LA makes history with 25-point lead against Spurs

The LA Clippers came into Friday night’s clash against the San Antonio Spurs having won three games in a row and were looking for a big win against the second seed in the Western Conference. With another game on Saturday night against the Memphis Grizzlies, the Clippers needed a big win.

Unfortunately, just the opposite happened.

The Clippers dominated the Spurs in the first half and led 69–49 at halftime. They took their largest lead, 75–50, with a little over nine minutes left in the game and LA looked to be headed for an easy second half.

But San Antonio came roaring back behind Julian Champagnie, Victor Wembanyama and De’Aaron Fox. Champagnie recorded 17 points on 5-of-8 shooting from the floor in the third quarter, cutting the Clippers’ 25-point lead to 11 entering the fourth quarter.

The Spurs then started the fourth quarter with an 18-5 run and took a 99-97 lead over the Clippers. Both teams exchanged buckets until the final seconds, when the Clippers had a costly turnover inbounding the ball with 14.9 seconds remaining.

Nevertheless, Julien Champaign missed two free throws for a three-point lead, giving the Clippers a chance to win, only for San Antonio to secure an offensive rebound and send Stephen Cassel to the free throw line to put the Clippers up by three points.

Cassel made the first free throw to put the Spurs up by two, but missed the second free throw, giving the Clippers their last chance to go the length of the court to tie at the buzzer or win. Well, that’s what would have happened had they been able to grab a defensive rebound. Cassel came up with the loose ball rebound and scored at the rim to give the Spurs a four-point lead with 1.4 seconds remaining.

The Clippers lost to the Spurs 116–112, a game in which their key players played heavy minutes – Kawhi Leonard at 37, Brook Lopez at 34, Derrick Jones Jr. at 34 – in the first night of a back-to-back set with the visiting Giants.

Clippers in Friday’s game Perfect 108-0 record Leading by 20 or more points at halftime. In doing so, L.A. lost its first game in franchise history, according to Clippers radio host Adam Osland.

Additionally, ESPN’s Michael Wright reported that the Clippers’ 25-point lead was the largest increased lead in franchise history in the play-by-play era.

The 25-point lead is tied for the largest lead of the season with the Rockets blowing a 25-point lead against the Pelicans on December 18, 2025. Strangely, the largest blown lead was last season, 26 points, when the Clippers came back from being down 26 points to defeat the San Antonio Spurs.

In fact, the top two biggest comeback/burst leads each year since the 2020-21 season have involved either the LA Clippers or San Antonio Spurs.

The Clippers will have a chance to erase the sour taste left from this game in less than 24 hours when they take on the Memphis Grizzlies at 5pm PST. Meanwhile, the Spurs will take Saturday off before returning to action against the Houston Rockets on Sunday night at 5 p.m. PST.


#history #25point #lead #Spurs

Victor Wembanyama honestly confesses who is to blame for the Spurs’ 25-point loss to the Knicks

Victor Wembanyama and Spurs have been performing highly this season. They are firmly in the Western Conference playoff race, sitting at the second seed in the conference, and within striking distance of the Oklahoma City Thunder for the top seed. But the Knicks were able to figure out how to cool down a hot San Antonio squad.

It appears that teams will choose to get physical with Wembanyama to take him off his game, as the Pistons attempted to show in their loss last Monday. This time, it appeared that the Knicks were able to crack the winning formula with their aggressive defensive coverage and Wembanyama recognized this in postgame comments received by Hector Ledesma.

“I think they had some physicality, but not what we’ve seen… For some reason, we were a little hesitant… I was especially hesitant on threes… I was holding the ball too much… We gave them a breather. We should have been better, especially in the first quarter. That was the game.”

Wembanyama made it clear that the Knicks gameplan impressed him and it was something he was aware of.

“They’re a good basketball team, but they’re not like the worst team. They’re not an ugly team to watch, but they’ve made our game ugly.”

Still, Vembanyama doesn’t think the team is going backward.

“I don’t see any downside. I think it’s good for us to see such adversity. We want to play the best teams. This is a top-seeded playoff team – experience. They know what it’s like, and they gave us a good performance today.”


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What Mike Brown liked to see in the 25-point destruction of the Spurs

On Sunday afternoon, the New York Knicks picked up one of their most impressive wins of the season with a home demolition of the San Antonio Spurs. The Spurs came into this game riding an 11-game winning streak, but the Knicks defense quickly extinguished that flame, which was on full display in this game.

After the game, head coach Mike Brown got 100% real about his team destroying the Spurs.

“I thought our weak-side defense was really good,” Brown said, according to James L. Edwards III of The Athletic on X, formerly Twitter, who noted that Brown “admitted to the Spurs missing shots that they were making, but Brown thought the defense was on a string and the on-ball defense was really good.”

In fact, the Spurs missed countless open looks on Sunday afternoon, which played a big role in the Knicks’ defensive success against them. Still, for the most part, New York did a solid job of clogging up the paint against superstar Victor Wembanyama while homing in on San Antonio’s outside shooters.

Meanwhile, the Knicks also overcame their aggressive start and finished with a solid output on that side of the ball.

Brown said, “At the end of the day, it was great to get 48 3s. With Wembley in the paint, you’ve got to shoot the ball.”

Overall, defense has been one of the major reasons many skeptics have cited why they don’t take the Knicks seriously as a title contender, with New York’s best two players – Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns – both clearly negative on that side of the ball.

However, Towns and Brunson both held up against the Spurs’ explosive offensive attack on Sunday, resulting in the Knicks’ victory.

The Knicks will next take the field against the Toronto Raptors on Tuesday evening.


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