getting better. We feel good about it."
LAKERS
LeBron James
Darvin Ham