SAN ANTONIO – If the San Antonio Spurs don’t want their season to be over before the playoffs start, they need to start making a run for the eighth playoff spot in the Western Conference.
They only have 26 games left and for the moment, they need to make up 3 1/2 games on the Memphis Grizzlies.
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The Spurs have three in a row at home, so there’s no better time to start making things happen than Wednesday night when they host the Dallas Mavericks.
“It’s a massive game for us tomorrow [Wednesday], and hopefully that can kick start a good home stretch," Spurs guard Patty Mills said.
The Spurs are coming off a brutal loss to Oklahoma City on Sunday evening, and finished their annual rodeo road trip with a 2-6 record, their second-worst rodeo road trip in franchise history, which puts even more pressure on this upcoming game and the entire homestand.
“It’s huge, all the games are massive. We just have to take it one (game) at a time. We don’t have a lot of time left, so we have to be ready to go from the jump," Spurs guard Derrick White said.
“We got a lot of guys here who love to compete, love the game of basketball. It’s on us, man. We got to go out, we got to just compete and play hard as a team,” Spurs guard Dejounte Murray said.
The playoffs are an incentive to play even harder. And then, there is the fact that the Mavs have won the first two games out of four against the Spurs this season.
“Little Texas pride, you want to go out and compete, right now there’s other things at stake.”
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One of the Spurs biggest problems is consistency, something they have had trouble with all season. That is the main reason they find themselves in this position, outside the playoff picture trying to get in.
“Just being behind the eight ball, but it’s a challenge, and I think that’s what we’ve had in front of us the whole year of just facing knew challenges that we haven’t been faced with before," Mills said.
Mills took advantage of his long NBA All-Star break by heading to his home country of Australia that was devastated by wildfires. The trip gave him an opportunity to see first-hand the destruction left behind.
“That was the biggest thing for me, being so far away from home and seeing the country go up in flames. There was a part of me that felt as a proud Australian. I was going up in flames, too, I guess,” Mills said.
The trip was emotional and rewarding for Mills, who was able to do what he could to make an impact on those effected the most.
“It was a satisfying trip, personally, and it was only that because we were able to make a positive impact for other people that were in desperate need,” Mills said.