Six de moins
2026 NBA Western Conference Finals, Game 5
Ride - I know, I know. The Bone Crusher was back again on Tuesday night doing his best Michael Myers impression with the way he was butchering easy-to-see-no-brainer calls. Like a C-List actor making a cash-grab to play the lead in an awful new Halloween reboot trilogy, Tony Brothers has been assigned to officiate three San Antonio Spurs playoff games now and each of his performances was worse than the one before. Some of The Bone Crusher’s blown calls in Game 5 of the 2026 Western Conference Finals were so inexcusable, they were farcical. Remember the part where he literally missed three basic calls (a clear goal tend, a ball that obviously went out of bounds off Thunder All-Star Chet Holmgren’s foot, and a Mitch Johnson signal for a challenge—who he then teed up to compound the mistake) in a 30-second stretch in the third quarter? It was at that point that I could no longer tell if I was watching an NBA playoff game at Paycom Center or amateur night at Bricktown Comedy Club. The proverbial outrage at the officiating being said, the refereeing was not the reason the San Antonio Spurs lost to the Oklahoma City Thunder 127-114 on Tuesday night. Let me repeat. The refereeing was not the reason the San Antonio Spurs lost to the Oklahoma City Thunder on Tuesday night. We lost Game 5 because (with the exception of three players) we were not physically or mentally ready to anticipate and match OKC’s desperation in order to give ourselves a chance (on the road in a hostile environment) for a repeat of our Game 4 results. Having three players appropriately locked in might have been sufficient to allow us to keep it close enough to give ourselves a chance to steal it in the end but only if one of those three locked in players was our All-NBA first team alien and, as we all know, not only was Victor Wembanyama not one of those players, instead he had his most passive and dumbfoundedly ineffective (complete) game of the entire playoffs.
Yep, Wemby (individually) and the San Antonio Spurs (collectively) picked a bad time to have our most nonchalant, sloppy, undisciplined, “young and inexperienced” game of the 2026 postseason. Ughhhhhhhhh. That was so incredibly disappointing. The game was right there for the taking after we got out to a 16-8 lead to begin the first quarter. League MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was in his head second-guessing his answers to the test and the defending champs looked like they were on the verge of cracking the same way Minnesota did when we put it on the Wolves in their building in Game 6 of the last series. One of the players who came ready to play and helped get us out to that early lead was Julian Champagne. He drained three triples in the opening frame and finished the game with 22 points, eight rebounds, three steals, and one dime. The second player who was locked in to meet the challenge of WCF Game 5 on the road because “he was built for this” was iconoclast Stephon Castle. Steph continued where he left off in relentlessly hounding SGA on defense while also offering up 24 points (on efficient shooting), six assists, five rebounds, and three steals in his “steady as she goes” performance. Last but certainly not least of our “up for the challenge” trio was your favorite basketball player’s favorite teammate, sixth man of the year Keldon Johnson. After suffering through a mostly subpar inaugural playoff campaign to this point, KJ brought the type of energy off the bench on Tuesday that earned him the aforementioned award, hustling and bullying his way to 15 points, four rebounds, and two assists. While Keldon’s stat line doesn’t scream off the page, he provided the right type of energy and enough punch off the bench to (after squandering the early opportunity to put the champs behind the eight ball) give us a puncher’s chance get the game into a clutch time situation where from that point, victory could’ve been there for the taking. In the end, it wasn’t meant to be and we have nobody to blame but ourselves for allowing our opponent to be the more connected and desperate team. And to have the best player on the floor. Somehow in Game 5 after squandering our early lead, chess aficionado and ascending greatest basketball player in the world Victor Wembanyama broke concentration just long enough to allow the two-time NBA MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander to put us in check.
As a result, we’re definitely going to find out what we’re made of in Game 6. Tonight will be another playoff first for Victor Wembanyama in his singular quest for all of the greatness right now all at once. It will also be another playoff first for Stephon Castle, Dylan Harper, Devin Vassell, Keldon Johnson, Julian Champagnie and Carter Bryant. Game 6 will be all of these players first time facing elimination from the NBA playoffs. This group (plus our three rotation players who have prior playoff experience—De’Aaron Fox + former champions Luke Kornet & Harrison Barnes) has proven over and over again that we treat every challenge as an opportunity to go out and seize. No one said it was supposed to be easy. The defending champions have us up against the ropes at the moment but there are only three teams left that can win the 2025-26 Larry O’Brien and we’re one of them so as long as we have another game to play, we have an opportunity to win that game and then another and then another and then another and then another and then another and then we can rest. Victor, the chess aficionado, can envision this opportunity because he believes this latest tango with adversity is simply an obstacle that must be removed because it is standing in between him and a prize he believes is his to have now. The reason Wemby has had an emphatic answer every time he has faced adversity in the 2026 NBA playoffs is because building the greatest legacy in NBA history requires a strong foundation and there’s no stronger foundation than winning the Larry O’Brien trophy on your very first attempt. Tonight will be no different. An opponent has put basketball’s Bobby Fischer in check for the first time. For every move there’s a counter move and as Fischer himself said, “Chess is war over the board. The object is to crush the opponent’s mind.” Vic will be ready for Game 6 and god bless the MVP’s soul if he is not. For the rest of our special group, I have full confidence they will earn the moniker again tonight and keep this magical journey going. We have more dynamic talent on our roster than OKC and as a result we have match up advantages to exploit on both sides of the ball when we bring the proper focus and attention to detail. We’ve got the blueprint for vanquishing champions. We always have. We’ve used that blueprint to slay dragons like the Shaq-Kobe Los Angeles Lakers in ‘03, the Iron Five Detroit Pistons in ‘05 and the LeBron-Wade-Bosh Miami “Heatles” in ‘14. If the #BlackAndSilver go out and pound the rock tonight and then go pound the rock again on Saturday, we can slay this dragon too. That’s the blueprint. We’ve had it so long it’s practically a load-bearing wall in our practice facility, Victory Capital Performance Center. Let the legend one day be told of how the greatest player to ever walk this earth joined the greatest franchise in all the land and together they vanquished a champion before hoisting their sixth trophy on his very first try in two six.
POUND THE ROCK
WHEN NOTHING SEEMS TO HELP, I GO AND LOOK AT A STONECUTTER HAMMERING AWAY AT HIS ROCK PERHAPS A HUNDRED TIMES WITHOUT AS MUCH AS A CRACK SHOWING IN IT. YET AT THE HUNDRED AND FIRST BLOW IT WILL SPLIT IN TWO, AND I KNOW IT WAS NOT THAT BLOW THAT DID IT, BUT ALL THAT HAD GONE BEFORE. — JACOB RIIS
Featured Image Source: r/NBASpurs on Reddit
Headline Image Source: Lost Otros Murals
Cuatro Derrotas
2017 NBA Western Conference Semifinals, Game 4
All We Got - Condolences to Patrick Beverley and his family. The Rockets shooting guard found out about the passing of his grandfather an hour before the tip of Game 4. He proceeded to hit the first shot of the game, a three from the elbow, and set the tone for the entire night. In a game that was eerily similar to Game 1 in San Antonio, the Houston Rockets defeated the Spurs 125-104 in Game 4 at the Toyota Center last night and tied the Western Conference Finals at two games apiece. First, the good. The player of the game was Jonathon Simmons whose performance was the only bright spot in an otherwise abysmal showing. The Juice had 17 points (6-12 shooting), four rebounds, and two steals last night in 23 minutes. He was also the only Spur to play more than 20 minutes and also have a positive plus/minus rating (+2). The Rockets are a good matchup for Simmons and (in the absence of Tony Parker) he should be entrusted with more minutes this week as we try to closeout out this toughly contested series. Now the bad. The Spurs committed 14 turnovers, missed nine free throws (9-18 overall), and gave up 19 three pointers to the Rockets (44.2 percent on 43 attempts). All of these shortcomings are unacceptable for any team interested in winning an NBA playoff game on the road. Of particular concern to Gregg Popovich was our transition defense. In fact, in his postgame press conference, Coach Pop observed, "If you had seen clips of our transition D, you would have traded all the players and fired me by the end of the game. It was that bad." I think Pop has earned a little more job security than that but, at the same time, there's no sugar coating this one: it was a very disappointing performance. Back in the same situation as last year's Semifinal series in Game 4, the Spurs once again failed to find the killer instinct to be greedy, step on the Rockets' collective throats, and put a stranglehold on the series. We must now regroup because, luckily, we still have another game available to us to use as an opportunity to correct the mistakes of last year's series against Oklahoma City. Redemption for last year's collapse can still be ours if we come ready to protect home court on Tuesday night in a now must-win Game 5 (something we failed to do last year). The war for Texas has now become a best-of-three series but, with home court advantage and championship pedigree, I still love our chances to cash in. Tomorrow night, the game is Texas Roulette and as the saying goes, always bet on #BlackAndSilver because when we get knocked down in the city of San Antonio...we're always there to pick each other right back up.
“We view ourselves on the eve of battle. We are nerved for the contest, and must conquer or perish. It is vain to look for present aid: none is at hand. We must now act or abandon all hope!” - Sam Houston
City of the Year
War for Texas tied.
Keep the faith. Where are we from?
City of the year.
Written May 2017 in San Antonio, Texas (at heart) by Ted James
City of the year, city of the year
That's where I'm from
City of the year, city of the year
They don't want none
City of the year, city of the year
H-Town can't come
Go hard or go home
I'm turnt up in the #GoSpursGo zone
City of the year
Featured Image Source: Bola