Spurs at Cavaliers
The San Antonio Spurs attempt to move up in the Western Conference standings with two regular-season games left against non-playoff teams, starting with a road contest against the struggling Cleveland Cavaliers on Sunday afternoon. The Spurs are 4-5 in their last nine games after a 129-112 victory at Washington on Friday, but trail the sixth-place Los Angeles Clippers by one game and seventh-place Oklahoma City by a half game.
“You have to go out there and play extremely hard, no matter who you’re playing against until the playoffs,” San Antonio guard DeMar DeRozan told reporters. “We have two more games, and we can’t worry about anybody else. We just have to worry about this next game and just keep moving on wherever we fall.” The Spurs defeated the Cavaliers 116-110 in San Antonio on March 28 with 25 points from DeRozan and look to extend their winning streak in the series to six contests. Cleveland will miss the playoffs for the first time since 2014 and have dropped eight straight contests - its second-longest losing streak of the season - after falling 120-114 at Golden State on Friday to end a five-game road trip. Rookie Collin Sexton has made quite an impression to end the regular season while averaging 23.9 points over the last 15 contests, scoring at least 20 in 13 of those outings.
TV: 3 p.m. ET, FS Southwest (San Antonio), FS Ohio (Cleveland)
ABOUT THE SPURS (46-34): San Antonio’s 77 points Friday tied the most during a first half in franchise history on the road (1981 at Denver) and was the most in any half since 1990. “I was real pleased with how we shared the ball,” San Antonio coach Gregg Popovich told reporters after the win. “The defense wasn’t all that great, but our pace was really good on offense and got us through.” Center LaMarcus Aldridge (21.2 points, team-high 9.1 rebounds) has double-doubles in four of the last seven games and guard Bryn Forbes (11.8 points) outscored his averaged in five of his last six contests.
ABOUT THE CAVALIERS (19-61): Forward Kevin Love (17.6 points, 11.2 rebounds) has missed the last four games with a shoulder injury and is likely to be held out the final two. Guard Jordan Clarkson is averaging 19.5 points over the last four games and is second on the team overall at 17.0 per contest - just ahead of Sexton (16.7) - while center Ante Zizic (7.7) is averaging 13.7 points in his past three outings. Forward Larry Nance Jr. has been productive since Love went down with the injury, averaging 10.2 points and 12.6 rebounds (4.5 above his season average) over the past five contests.
TIP-INS
1. DeRozan (team highs of 21.4 points, 6.2 assists) has shot at least 50 percent from the field in six straight contests.
2. Cleveland G David Nwaba had 13 points on 5-of-7 shooting Friday after averaging 6.1 over the previous eight games.
3. San Antonio C Jakob Poeltl scored 13 points Friday, his most since pouring in 14 against the Los Angeles Lakers on Dec. 7.