Adam Clanton

You were down 16.

Nothing was really going your way.

and you did two things that I think were really your identity last season that you haven't seen as much this year, and they have nothing to do with the offense.

You were physical with Victor Wimbinyama, and you played the type of defense in the second half, particularly in the fourth quarter, that gives you opportunities even when the shots aren't consistently falling.

It was refreshing to see last year's team, or at least aspects of last year's team, kind of rear their head again here tonight.

Yeah, and I'll touch on Steven Adams briefly before I get to Reed.

I think it's obviously with the grade three you mentioned, Ben, that's just such a tough loss.

The double bigs lineup, what he provides just from a strictly offensive rebounding standpoint,

If you want to have a positive in the first game you're without him, I don't know of a lot of teams you're going to have to deal with that they're going to provide more size.

I mean, nobody has a Wimby, but I just mean from the sheer standpoint of if you want a blueprint on how to win a game without, you know, minus the fourth quarter comeback without having Steven Adams out there.

Just point to the first game you had to deal without him being out there for the foreseeable future.

If you ever have any doubts about being able to do it, it's not going to always go this way.

And you had to have, as Ben mentioned, several heroes tonight.

But at least you've beaten the Spurs team without him.

And I think that's an accomplishment in and of itself.

But going back to Reed, I know the offense is going to get all the love.

How many insanely timely defensive plays did he make during that run?

It seemed to me, and maybe this is just me misremembering or kind of looking back on this game that just ended a few minutes ago a little bit too fondly, but it felt like a lot of those plays would come after he would miss on the other end offensively.

He would come right back down, and he would create a steal.

He had a blocked shot at one point on Schimpenny.