Victor Wembanyama continued his brilliant play by racking up 41 points and 16 rebounds while helping the host San Antonio Spurs to a 129-114 victory over the Chicago Bulls on Monday in a late season interconference clash.
The Spurs (57-18) won for a league-leading ninth straight outing and kept pace with Oklahoma City in the hunt for the best record in both the Western Conference and the NBA as a whole. San Antonio finished the month of March with 14 victories in its 16 contests after going undefeated in February and is two games behind Oklahoma City with seven games left to play.
It was Wembanyama’s third game with 40 or more points this season. He had 38 in the first meeting with the Bulls this season in November.
The Spurs led by 17 points at halftime after a dominating second quarter and extended the margin to 20 after three quarters. Chicago never got closer than 13 points in the fourth as San Antonio cruised to the victory.
Stephon Castle added 21 points for San Antonio while Keldon Johnson scored 15, Julian Champagnie and Dylan Harper had 13 points each and Luke Kornet tallied 10.
Tre Jones led Chicago with 23 points. Leonard Miller added 21 off the bench, Collin Sexton had 20, Guerschon Yabusele hit for 15 points and Matas Buzelis finished with 12 for the Bulls (29-46), who have already been eliminated from the postseason
The teams traded the lead throughout an evenly played first quarter, which ended with the Spurs up 29-28 on the strength of a Johnson 3-pointer with 23 seconds to play in the period.
A layup by Miller at the 5:27 mark of the second quarter brought the Bulls to within 41-40 before San Antonio took charge, finishing the period with a 23-7 burst. Castle had 10 points over that surge and Wembanyama scored nine including a stepback 3-pointer with 4 seconds remaining that garnered the Spurs a 64-47 advantage at the break.
Wembanyama’s 21 points and 12 rebounds before halftime topped the box score while Castle also had 13 points for the Spurs. Miller led Chicago with 14 points in the first half. The Bulls hit just seven of their 25 shots (28%) in the second quarter when they were outscored by 16 points.
San Antonio poured it on in the third quarter, pushing the margin to 95-66 after a tip-in layup by Luke Kornet with 4:16 left in the period. The Bulls culled their deficit to 19 points via a 10-0 run before San Antonio shrugged off the tepid rally, carrying a 102-82 lead into the final 12 minutes.
