Joe Camporeale-Imagn Images The Spurs sat everyone after halftime, and a competitive game quickly turned into a blowout loss. Coming off the high of their first buzzer-beater win since 2019, the San Antonio Spurs headed over to Phoenix to end a four-game road trip and play th eir final away game of the 2024-25 season. Despite being without Devin Vassell and Keldon Johnson (as well as Victor Wembanyama, De’Aaron Fox and Jeremy Sochan), the Spurs were the better team for the first 16 minutes of the game, but the Suns got hot to close the second quarter, and Mitch Johnson rested almost the entire rotation for the second half. The result was a blowout loss, 117-98, in which the Spurs had down by as much as 31 points before making things a little more respectable in extended garbage time. Julian Champagnie, who started in place of Vassell, kicked things off with a steal and two transition threes before assisting Biyombo for Spurs first eight points. Overall he and Stephon Castle combined for 17 of the Spurs’ first 19 points as they got out to a 19-13 lead midway through. The Kevin Durant-less Suns initially kept up by attacking the offensive glass and hitting some timely threes. They briefly took their first lead of the game on a Devin Booker three off a Spurs turnover, but the Spurs bench immediately responded with an 9-0 run and led 33-28 after 12 minutes. Malaki Branham opened the second quarter with a three and driving dunk to get the lead out to double figures, but things would soon fall apart for the Spurs. They still led by 9, 42-33 at the first timeout after four minutes, but things got sloppy on offense while Tyus Jones helped spear a 13-3 Suns run to retake the lead, forcing a Spurs timeout four minutes later. The Spurs’ struggles finding decent looks on offense continued, and the Suns extended that run to 20-5 to close the half leading 53-47. Blake Wesley and Sandro Mamukelashvili started the second half in place of Chris Paul and Harrison Barnes, who kept their perfect attendance records intact by playing in the first half. With the Spurs suddenly down to just two rotation players in Castle and Champagnie (three if you want to count Biyombo) and with Devin Booker finding his groove on offense, Phoenix started the on an 15-4 run to get the lead out to 17. The Suns were now red hot (no pun intended), getting everything they wanted in transition against a skeleton Spurs squad that appeared checked out on defense. They got the lead as high as 31, and overall the Spurs were outscored 39-17 in the third and down 64-92 heading into the final frame. Castle somewhat surprisingly checked back in to start the fourth quarter, and it was the Spurs’ turn to get out in transition with the Suns third string finally coming in. They kicked things off with a 23-9 run to get as close as 14 with six minutes to go, but two straight threes from Collin Gillespie got the lead back out to 20, essentially ending any hope the Skeleton Spurs had of making “the greatest comeback ever” after being down by 31 with just over 13 minutes to go. The win ended the Suns’ 8-game skid, but it was too little, too late for them as they were already eliminated from play-in contention. At the same time, the loss also locks the Spurs into 8th place in lottery odds. Game Notes The was a tale of four quarters for Castle, who was hot in the first quarter with 12 points and 3 assists on 5-5 shooting, but in the middle quarters, he was part of the problem with the play turning sloppy. It was somewhat surprising to see him return in the fourth quarter, but he was better and played a role in that huge run to briefly make things interesting. Despite the uneven performance, he still finished with a double-double of 16 points and 10 assists. Sometimes it has felt like Mamu used up all of his good will with the basketball gods in that Knicks game in which he scored 34 points on 13-14 from the field, 7-7 from three. Since then, he has shot under 40% from the field while hitting just 14-49 from three heading into this game. Tonight was better, at least from the inside, as he scored 19 points on 8-16 shooting (1-5 from three) and nearly had a double-double with 9 rebounds. Julian Champagnie had led all Spurs with 23 points on 6-9 shooting from the field. A lot of his makes come in spurts, and similar to Castle, he was hot in the first and fourth quarter but mostly invisible in the middle two. We’ve rarely seen a game where Champagnie stays hot the entire 48 minutes (he’s Icy-Hot 0.5 — goes hot and cold within games), so if he can find more in-game consistency, he will continue to be a strong weapon off what looks like will be a great bench unit for the Spurs next season. Play of the Game I guess the Spurs didn’t find this game interesting either. They didn’t save many highlights to work with, so here’s Mamu finding Wesley on the outlets pass while they fought back in the fourth quarter. Blake Wesley all the way pic.twitter.com/B8L7N7OGv9— San Antonio Spurs (@spurs) April 12, 2025 Up next: Sunday vs. Raptors The Spurs will close out the 2024-25 season at home against the Toronto Raptors. Tip-off will be at 2:30 PM CT on FanDuel Sports. ...read more read less