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Carter Bryant #11 of the San Antonio Spurs brings the ball up the court against the Atlanta Hawks in the first half of a 2026\u00a0NBA Summer League game at the Thomas & Mack Center on July 09, 2026 in Las Vegas, Nevada.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ethan Miller\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
LAS VEGAS \u2014 The Spurs want Carter Bryant to grow as a leader this\u00a0offseason.<\/p>\n
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The second-year pro proved he’s taking the request seriously by the way he held himself accountable after struggling in a 93-66 loss to the Atlanta Hawks on Thursday in the 2026\u00a0NBA Summer League opener at the Thomas & Mack Center.<\/p>\n
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In his summer debut, Bryant scored all 12 of his points in the second half after going 0 for 5 from the field and 0 for 4 from 3-point range before halftime.<\/p>\n
“I feel like I had to knock the rust off a little bit,” the 14th overall pick of the 2025 NBA Draft said. “I ain’t played a basketball game since Game 5 of the Finals.”<\/p>\n
But it wasn’t his shooting performance, which included a couple of air balls, that had him down.<\/p>\n
“I had four turnovers,” said Bryant, who ran the offense for much of the time he was on the court. “I’m missing\u00a0coverages defensively. I’m not being as intense defensively. I just got to be better on that side of the basketball. Offense is going to come, as it did in the second half. But losing is unacceptable, especially like that, for this franchise.”<\/p>\n
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In addition to being burden by inactivity since the five-game loss to the New York Knicks, Bryant, 20, was also basically playing with a bunch of strangers. But he didn’t use any of it as an excuse after finishing 4 of 13 from the field and 1 of 7 from beyond the arc.<\/p>\n
“I’m going to be better as we move forward,” said Bryant, who had only two rebounds and one assist. “Saturday (against New York) is going to be a lot better.”<\/p>\n
Summer Spurs coach Corliss Williamson said Bryant got a jump on making good on that goal by playing better in the second half. The Spurs never led, trailed 50-32 at halftime and committed 23 turnovers, leading to 26 points for the Hawks.<\/p>\n
“He came out and set the tone for us defensively early in the second half,” Williamson said. “For his first game back, there’s still a little rust there. So it was just good for him to be out on the court and get a feel for the game again. We know he’ll be better next game.”<\/p>\n
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Williamson reiterated what he said about Bryant at the mini-camp for the Summer Spurs a week ago back in San Antonio. The Spurs chose to play Bryant only in Las Vegas, so he wasn’t with the team when it went 0-3 at the California Classic in San Francisco.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“The area I want to see him improve in is his leadership,” Williamson said. “He’s done that in the practices he’s been in. Now he just has to start the game off setting the tone defensively for us to get us going. And then his decision-making (needs to improve). Decision, shot-making, just trying to give him opportunities to play in different spots he won’t play in during the regular season and see if he can improve in those areas.”<\/p>\n
In addition to his accountability, Bryant also showed off his leadership skills by being vocal throughout the game, including when on the bench.<\/p>\n
“The more he can grow his voice, the more he can look at the game from a different aspect as far as being a leader and helping others, that’s just going to help him improve,” Williamson said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Kingston Flemings #4 of the Atlanta Hawks is guarded by\u00a0Ja’Kobi Gillespie #17 of the San Antonio Spurs in the first half of a 2026 NBA Summer League game at the Thomas & Mack Center on July 09, 2026 in Las Vegas, Nevada.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ethan Miller\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
Seven players scored in double figures for Atlanta, including second-year forward Asa Newell with a team-high 15 points and Zuby Ejiofor, the 23rd overall pick, with 12.<\/p>\n
The game wasn’t without its highlights for the Spurs.<\/p>\n
First-round center Tarris Reed Jr. finished with 14 points, 10 rebounds and two assists in another rugged, active performance for the 6-foot-10, 270-pound Connecticut alumnus.<\/p>\n
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“He’s a hell of a player. Very smart,” Bryant said of the 22-year-old Reed, who the Spurs selected 26th overall.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Spurs second-round point guard\u00a0Ja’Kobi Gillespie (12 points, team-high six assists) led a defensive charge that limited Kingston Flemings, the eighth overall pick from San Antonio who starred for the Houston Cougars and\u00a0Brennan High, to just five points.<\/p>\n
Flemings had a game-high eight assists against just one turnover, but Gillespie teamed with\u00a0undrafted rookie guard RJ Davis and others to limit him to 2-of-7 shooting from the field.<\/p>\n
“I thought (Gillespie) just did a good job of trying to get into the basketball and making it difficult for him,” Williamson said. “I thought we defended well tonight except for the fact we couldn’t score and we turned the ball over. That definitely hurt our defense.”<\/p>\n
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It was Gillespie’s second victory against Flemings after he led the Tennessee Volunteers to a 76-73 win over the Cougars last November.<\/p>\n
“He’s just a really good player,”\u00a0Gillespie said. “I think we all wanted to take on that challenge in trying to guard him.”<\/p>\n
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Carter Bryant #11 of the San Antonio Spurs walks on the court during a break in the second half of a 2026\u00a0NBA Summer League game against the Atlanta Hawks at the Thomas & Mack Center on July 09, 2026 in Las Vegas, Nevada.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ethan Miller\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
Kingston Flemings #4 of the Atlanta Hawks walks on the court during a break in the second half of a 2026\u00a0NBA Summer League game against the San Antonio Spurs at the Thomas & Mack Center on July 09, 2026 in Las Vegas, Nevada.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ethan Miller\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
Kingston Flemings #4 of the Atlanta Hawks is guarded by\u00a0RJ Davis #29 of the San Antonio Spurs in the first half of a 2026 NBA Summer League game at the Thomas & Mack Center on July 09, 2026 in Las Vegas, Nevada.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ethan Miller\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
Carter Bryant #11 of the San Antonio Spurs passes against\u00a0Asa Newell #14 and Henri Veesaar #13 of the Atlanta Hawks in the first half of a 2026 NBA Summer League game at the Thomas & Mack Center on July 09, 2026 in Las Vegas, Nevada.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ethan Miller\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
\u00a0Carter Bryant #11 of the San Antonio Spurs drives against Asa Newell #14 of the Atlanta Hawks in the first half of a 2026 NBA Summer League game at the Thomas & Mack Center on July 09, 2026 in Las Vegas, Nevada.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ethan Miller\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
Carter Bryant #11 of the San Antonio Spurs drives against\u00a0Zuby Ejiofor #20 of the Atlanta Hawks in the first half of a 2026 NBA Summer League game at the Thomas & Mack Center on July 09, 2026 in Las Vegas, Nevada.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ethan Miller\/Getty Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Carter Bryant #11 of the San Antonio Spurs brings the ball up the court against the Atlanta Hawks…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":370170,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[82,84,83],"class_list":["post-370169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=370169"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370169\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/370170"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=370169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=370169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=370169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}