NEW YORK -- The San Antonio Spurs can exhale a collective sigh of relief.

After losing their last eight games, the Spurs got back in the win column on Saturday night, defeating the New York Knicks 111-104. The win helped the Spurs avoid matching their longest losing streak since 1989.

"It's been coming," center Jakob Poeltl said after the game. "We've been getting better and now we finally got that win again. (Losing) does wear on you. It takes a toll on the team, the morale."

The game became irreversibly ugly in the first quarter. The Knicks were slow to score their first basket on Saturday. Down seven, New York finally got on the board when RJ Barrett put back his own miss. But before long, San Antonio had built a crushing double-digit lead and fans in Madison Square Garden were booing their home team.

The crowd had seen this before: their team being stomped on by a team well below .500. San Antonio built its largest advantage of the night in the third quarter, leading 73-45.

Heading into the fourth quarter, San Antonio's lead seemed insurmountable. The once-full lower bowl of the arena had started to clear out. Then, the Knicks made their push. Down 96-76, David Fizdale called a timeout. The break was followed by a 22-9 Knicks run that put the New York within single digits. Ultimately, even Marcus Morris' 3-point buzzer beater proved to be too little, too late.

Before the game, Gregg Popovich was typically prickly -- dusting off questions about his team's long losing streak and shooting piercing stares at reporters who dared to question whether or not it was hard to rally a team on an eight-game losing streak.

Popovich's outlook on his team's losing streak differed from Poeltl's.

"It is just another game," he said. "These guys are too hardened. They're all pros. They are grown men. They have families and kids and that kind of stuff doesn't bother them. Nobody likes to lose a bunch of games in a row, but it is not going to debilitate them mentally. They still get their paychecks."

But now that the Spurs have tasted winning again, they are motivated.

"I want to get another one," DeMar DeRozan said. "Let's make that be our rough patch that we went through."