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San Antonio Spurs head coach Mitch Johnson told reporters that his team was facing some mental fatigue after a 130-117 loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers on Friday night. After two days of rest and the return of some key players, the Spurs will get a chance to turn the ship around against the league-worst New Orleans Pelicans, as they continue their four-game road trip.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Stephon Castle and Luke Kornet are both questionable for Monday\u2019s contest, but are expected to play. Notably, Castle, Kornet, Jordan McLaughlin, and Victor Wembanyama were full participants in practice over the weekend. San Antonio could be at full health very soon. Monday\u2019s game could be a good tune-up game for some of the beat-up Spurs, as the Pelicans could be without three of their top five scorers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
San Antonio has already beaten New Orleans twice this year, but in those games, the Silver and Black experienced just how physical this motivated young team can be. Trey Murphy III is a budding star, and rookies Jeremiah Fears and Derik Queen are fearless. Kornet and Castle will be hugely valuable as they can bolster a Spurs defense that gave up 44 third-quarter points on Friday night. San Antonio could use this game to gain some momentum as they head into their NBA Cup matchup with the Los Angeles Lakers on Wednesday night.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Spurs Injuries<\/strong>: Stephon Castle \u2013 Questionable (hip), Harrison Ingram \u2013 Out (G League), Jordan McLaughlin \u2013 Out (hamstring), Luke Kornet \u2013 Questionable (ankle), Victor Wembanyama \u2013 Out (calf), Riley Minix \u2013 Questionable (G League)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Pelicans Injuries: <\/strong>Hunter Dickinson \u2013 Out (G League), Herbert Jones \u2013 Questionable (calf), Dejounte Murray \u2013 Out (achilles), Jordan Poole \u2013 Out (quad), Zion Williamson \u2013 Out (adductor)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The ball will be in the Pelicans\u2019 star\u2019s hands on Monday. Murphy III is capable of huge scoring explosions. He had 41 points in the Spurs\u2019 last matchup with New Orleans. He\u2019s averaging 20.5 points and about three triples per contest. San Antonio may have to throw an extra defender at him, or be physical and aggressive in not letting him get open looks from three. The Pelicans are not a particularly great offensive team (26th in offensive rating), but they have enough talent to get hot. Murphy III could be a galvanizing force. The Spurs will be tasked with making sure he doesn\u2019t take over the game.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The third quarter of the Cleveland game boiled down to a lack of attention to detail. San Antonio lost their man, failed to communicate screens, and wasn\u2019t physical at the point of attack, among other issues. It was a complete breakdown on the Spurs\u2019 part. New Orleans doesn\u2019t have the same level of offensive talent as Cleveland, but it has young players who have proven they can score. Kornet and Castle returning should be a big help. San Antonio will need to lock in on that end to get a win on the road.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n After missing the last 9 games, Castle is expected to play on Monday. It would be safe to assume he will come back to the starting lineup, with Julian Champagnie heading to the bench. It\u2019ll be interesting to see if the Spurs put him on a minutes restriction or play an extended bench like they have been to reduce his minutes in the first game back. Regardless of his playing time, the Spurs could use another downhill attacker, playmaker, and perimeter defender. Castle can help in all of those departments. He was playing well before he got hurt, too. Castle is averaging 17.3 points, 7.5 assists, and 5.8 rebounds while shooting 49.7% from the field this season.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n San Antonio Spurs head coach Mitch Johnson told reporters that his team was facing some mental fatigue after a 130-117 loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers on Friday night. After two days of rest and the return of some key players, the Spurs will get a chance to turn the ship around against the league-worst New … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12648,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12647","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Game-Preview-San-Antonio-Spurs-vs-New-Orleans-Pelicans.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12647","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12647"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12647\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12649,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12647\/revisions\/12649"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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