Victor Wembanyama returned from a concussion and San Antonio flipped trail blazers vs spurs with a 114-93 Game 4 win on Sunday, turning a 19-point hole into a 3-1 series lead. The Spurs are now one win from advancing after a second-half surge that Portland could not stop.
Wembanyama Changes Game 4
Wembanyama finished with 27 points, 12 rebounds, seven blocks and four steals in his first game back after missing Game 3 with the concussion he sustained in Game 2. He did not just return; he reshaped the game on both ends.
San Antonio started the second half with a 13-0 run and erased the deficit before Wembanyama tied it at 74-74 with a tip dunk at the end of the third quarter. Devin Vassell’s dunk then cut Portland’s lead to four with 3 minutes, 54 seconds left in the third, and the Spurs kept pressing from there.
San Antonio’s Second-Half Surge
The Spurs outscored Portland 73-35 after halftime. That 38-point second-half margin was the second-largest in a playoff game in NBA history, and it pushed San Antonio into a spot no team had reached before: trailing by 15 points or more at halftime and still winning by 15 or more.
Portland had led by 17 points at halftime before the collapse, then watched San Antonio keep stretching the game out of reach. Mitch Johnson summed up the approach after the win: “The games have unfolded in a way that would be pretty clear for us that you can't tiptoe or go into a game with the wrong approach,” and, “They've shown tremendous gall in the response of where we have been a few times in the second half in the last two games.”
Series Shifts To San Antonio
The loss left Portland down 3-1 in the Western Conference first-round series. It also made the Trail Blazers the third team in the last 20 postseasons to lose consecutive home playoff games after leading by 15 points or more.
Game 5 is scheduled for Tuesday, April 28, at Frost Bank Center in San Antonio at 9:30 p.m. San Antonio will carry the edge, the home court and the game’s momentum into a matchup that now asks Portland to extend the series instead of protect it.
