The Spurs played their first game of the season without DeMar DeRozan on Friday night. The star swingman needed a game off to rest a sore left ankle.

San Antonio bumped and bruised its way through a physical road game against the Timberwolves and ultimately won 116-113.

The Spurs now have a 27-20 record this season and improved their road mark to 9-14. What was notable from the game? It’s time for three observations, two questions and one prediction to analyze the contest.

3 Observations

The officials left their imprint on this game

This game wasn’t a shining moment for NBA officiating. The three referees had trouble managing the physicality of the players and ended up being very inconsistent in what earned a whistle blow. This was one of those games where fans of both teams were understandably upset with several calls after the contest.

In all, the game featured 53 fouls and 67 free-throw attempts. Karl-Anthony Towns fouled out in just 21 minutes of action. He had 23 points and six rebounds before the disqualification. Four key players ended with five fouls: Taj Gibson and Gorgui Dieng for the Wolves, and LaMarcus Aldridge and Rudy Gay for the Spurs.

The worst stretch of the game sandwiched a Jeff Teague technical foul with 7:25 left in the fourth quarter. In the minutes prior to the tech, the Spurs had gotten a series of iffy calls go their way, which made Teague and his squad understandably upset.

But after the technical, the refs gave the Wolves the benefit of the doubt on several plays in the next few minutes to help bring Minnesota back into the game.

This game had very little flow because of the officiating, and both coaches were frequently conversing with the referees. It was tough watch, no matter your rooting interest.

Derrick White didn’t get very many reps with the ball

DeRozan’s first absence of the year vacated a bunch of opportunities for perimeter facilitation. Since White was already beginning to take some of those reps from DeRozan, I figured he would get a healthy bump in usage for this contest.

But the Spurs (and mainly Gregg Popovich) went a different direction. The team pounded the post with Aldridge and Gay and tried to create good offense with their abilities near the basket. When they weren’t doing that, Patty Mills and Marco Belinelli did a lot of work with the ball. Those two bench guards finished with a combined 11 assists and three turnovers (good), but they also shot 6-of-20 from the field and 4-of-13 from downtown (bad).

White ended up with very few opportunities as the primary initiator in his 31-minute performance. He took just eight field-goal attempts, making six, and he had only three assists. He had to scrap for his 15 points, because he wasn’t handling the ball that much.

The Spurs found some success with their “pound the post” mindset. The Wolves’ foul trouble was evidence of that.

However, when the team wasn’t looking inside, it would have been nice to let White seize the DeRozan role by showcasing his burgeoning off-the-dribble game.

Dante Cunningham was the unsung hero

Cunningham wasn’t the Spurs MVP in this game. But his contributions may have saved the game for the Spurs.

The 31-year-old forward played just one stint of six minutes in this contest. He entered midway through the third quarter when the game was 77-67 Timberwolves immediately following a 14-1 run by Minnesota.

He made both of his shot attempts and had four points and two rebounds in his six minutes, including a heads-up play where he tipped in a missed free-throw by Aldridge. He played almost exclusively off the ball on offense, but Minnesota respected his three-point shot. On defense, he was where he needed to be. The Spurs eventually went on a 21-13 run to end the third quarter with Cunningham in immediately following the Wolves’ 14-1 run.

Give Cunningham a lot of credit for coming in and playing with energy and passion despite falling out of the rotation in the last month.

2 Questions

What will Pau Gasol’s role be when DeRozan is back?

It’s pretty frustrating to watch Gasol start or play rotation minutes on this team. The future Hall of Famer is just not helping on either end of the floor right now. Since his return against the Celtics on New Year’s Eve, the Spurs’ net rating is minus-16.3 in his 91 minutes. The net rating jumps to plus-7.6 in the 399 minutes he’s been on the bench.

We saw in this game how Gasol’s presence on offense clogged the lane for Aldridge in the first quarter. On defense, Pau needs to be right next the basket to make a positive impact because his legs hardly move anymore. That forces Aldridge to defend more on the perimeter, where he is less effective.

There have been three games since Gasol’s return where he, Gay and DeRozan have all been available. Gasol got DNP-CDs to start January against the Raptors and Grizzlies (both blowout wins) and then played five minutes against the Mavericks on Wednesday in the Spurs’ 105-101 win.

Once the complete rotation is available again (which it should be starting Sunday against the Clippers), I believe the right move is either giving more Gasol DNP-CDs or trading him if he’s unhappy with the role.

But we’ll see what Popovich and the Spurs’ front office decide to do.

Can the Spurs take advantage of their next seven games?

The annual Rodeo Road Trip begins February 5 in Sacramento. Before that eight-game excursion, the Spurs have a very manageable seven-game stretch: vs. Clippers, at 76ers, at Pelicans, vs. Wizards, vs. Suns, vs. Nets, vs. Pelicans.

Only two of those games are against teams in playoff positioning. Only the 76ers are in the league’s top 12 in net rating. San Antonio has proven to be a very strong home team (18-6 with a plus-7.8 net rating), and it has five of its next seven at the AT&T Center.

Maybe the Spurs pull off a great Rodeo Road Trip as they used to do frequently in the Tim Duncan era. But they’ve been really bad on the road both this season and all last year. They should just do themselves a solid and crush the next seven games.

1 Prediction

The Spurs will be 32-22 to start the Rodeo Road Trip

I’m predicting a 5-2 record for the Spurs on this upcoming stretch. Once DeRozan returns, they’ll be one of the healthier squads in the league and may be able to recapture some of the magic they had when they were routinely blowing teams out from mid-December to early January.

The road game against a surging Sixers team is a likely loss. Another potential loss could be their road contest against the Pelicans, who are better than their record. But random variation does play a big role in the NBA. The Spurs could very well lose to a couple of the easier teams in their upcoming stretch.

But I believe San Antonio has the right mix of talent, chemistry and coaching to put itself in position for a potential win most nights. And that’s why I think a 5-2 stretch against a softer schedule is likely.

Note: All statistics are from NBA.com.