NBA Notes: Spurs, Victor Wembanyama, Nets, Mikel Brown Jr, Bulls

October 27, 2026

Spurs

The Spurs spent the first week looking for some offensive rhythm. Julian Champagnie found enough Tuesday to share with everybody.

Champagnie made eight first-half threes and finished with 26 points in San Antonio’s 130-103 win over the Kings. Victor Wembanyama added 29 points, 10 rebounds and five blocks as the Spurs improved to 2-2.

The encouraging part for coach Mitch Johnson was how quickly his players recognized who needed the ball.

“I thought our team did a good job of recognizing where he was once he got going,” Johnson said, via Brad Millwater of Spurs On SI. “We’ve had some time in the last few years where I think we’ve done a poor job of (finding open shooters). Not intentionally. I just think we’ve grown in that aspect a little bit.”

Wembanyama supplied the other problem for Sacramento, finishing with nine dunks. Defending the rim became difficult enough without Champagnie repeatedly making the Kings pay from outside.

“The strength of our team is, as an opponent, you have to take care of multiple threats,” Wembanyama said. “This time, the lob was open early. That opened up my teammates later on.”

Seven Spurs scored in double figures. After an uneven start, that looked considerably closer to the offense San Antonio had in mind.

Nets

Mikel Brown Jr. helped save the Nets in regulation Tuesday. In overtime, he got a painful lesson in how quickly an NBA game can get away.

The rookie scored 13 fourth-quarter points, including the last-second three that forced overtime in Boston. But his decision to attempt a layup with the shot clock off and Brooklyn ahead by one gave the Celtics another chance.

Jayson Tatum took care of the rest, hitting the buzzer-beater that handed the Nets a 125-124 loss and an 0-4 record.

As Brian Lewis of the New York Post details, Brown’s final miss left Boston time to rebound and call timeout. Brooklyn then switched on the final possession, leaving Keon Ellis defending the much bigger Tatum.

So there was more to this than a rookie missing a shot. The Nets had an opportunity to close out a good team on the road and didn’t manage the final seconds well enough to do it.

Michael Porter Jr. scored 27 points and Julius Randle added 24 before fouling out. Egor Demin exited with a right leg contusion.

Brooklyn’s overall effort was a substantial improvement over Sunday’s blowout loss to the Pacers. Brown was a major reason the Nets had a chance to win. Now comes learning how to protect one when the clock is working in their favor.

Bulls

The Bulls are getting shots from the places analytics generally recommend. Getting those shots to go in has been another issue entirely.

Through four games, Chicago ranked first in Cleaning the Glass’ location effective field-goal percentage, a measure of shot selection based on league-average shooting from each area. Its actual effective field-goal percentage ranked 29th, as Elias Schuster of Bulls On SI explains.

That’s a fairly large gap between the plan and the result.

The Bulls opened 1-3 while shooting just 23.8% on 42 three-point attempts per game. Coach Tiago Splitter sees room to improve beyond simply waiting for better shooting.

“When we don’t touch the paint or don’t create any shifts in their defense, those are bad shots,” Splitter said. “And we’re showing and talking about those. We got to get better at that.”

His point is that where a shot comes from doesn’t tell the entire story. Who takes it, when they take it and whether the offense has moved the defense still count.

“Our shot selection overall is good in terms of where we shoot it from,” Splitter said, adding that getting into the paint first remains a priority.

Chicago is rebuilding, and some difficult nights come with that. But creating a good-looking shot on a chart is only useful if the players taking it have a reasonable chance of making it.