San Antonio Spurs assistant coach Mitch Johnson directs play during the first half of an NBA basketball game against the Indiana Pacers in San Antonio, Thursday, March 2, 2023. The Indiana Pacers arrived at the AT&T Center on Thursday to face a Spurs team coming off a nine-game road swing, one that had lost 16 of 17 games and was stuck near the bottom of the Western Conference standings.
Don’t look now — especially if you are among the caste of San Antonio fans rooting for the team to remain in the NBA’s bottom 3 — but the Spurs have a win streak going. Johnson had filled in for Popovich before, in May of 2021 when the Spurs coach attended Tim Duncan’s Hall of Fame induction ceremony. The Spurs lost to Phoenix that day 140-103.
The team’s second leading scorer before going under the knife, Vassell had 18 points in 23 minutes off the bench against Indiana.Sochan recorded his first career double-double, to which he added a pair of steals. One of those thefts came in the middle of the third quarter, when Sochan picked T.J. McConnell’s pocket near the top of the key and scrambled the length of the court for a dunk.
Already having carved a reputation as one of the NBA’s better mid-range shooters, Vassell was the Spurs’ second-leading scorer at 19.2 points per game.