Wemby Watch: Jeremy Sochan Shines vs. Trailblazers, Spurs Big 4 Emerges

Story of the Game

The Spurs talent pool looked nearly empty just two games ago against the Sixers in Philadephia, but tonight we saw the pool fill right back up.

Jeremy Sochan, especially, turned things around.

Sochan put up 31 and 14 in 31 minutes reminding everyone why he was a lottery pick just two years ago.

What I especially liked about Sochan’s star contribution is he did it exactly in the way he should be, filling up on the in-between plays. Here’s what I wrote about Jeremy in my Wemby Watch for the Celtics game:

If we could take out 75% of the bad, Jeremy is a very capable player — his three pointer continues to be better than you’d think (37.5%) and he possesses real talent.

I would try to mold him as a mix between Bruce Bowen and Dennis Rodman. I’d have him focus on three things:

One-on-one defense

Hitting corner threes

Rebounding

And throw in a side of mind games if he’s up for it, which it looks like he is.

Toss in some bonus slashing to the basket and that’s what we got out of Jeremy tonight.

It was a great reminder that for all of his stupid plays, there is real talent beneath (and on) the surface.

If Jeremy can consistently rebound and hit threes — which are sitting right there for him with the attention Victor draws — he could become a real problem for opposing teams.

I think the Spurs can extract a huge ROI from Jeremy if he’s focused on the right things. He’s played horribly of late, but this guy can be a difference maker. In the Celtics Wemby Watch, I also wrote:

Jeremy is like when you go to Colorado to pan for gold and you know there’s gold in the mountains, but you also know it’s going to be hard to extract enough gold for it to be worth the effort.

I’m pulling for Jeremy to become the in-between player on the Spurs.

Victor Stats

23 points, 4 assists, 12 rebounds, 2 blocks in 28 minutes

7–18 fgs, 3–7 3 fgs

Quick Thoughts

Although this was a nice win, it still has to be tempered by the fact that it was against the Portland Trailblazers and they lost Jeremi Grant and Scoot Henderson in the first half.

So for as much as the Spurs did right, the solid play came against a bottom tier team missing one of its top players for most of the game.

Either way, the march for 30 wins continues and there were several positives to take away.

First, the Spurs core block of Victor, Devin, Keldon, and Jeremy all put up 15+ points. And Keldon poured in 21 and 16 in 29 minutes.

That’s 42 rebounds just from three players.

Devin had the quiet night, shooting only 5–14, but, still, we know he’s the second best scorer on the team.

If these four can start playing cohesively, they present a 4-headed monster for opponents. The beauty is the puzzle pieces can all fit together:

• Devin is the athletic two guard who can score from outside and in
• Jeremy is the Swiss Army knife that can fill in where needed
• Keldon is the hyper aggressive role player who can contribute immediately off the bench
• Victor is the franchise who opens up the rest of the game

Speaking of which, that last bullet was in my game notes.

This was the first game where I really saw the game open up for the rest of the Spurs (because of Victor’s presence) and they took advantage of it.

The Blazers were so focused on Victor, it made life a lot easier for Sochan, etc. There were open looks, open lanes, and more rebounding possibilities because Victor magnetized the opponents to him.

Another nice plus from this game was Victor showed off excellent touch on two full court passes, one to Tre Jones and another to Cedi.

On Cedi, this was also somewhat of a revival game for him. He surprisingly created some offense from his defense.

Despite Victor posting 24 and 12 along with a multitude of nice moments, it was only an average game by his standard.

His 3 three point makes pulled his scoring up, but he shot too many outside shots and was out of control and/or played weak in 1-on-1 situations.

The key for Victor is that he’s moving towards the basket rather than moving away from it.

Victor did have at least two near spectacular dunks that didn’t come through for him. One was because he blocked himself against the backboard. I don’t know exactly how that happened but it did.

Overall, Victor’s foundational play was a negative this game; he can’t carry forward his play in offensive sets from this game and expect to have success.

While DeAndre Ayton played him the right way, it wasn’t really Ayton that stopped Victor, it was Victor stopping Victor.

Although the opponent grade was low, the Spurs still showed positive signs and progression.

And what’s clear over the last 10 games is that the Spurs are not a bottom tier team because they’re beating all of the other bottom tier teams.

The next step is for the positive play to carry over into competitiveness against good teams. Wins aren’t necessary to demonstrate real progress. As long as the Spurs can play good and stay competitive against quality opponents, that will go a long way to showing that this Spurs team isn’t just perpetually in “development” stage.

And, of course, if the Spurs are in more games, they’re going to win some of those games.

Tomorrow night against the Timberwolves will be a good test.

Pre-game Setup

The Portland-Spurs matchup is game #45 for the Spurs.

Betting: Spurs -3.5, Over/Under 229.5

(Guess-Prediction: I’ll take the Spurs and the over.)

Betting Record going into the game 31–28–1.

The Blazers are in San Antonio for this contest.