Box Grades: Spurs Cruise Past Mavs for 62nd Win of the Season

It’s wonderful to end the regular season on a high note, and it would appear that the Spurs are going to do that after securing the team’s 62nd and Vic’s 65th game in an ultimately comfortable win over the Mavs. There’s still one game to go, but San Antonio no longer has anything to play for in this regular season, and their final opponent (the Nuggets) may very well enter than game with the three seed on the line. Anything could happen, but I think a final Spurs record of 62-20 ought to be heavily favored at this point.

In some respects, this game was like many Spurs wins recently, in that San Antonio got up early and ultimately won by nearly 20 points. However, it was also a remarkably seesaw affair for about two-and-a-half quarters, until the game clearly broke the Silver and Black’s way around the middle of the third quarter. Fortunately, this combination of characteristics helped create some interesting box score highlights:

Factors that Decided the Game

This game looked like it was well on its way to over at the end of the first quarter, as San Antonio had opened up an 11-point lead. A resurgent 2nd and early 3rd quarter from Dallas made the game interesting, but the Spurs’ reasserted themselves in the latter half of the third, resulting in yet another comfortable blowout.

San Antonio secured a sizable overall advantage in total rebounds (+13), but Dallas actually held the edge in offensive boards (+1). In addition, Dallas had four fewer turnovers, which played a role in them having six more field goal attempts. Furthermore, the Mavs leaned much harder into the three-ball, logging a +8 3PA margin.

Sadly, for the Mavs, San Antonio was extremely efficient from the field, including FG% and 3P% values of 54.35% and 40.63%. This allowed the Spurs to outscore Dallas by eight outside of the free throw line.

The final nail in the coffin was San Antonio’s large advantages in free throw volume (+8 FTA) and FT% (+17.35 percentage points), which allowed the Spurs to achieve a point differential of +11 at the charity stripe. Setting aside San Antonio’s ridiculous efficiency in this area, a big problem for…

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Publish date : 2026-04-11 16:19:00

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