NBA Wrap-Up, October 12: Jazz Finish Off Short-Handed Spurs 119-109 to Complete a Five-Game Preseason Monday

SALT LAKE CITY

Monday's preseason slate saved its most complicated game for last. When our earlier roundup went out, Utah and San Antonio were only at halftime, the Jazz up 68-61 and the box score's loudest number a zero next to Victor Wembanyama's name. The second half supplied the ending: Utah won the third quarter 31-17, built the lead past twenty, and closed out a 119-109 win at the Delta Center that makes the five-game Monday officially complete.

This is the end-of-day wrap-up, so here is the honest shape of the night. Four of the five games were decided by who was allowed to play hard for how long — stars capped in the low twenties for minutes almost everywhere — and the fifth, in Portland, was decided by the simple fact that one team was an NBA roster and the other was a visiting British club making history just by being there. Nobody scored 40. Nobody posted a triple-double. What Monday actually offered was information: which young players can carry real minutes, which benches can close, and which teams already look like themselves a week before the games count.

Utah 119, San Antonio 109: The Third Quarter Was the Game

Utah led this game in layers. The Jazz took the first quarter 33-26, matched San Antonio 35-35 in a wide-open second, and went to the locker room ahead 68-61 — close enough that a normal Spurs team would have expected to hunt the lead down. Then came the quarter that ended the argument: 31-17 to Utah, a stretch in which the Jazz's size and balance overwhelmed a San Antonio rotation that had simply run out of established players to send back in.

San Antonio's absentee list is the context for everything that followed. Wembanyama, Fox, Castle, Harper, Vassell, Harris and Bryant — seven rotation-level players, including the entire engine of the reigning Western Conference champions — did not play. What the Spurs had left still competed: Barnes finished with a team-high 19 points, Keldon Johnson added 15, and Jordan McLaughlin scored 14 while running the offense. San Antonio even won the fourth quarter 31-20, trimming a blowout into a respectable final margin. It was a creditable effort from a skeleton crew, and it was never quite a contest after halftime.

For Utah, the encouraging part was not the win — it was who produced it. Rookie Darryn Peterson played 24 minutes, more than any other Jazz starter, and scored 10 of his 14 points in the second half after a 1-for-5 start, settling into the game instead of forcing it. Jaren Jackson Jr. scored 13 points in 18 first-half minutes, mostly creating his own looks. Lauri Markkanen added 11 points in about 19 minutes, and Brice Sensabaugh returned with 11 points off the bench, including two three-pointers. Jaxson Hayes started in place of the injured Jusuf Nurkic, and the lob timing between Hayes and Utah's guards is still visibly a work in progress — the one clear item on the Jazz's fix-it list before their final exhibition, on the road in Phoenix on October 16.

The takeaway for San Antonio is narrower and more familiar: everything about this team's season bends around Wembanyama, and a full night without him — plus six more regulars — is a night spent measuring the size of that dependence. The Spurs' remaining players defended gamely and scored 109 points. They also gave up 99 through three quarters. Both facts travel with them into the final week of the preseason.

The Rest of Monday, In One Pass

Minnesota 122, New York 104. The most complete performance of the night came at Madison Square Garden. Edwards scored 26 points in roughly 25 minutes, hitting five three-pointers, and Jaden McDaniels added 22 on 8-of-12 shooting with four threes of his own. Minnesota shot 18-for-34 from deep as a team and led nearly wire to wire. Jalen Brunson led the Knicks with 20 points, but every New York starter was capped at 22 minutes, and the Knicks fell to 0-3 in the preseason while Minnesota improved to 3-1. Our Monday roundup has the full game-by-game breakdown of this one, the Brooklyn shootout and the Portland rout.

Brooklyn 131, Washington 122. The league's highest-scoring game of the night was a track meet in the capital. Michael Porter Jr. led Brooklyn with 22 points, Julius Randle ran the offense from the forward spot with 14 points and 9 assists, and six Nets reached double figures as Brooklyn stayed perfect at 3-0 in the preseason. Washington's young core answered almost shot for shot — Kyshawn George scored 21 points on near-perfect shooting, Bilal Coulibaly added 19, and Trae Young finished with 11 points and 11 assists — but a 15-2 Brooklyn run late in the third quarter, and a 22-point Wizards third quarter on the other end, settled it. Washington's first preseason loss drops the Wizards to 2-1.

Atlanta 113, Oklahoma City 110. The closest game of the night, and the one that felt least like preseason at the end: 15 lead changes, a tie game late, and a RayJ Dennis three-pointer in the closing seconds to seal it for Atlanta. Oklahoma City rested its established rotation and still nearly stole it behind its rookies — Stirtz scored a game-high 26 points, and 7-foot-3 center Aday Mara put together the night's most complete line with 17 points, 10 rebounds, 6 assists and 4 blocks. We covered this one in its own story: Atlanta wins the last five minutes of a preseason game that felt real.

Portland 119, London Lions 66. A 53-point margin, a 72-33 halftime score, and a footnote that will outlast the result: London became the first British club ever to face an NBA team. Scoot Henderson and Toumani Camara scored 14 points apiece for Portland, Henderson hitting four of his five three-point attempts, and Yang Hansen added 13 points on 6-of-8 shooting with 4 assists. Damian Lillard did not play, no Portland starter topped 20 minutes, and the Blazers improved to 2-0. Maxwell Lewis led London with 13 points.

What Monday Actually Told Us

Start with the standings nobody will remember: Brooklyn is 3-0, Minnesota and Atlanta are 3-1, Portland is 2-0, Utah and Washington are 2-1, and the Knicks and Thunder are both 0-3 — with New York's starters on a strict 22-minute cap and Oklahoma City's regulars not even making the trip to Atlanta. Preseason records are a liar's stat. Minutes are the truth, and Monday's minutes said the league's coaches are protecting October 20 at all costs.

The second lesson is about who used the open minutes best. Stirtz and Mara in Oklahoma City's loss, Peterson in Utah's win, George and Coulibaly in Washington's defeat, Nolan Traore's 17 points in under 20 minutes for Brooklyn — the through-line of the night was young players converting auditions into arguments. Rosters tighten this week. Several of Monday's performances will be quoted in those meetings.

And the third lesson is the one San Antonio keeps teaching: the gap between the Spurs with Wembanyama and the Spurs without him may be the single largest player-dependence in the league. Utah was the right team to expose it — long, deep and finally pointed toward competing again — but any opponent would have found the same hole.

Looking Ahead to Tuesday

The preseason rolls on with five games on Tuesday, October 13. Cleveland visits Orlando, New York plays the second night of a back-to-back in Toronto, Indiana visits an Oklahoma City team that will be back on its home floor, and Portland travels to Sacramento. The headliner, at least from where we sit, is in Las Vegas: the Golden State Warriors meet the Los Angeles Lakers at T-Mobile Arena, the kind of neutral-site preseason game that draws a regular-season crowd on the Strip.

Utah, meanwhile, is done until its finale in Phoenix on October 16, and Washington closes its preseason Friday against New Orleans. One week from tonight — Tuesday, October 20 — the regular season opens, the minutes caps come off, and every one of these storylines gets tested for real. Follow the rest of the preseason on our Sports front and the Previously news front.

All final scores and statistics for Monday, October 12 were verified against published box scores and game recaps. Utah's game was in progress at halftime when our earlier Monday roundup was published; this wrap-up records its final score.