Cinq de faits

Talk That Talk - There were one hundred different ways we could have won Game 1 by simply doing one thing better. Number One could have pumped-faked one time on one of his eight three point attempts and instead drove for one dunk and the and one and we would have won. Number Two could have applied one more ounce of English to his one-of-a-kind finishing ability on the one layup he missed and the wunderkind puts our opponent one bucket closer to 0-1. Number Three could have demonstrated he wanted one rebound one tiny bit more than his defender one time and one pump fake before one finish coupled with making the one free throw he missed and we wouldn’t have finished the evening left wanting. Number Four could have foregone one ill-advised careless pass one time forestalling one unforced turnover and the one extra formulated shot it would’ve produced for sure would have been a game-flipping one. Number Five could have been whistled for one fewer ticky-tack foul by what proved to be one one-sided performance by the officiating crew and one loss later the opposing coach would have had one legitimate reason to be complaining that one (not four or five) of Number One’s twelve blocks was legitimately an illegal one. No wonder the next day’s film session included one special guest whose position on the list of all-time winningest coaches is not five, not four, not three, not two but one.

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I sat down on my couch to watch the Spurs sixth game of the 2024-25 regular season on the evening of November 2nd, 2024 just like I would have on any other night for any other regular season game. We were playing at home in the Frost Bank Center against the Minnesota Timberwolves, a tough opponent coming off of a Western Conference Finals appearance. Even though the season had started out a little bit up and down (we were 2-3 heading into that game), I was looking forward to a good early test for Victor Wembanyama (coming off his 2023-24 Rookie of the Year season), Stephon Castle (this year’s exciting blue chip lottery pick rookie combo guard), Chris Paul (newly acquired legendary future hall-of-fame point guard) and company against Anthony Edwards, Julius Randall and the entire Wolf Pack.

The first thing I noticed was the announcers reporting that Gregg Popovich aka Coach Pop or simply Pop would not be coaching that evening; he was out with an undisclosed ailment. They went on to say assistant coach Mitch Johnson would be the one roaming the sidelines for this contest. At first, I didn’t think much of anything about it (other than I was surprised Mitch Johnson got the call to fill in for Pop over Brett Brown, the vastly more experienced assistant with former head coaching experience in the NBA). After all, Pop had missed a game or two here or there over the past five seasons due to minor medical absences which seemed pretty understandable for a coach in his 70s and now at 75 in his record-breaking 29th consecutive season as the head coach of the San Antonio Spurs. I brushed it off as another one of those and thought, it will be cool to watch and see how this young assistant handles the responsibility for one game. (He won the game 113-103 over the currently relevant perennial Western Conference contenders from the Twin Cities.)

Little did I know this at the time but on Halloween, two nights early, I had witnessed the winningest coach in NBA regular season history (1390), winningest coach in NBA regular season + playoffs history combined (1582), three-time NBA Coach of the Year (2003, 2012, 2014), 10-time Western Conference Finalist (1999, 2001, 2003, 2005, 2007, 2008, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2017), sixth-time NBA Finalist (1999, 2003, 2005, 2007, 2013, 2014), five-time NBA Champion (1999, 2003, 2005, 2007, 2014) and Hall of Fame (2023) greatest coach in basketball history Gregg Popovich coach his 2,547th and final game as head coach of the San Antonio Spurs in Salt Lake City against the Utah Jazz. (He also won the game 106-88 because, knowing Pop, he would probably say that, while unexpected, bowing out inconspicuously after a road win in Utah is a fitting way to sign off.)

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On Tuesday, May 5th, the San Antonio Spurs President of Basketball Operations walked into a film room at Victory Capital Performance Center on the campus of The Rock at La Cantera and rolled up his sleeves. One year and three days after officially retiring from the role of head coach of the San Antonio Spurs and 55ish years after allegedly turning down a covert role with the CIA, Gregg Popovich aka Popo aka The Notorious G.C.P. aka El Jefe, never one to miss an opportunity to immerse himself in celebrating the culture of the beloved city he has made his home for the past 32 years, stood in that film room in front of the 2025-2026 San Antonio Spurs players and coaches and, in honor of Cinco de Mayo, held up a piñata. He proceed to run the tape of Game 1 of the 2026 NBA Western Conference semifinals and went play by play, point by point on every improvement the team needed to make in Game 2 in order to pummel the Minnesota Timberwolves into utter submission.

The next night, the #BlackAndSilver did exactly that eviscerating our visitors from the Twin Cities by 38 points, 133-95. This was the third-biggest margin of victory in a playoff game in San Antonio Spurs franchise history as well as Minnesota’s worst playoff defeat in franchise history. I think it’s safe to say that even though Coach Pop’s November 2nd, 2024 stroke left him with limitations that prevented him from returning to the physical demands of coaching NBA basketball, he still has the sharpest basketball tactician mind currently being deployed in the league. What a (not so) secret weapon and valuable resource Mitch Johnson and his players have at their disposal to tap when necessary. And, man, was it ever so necessary this week after fumbling away home court advantage and falling into a 0-1 hole in this Western Conference Semifinals series after a not-quite-ready-for-the-intensity-of-playing-a-more-experienced-playoff-opponent lackadaisical performance on Monday. When it became official on May 2nd, 2025 that the dream of Coach Pop coming full circle to coach the next-generation Wemby-Fox-Castle Spurs to the franchise’s sixth championship was dead due to his medically-necessary retirement from the bench, it was hard and it was sad even though we, as Spurs fans, all knew that he wasn’t going anywhere and was still going to be actively involved in the program through his role in the front office. As amazing of a job as 2025-26 Coach of the Year finalist Mitch Johnson has done in his stead, a subtle melancholy persisted beneath the surface all season knowing Pop had been robbed of the opportunity to lead this young, talented, special group while they are making their leap back into contention. That melancholy was lifted with Wednesday’s dominant, world-class response to adversity in the form of the 38-point drubbing we laid down on Minnesota and knowing how intimately involved El Jefe was in making it happen.

While Wemby had a strong, balanced performance in Game 2 with 19 points, 15 rebounds, two assists, two blocks, and a steal and De’Aaron Fox bounced back from his abhorrent Game 1 performance with a solid and steady 16 points, two assists and two steals, the player of the game was 2nd year phenom Stephon Castle. Steph imposed his will with his physicality on both sides of the ball. On defense, he held the T-Wolves franchise player Anthony Edwards in check as the primary defender, holding Ant to 12 points (5-13 shooting), zero assists, and four turnovers. Castle was once again in foul trouble (and once again called for a couple of soft ones) but he felt much more in control and intentional about what he was trying to do on that end of the floor in Game 2. On offense, he led the team in scoring with 21 points on an efficient 6-10 from the field and a stellar 9-9 from the line. He added four rebounds, four assists, and two steals for good measure. One of the questions posed by the talking heads in the national media heading into the postseason was asking if the lack of playoff experience would prove costly for the Spurs’ young, talented core in our pursuit of an “ahead of schedule” title run. I think it’s safe to say that the 2024 NCAA Champion UConn Husky was built for this.

While it is quite plausible that wire-to-wire 38-point historic beat down that we laid on the wounded Timberwolves on Wednesday night at the Frost Bank Center in San Antonio might have broken them, we would be beyond foolish to count on it. This team has been here before, knows what it takes to respond and even though we are now +36 in total points for the series, the fact remains the series is tied 1-1 and Minnesota is currently still in control of home court advantage. They have an opportunity to reset and regroup tonight at home in the comfortable confines of the Target Center in Minneapolis and protect the home court they earned by snatching the toss up on Monday that was Game 1. A wounded animal is a dangerous one and if you underestimate the battle-tested Minnesota Timberwolves, you do so at your own peril. In order to regain home court advantage tonight, we need to come out sharp, focused and ready to control the tempo and the physicality of tonight’s proceedings. Game 3 is not going to be a cakewalk. It is going to be a war. Luckily for us, our (not so) secret weapon is likely holed up in a bunker somewhere deep in the bowels of Victory Capital Performance Center on the campus of The Rock at La Cantera back home in San Antonio confident that the message has been delivered about the preparedness that is necessary to play with the appropriate fear tonight and get this wounded animal back in its cage. With Gregg Charles Popovich back doing what he does best (preparing his team for playoff success), I like our chances to do exactly that tonight. We are beyond lucky for the last 30 years and everything that’s still to come. Thank you for choosin’ Texas, Coach Pop. Can’t wait to see what your incomparable basketball tactician mind has in store for us next. In Pop we trust.

#GoSpursGo‍

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Featured Image Source : The Honey POP

Headline Image Source: TODAY

Quatre de faits

LET ‘EM KNOW - Back then, it was relief and relief alone. There was no excitement. There was no fulfillment. It simply came with the territory. You don’t get to experience the joy of your favorite NBA team being a perennial title contender for two decades straight without also suffering some undesired consequences. One example of which is that when you’re a perennial title contender for two decades straight, you never get to enjoy the first round of the NBA playoffs. It’s either win as you are required to do or endure pure unadulterated agony. While first round playoff exits didn’t happen often during the San Antonio Spurs 1998-2017 vicennial run as championship contenders, when they did, it was dreadful.

All told, it happened in four of the 20 seasons. While two of the four were slightly more palatable when factoring in that they involved absences of star players due to injury (2000: Tim Duncan & 2009: Manu Ginobili), it was certainly a huge bummer to be denied an opportunity to properly defend our first-ever title in 2000 (losing to the Phoenix Suns 3-1 as the West’s fourth seed) and similarly disappointing getting bounced 4-1 by an instate rival in 2009 (losing to the Dallas Mavericks as the West’s third seed).

The two most excruciating by far, however, were losing in the first round in 2011 and 2015. As the top seed in the West in 2011, we once again were forced to open the playoffs without Manu Ginobili. While his injury was less severe in 2011 than it was in 2009 (only forcing him to sit out of Game 1 against the 8th-seeded Memphis Grizzlies), it was enough to put us in an 0-1 hole (losing a nail-biter 101-98). This foreshadowed what would prove to be a snake-bitten false start of a title pursuit for a 61-win juggernaut that looked like world-beaters heading into the postseason. We ultimately succumbed to Memphis’ Grit and Grind physicality in six games in such humiliating fashion that it’s hard to imagine it will ever be replaced as the most embarrassing playoff exit of my lifetime as a Spurs’ fan.

We covered the 2015 seven game first round war with the Los Angeles Clippers here at theLeftAhead. The conclusion of the decisive battle in that war rendered the third edition of the Black & Silver blog series shockingly brief given the first edition (2013) was 21 chapters long and the second edition (2014) was 23 chapters long. If you recall, the seventh chapter in 2015 was a tragedy ending in heartbreaking fashion when Tim Duncan missed blocking Chris Paul’s game winning floater by the width of a piece of paper. As brutal as it was to experience, CP3’s greatest playoff moment wasn’t even the most agonizing aspect of the 2015 debacle of a title defense because that matchup with the Clips should have never even happened in the first place.

On the last day of the regular season, San Antonio was in position to clinch the West’s second seed but dropped all the way down to the sixth seed after losing a close road game to the New Orleans Pelicans 108-103. Had we just taken care of business that night, we would have avoided a match up with Chris Paul and Los Angeles until later in the playoffs and also potentially given ourselves a shot to face the Golden State Warriors in the Western Conference Finals before they were the juggernaut Golden State Warriors. Forcing Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson and company to actually get tested with facing the defending champions might have delayed their ascent to the top of the mountain for another year or even forestalled it completely. (Do the Warriors get past the Oklahoma City Thunder in the 2016 Western Conference Finals without their 2015 championship experience to draw from? Does Kevin Durant sign there in the summer of 2016 had the Warriors never demonstrated the Bay area as being a viable landing spot for him to choose in order to chase rings?) Instead the Golden State Warriors reached the summit through one of the easiest paths to a championship in NBA history in 2015. What might have been.

I opened with this unpleasant trip down memory lane in order to demonstrate how much fun it has been getting to enjoy a San Antonio Spurs first round series again. Sure, as a 62-win team and the second seed this season, a first round playoff exit would have been a bummer but it would have also been chalked up as a learning experience and part of the process for a young core going through the playoffs for the first time. While the adversity we faced losing Victor Wembanyama to a Game 2 concussion en route to dropping that game at home followed by digging ourselves into double-digit holes during both road games was certainly stressful, the adversity didn’t carry with it the same enormity of the weight of expectation that I (as a Spurs fan) was used to experiencing annually for two decades of my life. Had we lost to Portland in this first round, I would have been devastated to have blown this fairly unprecedented opportunity to show the world how far ahead of schedule we are but ultimately, I would have been content that this first playoff experience was a solid foundational brick upon which to take the first step on our inevitable path to another golden trophy. So, yeah, it was fun to get to sit back and enjoy watching the first without being required to win. That being said, of course won.

Last Tuesday, the San Antonio Spurs eliminated the Portland Trail Blazers from the 2025-26 playoffs by winning Game 5 at the Frost Bank Center 114-95 in a nearly wire to wire dominant performance. We jumped on them early and, in the words of Stephon Castle, “punched them in the chest” by sprinting out to a 17-4 lead in the first four minutes of the game. By the end of the first quarter, we were still cruising right along finishing the period with a 12 point advantage up 36-24 and by halftime, we had extended that lead to a cool 20 up 65-45 at the break. We continued building our lead up to 26 with 8:27 to play in the third before the Blazers inevitably started playing like a team that wasn’t ready to die and began chipping away. While San Antonio had still increased our halftime lead by another point after the end of third quarter (winning the period overall 21-20), Portland shaved five points off of the game-high 26 point deficit in the last eight and a half minutes giving them so momentum heading into the fourth.

If you stepped away to prepare a snack or go to the bathroom during the first four minutes of the fourth quarter, you would have returned to a very different contest considering it was now once again a contested one. Four minutes and four Trail Blazer threes into the fourth quarter and all of a sudden, the Spurs’ lead had shrunk to single digits at 91-82. After a timely Mitch Johnson timeout, the Spurs steadied the ship a bit stretching the lead back out to 13 but once again, the desperation of a team not wanting their season to end proved consequential as Portland once again got within single digit striking distance at 97-88 with 5:46 minutes left to save it. Luckily, for the Moda Center visitors, that was as close as the Blazers would ultimately get as the Spurs were able to figure out a way to get the dam to break by outfoxing the home team down the stretch to win by a comfortable 19-point margin and closeout our first playoff series in nine years.

Wemby had another MVP-caliber two-way performance. While he only put up a pedestrian 17 points, he did it on an uber-efficient 5-7 from the field (1-2 from deep) and 6-6 from the foul line, plus he added three assists for good measure. Volume scoring wasn’t required from our best player on this particular night considering that all of the other four starters plus Dylan Harper off the bench each also had a double-digit scoring night. What was required from Vic (especially when the Blazers went on the inevitable “fighting for our playoff lives” second half run) was otherworldly defense. The Alien had 14 defensive rebounds and six soul-crushing blocks. Victor’s stifling defense was obviously a key factor in San Antonio closing out Portland but as dominant as Victor was on that side of the court, the player of the game was just as dominant down the stretch on the other side of the court. For the second time running, player of the game honors go to 2023 Clutch Player of the Year De’Aaron Fox. Swipa had 21 points, nine assists, three rebounds, and a steal overall but came up huge in the clutch for the second consecutive game scoring 13 points in the fourth quarter, nine of which came in the last 5:46 of the game after the Blazers had cut the lead to single digits for the second time in the quarter. After an up and down start to his second-ever career playoff series, Fox delivered down the stretch in closing out Portland both in terms of his reputation as a clutch player and in earning the contract extension we signed him to this summer. In the fourth quarters of Games 4 & 5, he was exactly the player we are paying him to be and that is one of the biggest reasons we are headed to our first Western Conference Semifinals since 2017.

Last Thursday, we found out who are opponent will be in the second round. Shockingly, a wounded and undermanned sixth-seeded Minnesota Timberwolves squad eliminated Nikola Jokic and the former champion Denver Nuggets in six games, winning Game 6 at the Target Center in Minneapolis 110-98. Unfortunately, the epic rubber match second playoff victory over Denver in three series over the past four years came at a brutal cost with the season of Wolves starting guard Donte DiVencenzo ending in Game 4 of the first round when he tore his Achilles. (I was beyond sad to see DiVencenzo suffer a catastrophic injury. He’s a tough-as-nails competitor, a player I always enjoy watching compete.) Anthony Edwards, Minnesota’s star player, was also injured in the same game. He went down with a hyperextended left knee. Despite losing two starters in Game 4 as well as key bench players who picked up varying degrees of ailments in Game 5, the 6th-seeded but battle-tested Timberwolves have survived their first round match up with the 3rd-seeded Denver Nuggets and are ready for tonight’s second round opener at the Frost Bank Center in San Antonio.

Late breaking reports suggest that Anthony Edwards is expected to play tonight. I’m personally glad to hear that because I always want to face an opponent as close to full strength as possible. Even though Minnesota has lost DiVencenzo for the season, bring on the best possible version of the squad that has made back to back Western Conference Finals appearances because I think the #BlackAndSilver are up for the challenge of not allowing it to become three in a row. That being said, given the pedigree, we know we cannot allow ourselves to let our guard down for one second just because Minnesota is undermanned. This wounded team just sent Denver packing and if you underestimate the Minnesota Timberwolves, you do so out your own peril. I know we’ll be focused and ready for the challenge. Anthony Edwards or no Anthony Edwards tonight, if we keep playing the stellar brand of basketball that we played throughout the regular season and maintained during the opening round, I’m confident we will inch one victory closer to confirming that the dog days are over an a new era of perennial championship contention has indeed begun. If, indeed, the 2026 NBA playoffs proves to confirm this, along with it will return those pesky undesired consequences…but not until next year. For now, there’s still no pressure. Tonight, I’m excited sit back and continue enjoying where this ride takes us. And on that note, may the fourth be with us.

#GoSpursGo‍ ‍

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Featured Image Source: Genius

Headline Image Source: San Antonio Express-News

Trois de faits

Aperture - We didn’t know what the future would hold when De’Aaron Fox, through his agent, Rich Paul, requested a trade from the Sacramento Kings to the San Antonio Spurs midway through the 2024-25 season. At the time, we were starting a 39-year-old point guard (albeit a legendary one) and evaluating how capable our rookie combo guard had the potential to be on the ball initiating offense (turned out…extremely capable). I mean, let’s face it. Just a season and a half before Fox’s trade request, the-man-the-myth-the-legend himself, Coach Pop, had an extremely rare tactical miscue when he attempted to start Jeremy Sohan at point guard at the beginning of Victor Wembanyama’s rookie season (2023-24). The experiment proved to be a failure that stunted both Jeremy and Wemby’s development (just a tiny bit on the latter). So yeah, when you are only that far removed from being the laughing stock of the league at the point guard position and the opportunity presents itself to trade for an all-star and clutch player of the year caliber point guard right smack dab in the middle of his prime without giving up any of your most-prized assets, it’s a no-brainer. You do it 100 times out of 100. The Spurs didn’t become the second-winningest NBA franchise of all-time (to date) and win the fifth-most championships (to date) by whiffing on the easy decisions. On February 3rd, 2025, the San Antonio Spurs traded Zach Collins, Tre Jones, Sidy Cissoko, three of the least valuable in our stockpile of first round picks and three second round picks for De’Aaron Fox and Jordan McLaughlin in a three-way trade with the Sacramento Kings and Chicago Bulls.

If San Antonio Spurs general manager Brian Wright had had the magical power to see into the future and know that a mere four months later, the franchise would have the basketball gods smile down fondly upon us yet again to bless us with a third-straight year of lottery luck and the number two overall pick in the 2025 NBA Draft (with a point guard as the consensus number two prospect in the draft class), of course he might have paused to consider if we might be better served to keep our powder dry and hold on to the assets we were going to need to give up to secure Fox’s services in case they might be better allocated later to pursue needs at other positions. If Wright had known then that in a mere five months he was about to draft Dillon Harper, he might have paused to consider Swipa-ing left on Fox, but I think he has proven he’s a savvy enough team builder to have known 100 times out of 100 includes the one in a hundred time where you can have your cake and eat it too. In the sorcerous world where the Spurs’ general manager had the magical power to see our Dylan Harper future during the moment he had the De’Aaron Fox trade deal sitting on the table, he pulls the trigger regardless.

On Sunday afternoon at the Moda Center in Portland, De’Aaron “Swipa” Martez Fox officially silenced all of the critics, doubters, naysayers, and unapologetic haters who view him as an expendable overpaid underwhelming pseudo star whose acquisition is now serving as a roadblock for Dylan Harper getting the keys to the car. The player of the game dropped a cool, calm, and collected 28 points (a lion’s share of them during a furious second half comeback) along with seven assists, six rebounds, one steal and two incredible blocks to lead the Spurs to the largest halftime-to-final turnaround in NBA playoff history. Fox was at the controls for roughly 20 of the 24 second half minutes on Sunday orchestrating the high-octane explosion of dominant offensive execution that propelled us back from a 17 point halftime deficit to a 73-35 (+38) second half and a 21 point victory that puts us up 3-1 in the series heading back home for Game 5. Head Coach Mitch Johnson said in his postgame press conference that Game 4 against the Blazers “might have been his (DeAaron’s) best game as a Spur.” Do I wish our 2025-26 roster construction allowed for Dylan Harper to have a bigger role playing more minutes? Of course, I think every Spurs fan does. Nonetheless, it’s performances like the one De’Aaron had on Sunday that remind all fans across the “Fox is Great/Fox is Trash” spectrum (full transparency, I find myself pulled to both extremes from time to time but mostly hovering firmly left of middle) how integral he was to the team’s 28 game regular season improvement this season over last and how unquestionably vital he is to San Antonio having realistic postseason title ambitions way ahead of schedule. Part of what we brought him into our program for was to be a veteran leader who we could rely on to have ice in his veins during clutch playoff situations. It took him a little bit longer to get revved up than expected but as of our 114-93 Game 4 come-from-way-behind second consecutive first round road playoff victory over the Portland Trail Blazers, Swipa the Fox has arrived.

As dominant as De’Aaron and the offense were in the second half on Sunday, it takes more than one side of the ball to have a half where you outscore a playoff opponent by 38 points in 24 minutes. As mentioned above, Fox had two seemingly out of nowhere impressive blocks and a steal to add a little two-way spice to his epic performance. Of course, we can always rely on Stephon Castle to bring the pit bull point of attack perimeter defense. He did that effectively once again in Game 4 and while it didn’t necessarily translate to the box score (only one rebound and one steal), he played a role in limiting Scoot Henderson to an eye-popping ZERO points on 0-7 shooting in 27 minutes but more critically, his harassment of Deni Avdija got under the Blazer all-star’s skin culminating in a late sequence where Avdija was checking Steph on the perimeter (with obnoxious aggression haphazardly slapping his arms repeatedly trying to force a steal with Portland down 112 points and a little over two minutes left to make them up) and Steph drove right through him and got all the way to the basket for an “and one” layup. Being the good sportsman that he is, Castle politely handed the ball back to Deni so the Blazers could inbound under their own basket but or some reason, the Israeli small forward they call “Turbo” took exception to Steph’s kind gesture and shoved the 2024-25 Rookie of the Year for his troubles. Not being know as someone who is ever going to back down (and someone the likes of Avdija probably doesn’t want to mess with), Steph shoved him back resulting in double technicals. This about the point in a seven game series where we can expect the “who can get under the opponent’s skin enough to get them rattled” mind games to begin. Advantage Castle.

It goes without saying but, as well as the Spurs played defensively as a group in the second half of Game 4, there was one singular reason why the Blazers squandered their entire 17-point halftime lead within a matter of minutes and could only muster 35 second half points altogether. Welcome back, Victor Wembanyama. We didn’t get an alien sighting in the PNW on Friday night but we surely did on Sunday afternoon. Finally cleared on Sunday from concussion protocols, the greatest defensive force on the planet (perhaps the greatest defensive force in the history of the planet) was utterly breathtaking on that end of the court in the second half of Game 4. Wemby had 11 defensive rebounds, seven soul-crushing blocks and four back-breaking steals but that doesn’t tell the whole story because he completely discombobulated everything Portland wanted to do on offense. It was a masterclass by the 22-year-old. As if that weren’t enough insult to injury for the Moda Center crowd who (up 17) had just spent halftime making their Game 6 plans, Vic hit them on the other end with 27 points (9-17 from the field, 8-8 from the line), three assists, and one offensive rebound in the first 34 road playoff minutes of his career. It’s often said that, with a few rare exceptions, it’s proven to be a requirement for a team to have a first-team all-NBA super duper mega star to realistically have a shot at winning a championship. Well loyal readers, I’m happy to report…the #BlackAndSilver have one and then some.

With a commanding 3-1 lead in the series, the Spurs are back in San Antonio tonight to attempt to end the Portland Trail Blazers season at the Frost Bank Center. For a young group on their first playoff journey together, this will be another first. We have not yet experienced the desperation of a playoff team with their backs against the wall facing elimination as a group. I fully expect Deni Avjida, Scoot Henderson, and company to come out swinging and fight like their lives depend on it. I fully expect them to do everything in the power to get this series back to Oregon by stealing one tonight. Even though we’ve already had to play 1.75 games without our MVP candidate in this series, this will be the hardest game in the series thus far for us to win. Closeout games are always harder. That being said, if we come out focused and draw energy from another raucous crowd letting off more “seven years since we last made the playoffs” steam, we have an excellent opportunity to end the series and should have full confidence that this special group will get the job done and get some rest before the next round. The Denver Nuggets kept their season alive last night winning at home to cut Minnesota’s series lead to 3-2 and forcing at least a Game 6 for either of our potential second round opponents. That’s all I’ll say on the matter for now because you never want to look ahead when there’s still work to be done in the here and now. Tonight, we have an opportunity to punch our ticket to the Western Conference Semifinals for the first time since 2017. Tonight, we have the opportunity to show the world that our title contention window has arrived. Tonight, we have the opportunity to let ‘em know.

#GoSpursGo‍

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Featured Image Source: Pitchfork

Headline Image Source: Yahoo Sports

Un de moins

APT. - Fortuna aka Lady Luck is a mischievous sage with a twisted sense of humor. Literally less than two hours after I finished writing and posting Un de fait (the opening episode in this reboot season of the Black & Silver blog series), a post in which I wrote about the epochal luck we as Spurs fans had on May 16th, 2023 in winning the NBA Draft Lottery and the rights to draft Victor Wembanyama, and less time than that after receiving his first career Hakeem Olajuwon Trophy, The Alien was injured and knocked out of Game 2 of our Western Conference First Round series against the Portland Trail Blazers Tuesday night at the Frost Bank Center on a freak play with 8:57 left in the second quarter. Drew Holiday was guarding Vic by getting up underneath him (a common tactic by smaller players when checking the 7’4” third-year superstar) and when Wemby changed direction by spinning to separate from the two-time NBA Champion, Holiday “pulled the chair” on him causing our MVP candidate to spill dangerously to the ground unprotected and slam his face violently against the hardwood. Wemby seemed to be knocked out cold for a couple of seconds and then woozy as he attempted to sit up. With every heart in every throat of every Spurs fan everywhere, Wemby eventually jumped up and started jogging directly to the locker room but it was pretty clear that our best player had just suffered a concussion and would not be returning to this game. It was a dumbest of luck freak occurrence. Later in the game, it was confirmed that the injury had in fact ended the Defensive Player of the Year’s second career playoff outing after 12 minutes of action and five points, four rebounds, one assist, and one block. It probably goes without saying but this untoward anomaly completely shifted the trajectory of the game, possibly the series. The irony of this stroke of terrible, calamitous misfortune happening shortly after I published a post reliving the singular luckiest moment Spurs fans have experienced in the past 29 years is not lost on me. Atrox Fortuna, you wicked devil you.

The rest of the team did their best to shake the natural reaction of feeling shell-shocked by losing our leader in such a freakish manner. We played hard and gave tremendous effort for the game’s remaining 33 minutes and with 8:33 left in the fourth quarter (having come out like gangbusters to start the final period), we looked poised to put the game to bed and take a commanding 2-0 lead in the series. For whatever reason, though, from that point on we seemed to forget that (even without Vic), we’re the better team and started playing like we were a “one, two, three…Cancún” 39 win play in team. We gave nine points back over the course of the next 1:28 and once the Blazers had pulled within five, we were in a dogfight the rest of the night. Overall in Game 2, we were sloppy, careless in possession of the basketball, out of position for defensive rebounds, unfocused at the free throw line (going 20-28 from the charity stripe) and ultimately, we gave away a game we easily could have and should have won, falling to Portland 106-103. Series tied 1-1.

Our other 2025-26 NBA All-Star, De’Aaron Fox (a player who we just gave a max extension to this summer and consequently are paying to be our leader and take over games when Wemby is unavailable) was (save for a brief stretch early in the third quarter when he went on a personal 6-0 run) particularly ineffective, getting swallowed up by Tumauni Kamara on one end of the court and outplayed by Scoot Henderson on the other. With a golden opportunity to still get a W and put a stranglehold on the series down the stretch of the fourth quarter, to be frank, Swipa seemed annoyingly nonchalant about the whole ordeal. While this isn’t the first time this season that I have noticed a frustrating lack of intensity and focus in the former Clutch Player of the Year’s “clutch time” performance, he did play a strong game on Sunday in Game 1 so I will withhold further judgement for now (given the circumstances) and give him the benefit of the doubt with the expectation that he will bounce back in a major way for Game 3 and show up as the player we are paying him and critically need him to be. If Wemby is unable to clear concussion protocols and play in Game 3 in Portland, we need 30 and 10 (assists) tonight from De’Aaron on high efficiency and with low turnovers and I have confidence that he’s going to deliver.

The player of the game on Tuesday was Luke Kornet. The “vanilla” half of French Vanilla aka the “white” half of White Castle had 10 points (4-5 from the floor, 2-3 from the stripe), nine rebounds, and two assists and was a +11 in 28 minutes in Game 2. (De’Aaron was a -14 in 34 minutes, by the way.) As he has done all season long, Luke held it down in the middle on Tuesday evening in Wemby’s absence at a level one would expect from a quality starting big man. With his clever finishing around the rim and his gritty rim protection this season, Kornet was easily one of the best free agent signings in the entire NBA last summer. A proven winner and a 2023-24 NBA Champion with the Boston Celtics, Luke is one of the biggest reasons that we won 28 games more this year than we did last year when we did not have a quality back up center and our opponents regularly had a field day getting to the rim in the non-Victor minutes. From the outside looking in, he also appears to be a revered teammate that brings a lot of conviviality and humor to this tight-knit group inside the locker room and on the court. One of my favorite moments of the season was when Kornet had a game-saving block at the buzzer on the road in Orlando against the Magic on December 3rd and then spontaneously celebrated by doing the iconic Vince Carter pose from the 2000 NBA Slam Dunk contest.

As of the time of completing this post, Victor Wembanyama’s status for Game 3 tonight is still questionable. He is more than 60 hours into the process of working through his concussion protocol and the good news is that it was confirmed yesterday that he did travel with the team from San Antonio to Portland in preparation for Game 3. Like countless Spurs fans around the globe, I’ve been waiting with bated breath and fingers crossed constantly refreshing my news and social media feeds hoping against hope that I will receive the update I so desperately want to hear: there will be an encounter of the third kind at the Moda Center in Portland, OR this evening. Please, Fortuna, Feronia, Minerva, Salus, and Fides, holiest of holy basketball gods and goddesses, impart thy divine healing on the savior and allow us, his flock, to go forth with the relief that this wicked desultory accident was just a minor blip and not a major setback 🙏 Regardless of whether Wemby is able to clear protocols and suit up tonight or not, the #BlackAndSilver have to embrace playing in the most hostile environment most of our young core will have ever experienced to date and come out with the type of focus and force (which we have displayed consistently enough all year to win 62 games) to snatch our home court advantage in this series immediately back. Even without Vic, I believe we are still better than these young and scrappy Trail Blazers and that being the case, we should have the capability to make the necessary tactical adjustments as well as bring the energy and desire necessary to outwork our opponent and grab a victory this evening in the PNW. With Vic? We are the better team by an astronomical amount. Should he successfully clear the concussion protocol and play, expect Game 3 to be another otherworldly dominant une victoire écrasante. We got the guillotine, you better run.

#GoSpursGo‍ ‍

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