Huit de faits
2026 NBA Western Conference Semifinals, Game 6
Make Them Cry - At least once a day, I find my thoughts wander into thinking about everything that has happened in the past three years. And when I do, I pinch myself and muse, “it doesn’t make any sense for us to be this lucky.” Everything that has happened since May 16th, 2023 has been a glitch in the matrix where it feels like my hunger for the San Antonio Spurs to win a sixth NBA Championship is channeling a 2K roster construction through a lucid dream and then spitting it out into reality. As discussed in Un de fait, what happened on the middle day of May in the year of our basketball gods 2023 was in and of itself more than enough to have me feeling that life is but a dream. When you win the most consequential NBA draft lottery in 20 years and possibly of all-time, that alone is the type of luck that diehard fans of any team would strongly consider committing armed bank robbery in order to obtain it if they knew it was locked away in the vault. Winning the right to draft Victor Wembanyama alone should have been enough luck for a team-fandom lifetime (especially when you take into account that this fan has already had the incredible fortune to experience the hyper-unique euphoric feeling it produces once before on May 18th, 1997 when the San Antonio Spurs won the right to draft Tim Duncan). Little did I know (nor would I have even dared imagine at the time) that winning the right to draft Wemby wasn’t an isolated stroke of incalculable good luck but rather it was the starting blocks for the most spectacular streak of good luck in NBA history.
That said, after suffering through an 18-game losing streak en route to a second consecutive 22-60 season (fifth-worst record in the league) during Wemby’s rookie season and collecting a 42.1% chance at a top-four pick for our continued struggles, there was a little bit of luck involved with winning the 2024 overall number four pick but not really that much given the odds. The real stroke of luck for us in 2024 was the way the draft board played out ahead of our selection. Before ever sitting down to watch that year’s draft lottery on May 12th, 2024, there was one player and one player alone that I wanted the Spurs to draft. I had known who I wanted since April 8th after watching the UConn Huskies defeat the Purdue Boilermakers 75-60 in the NCAA Division One men’s basketball championship game. While watching that game, I became enthralled with a freshman guard from Covington, GA named Stephon Castle. Knowing he was going to be entering the draft and was projected to be a top lottery pick, I watched the way he performed on the biggest stage and for the highest stakes at the collegiate-level and I thought to myself, “he’s the one for me.” While Steph had a solid but not spectacular stat line of 15 points, five rebounds, three assists, and a steal, it was his elite combination of toughness and composure (along with the fact that he just seemed to have a knack for making key plays throughout the game whenever his team needed it) that led me to believe he was going to be one of those players who is built ready to play for the highest stakes in the NBA. So when on June 26th, first the Atlanta Hawks (selecting Zaccharie Risacher) and then the Washington Wizards (selecting Alex Starr) overvalued the French basketball renaissance by betting it could produce a consolation prize to having been a year late for Wembanyama and then the Houston Rockets (selecting Reed Sheppard) miscalculated which American collegiate guard prospect had the higher upside, we were suddenly in the astronomically lucky position to draft the player who, two seasons in, has established himself as the best player in the draft class by a significant margin. With the fourth pick in the 2024 NBA draft, the San Antonio Spurs selected Stephon Castle (the player I wanted all along) and Area 51 was born.
Castle went on to win the 2024-25 Rookie of the Year award. Vic, of course, had just won it the season before so that trophy was becoming as locked down for the Spurs as intelligence into the activities inside of Area 51 is from the American public. While the Spurs showed promise last season of making the leap to contend for a play-in position behind the development of Wemby from his first to his second year along with adding the steal of the draft and oh, by the way. having Stephon Castle play alongside and be mentored in his rookie season by future Hall-of-Fame veteran point guard Chris Paul, at the halfway point of the campaign, the idea that our streak of incredible luck was going to continue in ways that would supercharge the rebuild to a warp speed which has no precedent in NBA history was not even an idea I was entertaining at the time. I assumed a minimum decades-worth of luck had to have been used up in acquiring those two players in back-to-back drafts. After all, Vic and Steph were our first two top-five draft picks since selecting Duncan number one overall in 1997. It would have been preposterous to expect the streak to continue when it had already yielded such a massive return. I was content that with Area 51, we had a title-contending foundation to build methodically upon while the already lethal duo (neither of which had even been born when the Spurs won the 2003 title) develops the ability to consistently dominate in this league. One thing that was becoming increasingly clear at the time was that the opportunity to play with an alien was going to have a gravitational pull luring other established stars to want to sign with SA in free agency or force their way to us via trade. Early in 2025, rumors started swirling that the latter might happen prior to the trade deadline. News started breaking that an all-star point guard smack dab in the middle of his prime with the earned reputation for having “ice water in his veins” in the clutch (I know you’ve noticed the theme and graphics for this post so yes, there will be more on this later), who is widely-considered the fastest player in the league with the ball in his hands and who just so happened to have the most powerful agent in the league representing him was fed up with his situation as a King and as a consequence, was attempting to force his way out of Sacramento with only one trade destination on his mind. De’Aaron Fox wanted to be traded to San Antonio to play next to Victor Wembanyama and be a part of the franchise with the brightest future in the league (it certainly didn’t hurt that his wife was from the Alamo City and he was also a native Texan from nearby Katy only 168 miles away). On February 2nd of last year, the rumors became a reality. De’Aaron Fox was traded from the Sacramento Kings to the San Antonio Spurs in a three-team deal that also involved the Chicago Bulls. After the trade was completed, Fox said publicly that the opportunity to play in a backcourt with Stephon Castle was also a major factor in him only having eyes for the Spurs.
While it certainly happened quicker than expected, the inevitability that an already-established star was going to land in San Antonio wasn’t on it’s own an extension of our good luck (it was the byproduct of having already lucked into the opportunity to draft Wemby), the price we ultimately had to pay for his services was the result of another stroke of good luck because Spurs general manager Brian Wright was negotiating the framework for the deal with the two most inept front offices in the league. Thankfully for us, Sacramento’s general manager Monte McNair and Chicago’s general manager Marc Eversley didn’t read the first chapter of NBA General Management for Dummies before executing this trade because if they had, they would have known that the first guideline in the book says if Sam Presti, Danny Ainge, Brad Stevens, or Brian Wright is on the other end of the phone call, hang up. Our luck was “going streaking” and remembered to bring its green hat because McNair was grossly incompetent enough to allow Wright to fleece him in obtaining De’Aaron’s services for 50 cents on the dollar and when you need to rope in the GM of another team to assist in your fleece, you can always count on the Bull’s Eversley. At the time the “Fox to SA” rumors started swirling, most prognosticators assumed the price would be one of Keldon Johnson, Devin Vassell or even Castle himself along with at least three of the most-prized future first round picks from our stockpile of draft assets. We gave up none of that. Because of the “dumb” luck that the first already-established star to call his “I wanna team up with Wemby” shot happened to play for Sacramento, the most-mismanaged franchise in the league and one that had this weird proclivity for conducting trades with Chicago, the second-most mismanaged franchise in the league, all we had to give up for De’Aaron freaking Fox (along with steady reserve point guard Jordan McLaughlin, by the way) was Tre Jones, Zach Collins, Sidy Cissoko, three of our least-valued first round picks and three second round picks. You know it’s a fleece when a three-way trade is completely one-sided. Brian Wright sucked all of the value out of that transaction like a cryptid-rights activist vampire on the first nightfall after a 10-year hunger strike. To the surprise of exactly no one, both Monte McNair and Marc Eversley have both since been fired from their GM positions with the Kings and the Bulls respectively.
Our pursuit of securing a play-in position in the 2024-25 season was derailed only five games and 18 days after acquiring De’Aaron. On February 20th of last year, the San Antonio Spurs announced Victor Wembanyama was out for the season with deep vein thrombosis (DVT). Wemby’s blood clot diagnosis, of course, was an incredibly unlucky turn of events that meant our pursuit of making the playoffs via the play-in tournament was effectively over. Little did we know at the time that this would be an example but there’s a funny little thing about streaks of luck: they’re called “streaks” for a reason. Sometimes during a streak of good luck, even an unlucky incident ends up being a blessing in disguise opening you up to new opportunities to be lucky in ways that wouldn’t have been possible had the unlucky incident not occurred. (I only call Vic’s blood clot a blessing in disguise with the hindsight that he has since made a full recovery and because it was diagnosed and treated early, it was assessed to not have posed any risk to his long-term health.) We predictably ended the season outside of the play-in seeding finishing 13th in the West with a 34-48 record which was also the eighth-worst record in the league. In other words, because of our backslide down the stretch of the season without Victor, we were guaranteed to get no worse than the 12th pick in the 2025 NBA draft. We were also going to get another bite at the apple of adding a top-four pick to our young core through the lottery. By falling down the standings into the eighth-worst record with Wemby out for the last two months of the season, the unlucky season-ending injury to our star player put us in position to get lucky again to the tune of a 6% chance at winning the No. 1 pick, a 6.5% chance at the No. 2 pick, a 7.1% chance at the No. 3 pick, a 7.8% chance at the No. 4 pick and a 26.3% overall chance at a top-four pick. And as luck would have it, on May 12th of last year, the San Antonio Spurs won the No. 2 overall pick through the lottery.
I’m not going to lie, when NBA Deputy Commissioner Marc Tatum was standing at that podium with only two picks left to reveal, I really hoped we were about to capture the Flagg. That said, the stakes for winning the right to draft Cooper Flagg (the consensus top player entering the 2025 NBA draft) and the stakes for winning the right to draft Victor Wembanyama when we were in the exact same position two years earlier were night and day because 1) Flagg was the type of prospect that comes along every couple years whereas Victor was the type of prospect that comes along every couple of decades at best and 2) there was an astronomical drop in the level of talent available at No. 2 to whatever team missed out on drafting an alien in 2023 but the consensus second-best prospect in the 2025 draft was no consolation prize at all. By all accounts, there was an ultra-talented guard prodigy coming out of Rutgers University by way of Franklin Lakes, NJ who was considered a greater prospect than anyone in the draft class before him. In other words, there was a No. 1 pick-level talent available to whichever team had to settle for the No.2 pick in the 2025 NBA draft and that talent’s name was and still is Dylan Harper. When Marc Tatum made the reveal that we were going to be selecting second and as a result, the Dallas Mavericks would be drafting first (the team that had just recklessly traded away top-five player in the league Luka Dončić and were because of that completely undeserving of the luck it took to cash in on 1.8% odds but I guess the basketball gods were, strictly on behalf of the Mavs enraged fan base, simply looking to make up for one of the worst decisions in basketball history), I was overcome with simultaneously feeling a strange combination of disappointment and excitement. Would it have been amazing to add Cooper Flagg next to Wemby, Castle, & Fox? Of course, he would have been an amazing fit on our team both in style of play and in that his natural position, power forward, is the position that was and still is the thinnest on our roster. At the same time, we actually just got luckier statistically jumping from 8 to 2 this year than either of the last two years and holy shit…Dylan Harper is going to be a San Antonio Spur!!! Eventually, the disappointment on coming so close but missing out on Flagg subsided and was replaced by a ridiculous abundance of even more excitement about Harper. Luck, you are once. twice, three times a lady ❤️❤️❤️
The combined probability of the Spurs winning the overall first pick (2023), fourth pick (2024), and second pick (2025) in three consecutive drafts is about one in 1400. That, however, doesn’t even factor in the additional incalculable luck of having the three teams in front of us in 2024 misevaluate the available pool of players and therefore put us back in the position for the second year in a row to be able to draft the prospect who is proving to be far and away the best in the class. And because when our luck “goes streaking” it brings it’s green hat, the cherry on top of the hot fudge sundae our roster upgrade had become was the luck that the GMs who Brian Wright negotiated with to land us an already-established star were fleece-able. In 734 days, we went from having zero top-five overall draft picks and zero already-established stars on our roster to having Victor Wembanyama, Stephon Castle, Dylan Harper, and De’Aaron Fox. To put it another way, we went from going nowhere soon to having the brightest future in the league in two short years. So let me say it for today, “it doesn’t make any sense for us to be this lucky.” Or then again, maybe it does. Maybe this was ordained to happen. Maybe luck doesn’t exist and is merely a human construct created to allow those who are out of favor with the gods (basketball or otherwise) to have something to blame other than themselves. Maybe it is because of our righteousness that the basketball gods created a future so bright for the San Antonio Spurs that we have the potential to grow our current roster into the greatest team ever assembled in the history of the planet. Either way, luck or predestination, one thing is for certain: our future is so bright it is also our present. Less than three years after drafting Wembanyama, less than two years after drafting Castle, less than one and a half years after acquiring Fox, and less than one year after drafting Harper, we are back where we belong. We are back contending for the title. We are back in the Western Conference Finals. 👽🏰🦊
* * *
On Friday night, the San Antonio Spurs eliminated the Minnesota Timberwolves from the 2026 NBA playoffs by winning Game 6 of our second round series on the road at the Target Center 139-109 and stamping our first ticket to the Western Conference Finals since 2017. The contest was a wire-to-wire shellacking that’s result was so never in question, Anthony Edwards decided to go ahead and get giving the Spurs coaches and players their post-game congratulatory handshakes over with when there was still eight minutes left in the fourth quarter. (As bizarre of a spectacle as it was, it also showed what a class act Ant is to tip his cap to the “better team” like that. I really admire the toughness he displayed on playing this entire series through injury, and as awful as it was for me, as a Spurs fan, to have to sit through every dagger three, every spectacular paint finish, and every clutch midrange jumper he made in this series, man is it a privilege to get to watch that dude play basketball. His game is ridiculous.) After annihilating the Wolves in his Game 5 redemption game, Victor Wembanyama had a solid but quiet (by his standards) performance in the Game 6 elimination route. While his stat line during his 27 minutes on the floor of 19 points (on efficient shooting splits), six rebounds, three blocks, and two assists would be considered an exceptional night’s work for any earthling, it was nothing to transmit home about for an alien who is on a quest to make sure the 2023 number one pick is not just considered the greatest lottery prize in 20 years (LeBron James in 2003) but becomes universally agreed upon as the greatest lottery prize of all-time. Probably the most impressive thing about Wemby’s night was witnessing the cumulative effect his defense had on Minnesota’s starting front court over the course of six games. By the end of the series, Victor had broken the basketball brains of both the Wolves starting power forward Julius Randle and Wemby’s French national teammate, friend and mentor, Wolves starting center Rudy Gobert. In Game 6, the two combined for three points (you read that correctly) on 1-12 shooting in 46 minutes. Poor, poor Rudy posted a goose egg in the game that prevented his team from making a third-straight trip to the Western Conference Finals.
The player of the game was once again, for the second consecutive contest, the iconoclast Stephon Castle. There’s no other way to describe it. Steph was simply breathtaking in his first-ever career road close out game. When Chris Finch and the Wolves made the fatal mistake to start the game by having Rudy Golbert switch on Castle but space off of him to protect against his drive (an adjustment that was designed to clog the paint in order to prevent Wemby from getting off to another fast start), Steph LIT THEM UP to the tune of three triples and 14 points in the first quarter overall. He went on to drain a career-high five three-pointers in Game 6 of the second round of the playoffs in his second season in the league. That is just silly. For the game, this NCAA Final Four champion and budding superstar whose home state Atlanta Hawks as well as the Washington Wizards and Houston Rockets miraculously (or moronically depending on your prospective) passed on drafting in 2024 had 32 points, 11 rebounds, and six assists in leading San Antonio to our first trip to the NBA final four in nine years. Steph oozed with confidence every second of his 30 minutes on the court shooting super efficiently across the board: 11/16 from the field, 5-7 from distance, and 5-6 from the line. He was also what Mitch Johnson characterized as an “attack dog” on defense the entire night and only committed two turnovers for good measure. It’s pretty clear that the kid from Covington, GA was built ready to play for the highest stakes in the NBA. Don’t forget to lock your doors and set your alarms tonight, America. There’s a stone cold killer coming to a Western Conference Finals stage near you.
On the same day that hip-hop icon Drake finally released his much-anticipated 9th studio album Iceman, the franchise who claims George Gervin (the NBA legend with the greatest nickname of all-time and the one Drake’s album title is paying homage to) also had a current player give his best impression of the original Iceman with his silky-smooth ability to maneuver his way to the rim along with his penchant for coming up with cold-blooded, “ice water in his veins” shooting in closing out the Timberwolves on Friday. De’Aaron Fox, the already-established star who shrewdly was the first to call his “I wanna play with Wemby” shot last year in forcing his way out of Sacramento and to San Antonio was spectacular in the Game 6 route. The near-consensus fastest player in the league with the ball in his hands ran circles around Minnesota’s elite permitted defenders scoring 21 points (on cold-blooded 8-10 shooting from the field, 3-3 from deep, and 2-2 from the line) and dishing out a team-high nine assists. The Iceman 2.0 cometh and he cometh to help the San Antonio Spurs young superstars compete to raise more banners in the rafters for a franchise that would have in all likelihood been shuttered during the NBA-ABA merger had the original Iceman not cometh. Speaking of young superstars doing their best impression of a Spurs legend, a 20-year-old leftie continues to look an awful lot like Manu Ginobili with the footwork he utilizes to carve his way through the paint and to the cup. Dylan Harper, the ultra-talented guard prodigy from Franklin Hills, NJ, had another stellar performance in Friday’s close out victory scoring 15 points (on 6-8 from the field), five rebounds, and two assists. The No. 2 overall pick of the 2025 NBA draft looking like the hall-of-famer from Bahía Blanca, Argentina is no coincidence because Manu, in his special advisor role with the Spurs, has made a concerted effort to mentor our soon to be first-team all-rookie phenom with No.1 pick level talent. Dylan Harper benefiting from the tutelage of Manu (one of the greatest 6th men of all-time) while playing “a” 6th-man role as a rookie (he will humbly remind you he’s not “the” 6th man, that’s Keldon Johnson) is going to pay off in spades. It’s scary how good Dylan is going to be tonight never mind in two weeks, one month, one year, five years, etc. etc. I think it’s safe to say we got ourselves a keeper with this one. All told, San Antonio’s “core four” (none of whom was even on our roster 1,061 days ago) demonstrated exactly how incomparably bright our future is by combining for 87 points on a preposterous 69% shooting (31 for 45) as well as 26 rebounds and 19 assists during our Game 6 closeout of Minnesota one Friday. When those four supernovas play like that, there isn’t a team now (or at any time in the past) that is likely to beat us.
I am so ridiculously excited for tonight’s Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals. Waiting for us on the other side of the bracket is the defending champs. I wouldn’t want it any other way. The Oklahoma City Thunder cruised through the first two rounds of the playoffs sweeping both the Phoenix Suns and the Los Angeles Lakers on the way to their second-consecutive trip to this particular stage. Touting the now back-to-back NBA MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (the results were announced yesterday) and that undefeated 2026 playoff record, there is no question that our young group is stepping up in weight class from Round 2 to Round 3. While Vic was also a finalist for the MVP and I obviously wanted him to win, it’s not the worst thing in the world for SGA to get the award on the eve of this series because he was deserving but more importantly because, knowing how insanely competitive Wemby is, wanting to prove that the voters got this one wrong is going to add extra fuel to Victor’s desire to want to dominate this series. Because the Thunder edged us out for the best record in the league by two games during the regular season, tonight’s Game 1 will be played at the Paycom Center in Oklahoma City. We all witnessed the unexpected 4-1 season series domination our young upstarts displayed over the defending champions during the regular season and while I think that will be helpful in giving us confidence for game-planning this matchup, I’m not delusional enough to think that our regular season success against this team will have any bearing on what will happen against them in the playoffs. Getting the upper hand on last year’s champs during the regular season is one thing. Ending their season in the Western Conference Finals is going to take something else all together. Perhaps something otherworldly but having just such a player at least gives us a puncher’s chance 😉👽 There will be plenty of time over the next four to seven posts to dissect this series and our opponent but for now, I’ll just say we have a real opportunity to steal Game 1 tonight. Just like Minnesota came into the last series and capitalized on the fact that we had been resting for five days to help them steal one from us on our home court in Game 1, we have the same opportunity to do it to the champs tonight. Oklahoma City has been resting for a full seven days since eliminating LA last Monday. We will becoming in sharp from finishing off our series on Friday night. We have a real opportunity tonight to punch first against the champs and put them on the back foot. When the ball is tipped tonight, OKC might very well still have the best player in the series on their team in Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (by a tiny margin) but, whether you want to call it luck or predestination, in acquiring our four franchise cornerstones over the past three year, there is no question we have surpassed them in high-end talent overall at the top of the roster and because of that, I like our chances to go directly into the Paycom Center aka the blue and orange belly of the beast home of the defending champs and paint it black.
Featured Image Source: TIDAL
Headline Image Source: San Antonio Express-News
Uno Triunfo
2017 NBA Western Conference First Round, Game 1
Forever - Last name EVER, first name GREATEST, like a sprained ankle, boy, that Black & Silver franchise ain't nothin' to play with. Wasn't this whole thing supposed to have ended six years ago? I mean, I listened to the "experts" back then. When the San Antonio Spurs failed to advance to the conference finals for three consecutive seasons, starting in 2009, the "experts" told us the dynasty was dead. "Nothing lasts forever," they said. The 2011 first round upset loss as the one seed was supposed to have been a funeral for the Spurs' dynasty, right? "All good things must come to an end." Isn't that what the "experts" told us? Yeah, right. We want this thing forever, man. I'm not going to lie. It was fun watching the "experts" scramble to jump back on the longevity bandwagon when the Spurs returned to two more NBA Finals and won another title after they had already buried us. Indeed, after having shown up and dutifully served as pallbearers during their self-imagined 2011 funeral, how quickly they forgot. By the time Tim Duncan was hoisting his fifth trophy in the summer of 2014, most "experts" had completely erased it from their memory that they had left us for dead three years earlier. So it goes, I guess. On and on. Once again, this past offseason, after our unexpected collapse against Oklahoma City in last year's Western Conference Semifinals and then the subsequent retirement of Timmy - the greateat all-time player in franchise history - these same "experts" have been back this year predicting the death of the Spurs dynasty once again. "It's impossible for a team to lose a top-five all-time greatest player and still continue to win 50 games year after year after year." That's what they told us, right? I guess they were correct, in a way. Having lost Tim Duncan to retirement over the summer, the Spurs didn't win 50 games in the 2016-17 season. We won 61 instead. The greatness of the Spurs transcends one player (even one as singular as Tim Duncan) because one player can't play forever. And the fact that one player isn't eternal doesn't matter because why, class? We want this thing forever, man. You get it, right? Sho nuff. But exactly what is the THIS we want to keep forever? I'm glad you asked. We want to keep forever a label that all of the so called "experts" never thought we could obtain. A label that's so difficult to acquire, only two other franchises have ever captured it. GREATEST FRANCHISE EVER. (First, middle, and last name.) That's right, class. The San Antonio Spurs have now surpassed the Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers as the NBA's greatest franchise ever. It's indisputable.
Don't agree? No problem. Here's a few facts for you to chew on that pair nicely with the haterade you're so clearly fond of drinking. The San Antonio Spurs have now won 50 plus games for an unfathomable 18 consecutive seasons. Here's the kicker. It would be 20 consecutive seasons had the 1999-99 season not been shortened due to a lockout. The Spurs went 37-13 (.740 winning percentage) that year en route to the title. Had it been a full 82 game schedule that winning percentage would have put us at around 61 wins (same as this season). So, since the Spurs clearly played 50 plus win basketball that season as well (despite the lockout), we have essentially played 50 plus win basketball for two straight decades in a row. To put that in perspective, the next longest streak of 50 plus win seasons is the Los Angeles Lakers with 12 consecutive (1980-91). Considering that our current streak of 18 and counting is already 50 percent longer than the next best in history, it is unlikely to ever be broken. I say this not only as evidence that the San Antonio Spurs are the GOAT franchise but also to remind everyone that the "experts'" reports of the death of the San Antonio Spurs' dynasty were, are, and will always be greatly exaggerated. The Spurs are the most successful franchise in NBA history and we don't plan on letting it end. We want this thing forever, man. Still don't agree? Let me know how this one tastes. The Spurs have made the playoffs a ridiculous 37 out of 41 seasons in the NBA and 45 out of 50 in franchise history (including ABA). There is not another NBA franchise that comes even close to that percentage of seasons making the playoff. Don't take my word for it. Look it up. We want this thing forever, man. I still haven't convinced you? Your'e killing me, Smalls...but here's another one. The San Antonio Spurs are the NBA's all-time leader in winning percentage. And with a .621 winning percentage compared to the .598 winning percentage boasted by the second best franchise, the Los Angeles Lakers, we're the NBA's all-time leader in winning percentage by a mile. With Kawhi Leonard in his early prime paired with the best coach in the NBA, there is no indication that we'll slow down anytime soon. Or ever. I'm sure there will be a fresh batch of reasons for the "experts" to predict the Spurs impending demise again this summer (as they do every summer). Let 'em at it. Every year they do it and every year they're wrong. (And once proven wrong suddenly develop amnesia.) And so it goes, I guess. On and on. All I know is we're not going anywhere. We want this league forever, man.
Case in point, on Saturday night in front of a rowdy, pre-Fiesta crowd of 18,418, the San Antonio Spurs defeated the Memphis Grizzlies 111 to 82 - snatching Game One of the Western Conference First Round series. The game started out tense with both Marc Gasol and Mike Conley propelling the Grizzlies to an early 13 point lead at 28-15 with 2:29 left in the first quarter. But in typical Spurs fashion, we kept pounding away and cut the lead to five by the end of the first. By the end of the second, our attack had weakened the structure of their game plan significantly, taking a three point lead of our own into halftime. We busted the dam wide open in the third using our suffocating defense to take complete control. When the smoke cleared from the explosive period, we had outscored the Grizzlies 32-15 to extend our lead to 20 points. That was a wrap. The services of our starters were hardly needed during the fourth quarter and the #BlackAndSilver won Game One going away. Several Spurs stepped up big in the first playoff game of the post-Duncan era. Most notably, Tony Parker immediately shifted gears into playoff beast mode logging an outstanding 18 points on 8-13 shooting and applying constant pressure on the Grizzly defense. It remains to be seen whether this was a flash in the pan or what we should expect to regularly see from Tony during this postseason run. I know one thing, though. If Tony can indeed play at this level consistently throughout the playoffs, the rest of the field is in for a world of hurt. The next player deserving of mention is Danny Green. While Danny only contributed two points on a pair of free throws on the offensive end, he was spectacular on the defensive end. Danny had four blocks and one steal and was the primary defender involved in holding Mike Conley scoreless from the 8:40 mark in the second quarter on. L.A. came to play, as well. After a shaky start, LaMarcus Aldridge settled in to have a solid evening with 20 points and 6 rebounds. He also did his part in ratcheting up the Spurs defense after the first quarter playing Gasol and Zach Randolph extremely tough in the post. Also, an honorable mention to Jonathan Simmons because if I had to choose one play that sums up the stifling defensive performance San Antonio delivered (in holding Memphis to 52 points over the final three periods), it would be this...
While many Spurs chipped in with exceptional performances in the first playoff game sans Timmy, the player of the game (surprise, surprise) was Kawhi Leonard. The Spurs newly anointed franchise cornerstone carved up bear meat last night like he's practicing to win the Best Butcher in Texas contest later this month. The Klaw unleashed 32 points in 32 minutes on a ridiculously efficient 11-14 from the field and 9-9 from the free throw line. He added in 5 assists, 3 rebounds, and 2 steals for good measure. All of this without playing in the fourth quarter. Every one who doubted him is asking for forgiveness. Earlier we talked about there being no end in sight to the Spurs run of dominance. The acquisition and development of Kawhi Leonard is unquestionably the biggest reason why this is the case. In a lot of ways, we have the Memphis Grizzlies to thank for our eternal twist of good fortune. Who laid the groundwork for the funeral that the "experts" had for the Spurs' dynasty in the summer of 2011 after the Spurs were eliminated in the first round as a one seed? The Memphis Grizzlies. When Gasol, Randolph, Connelly and company decisively defeated and embarrassed a 61 win one seed Spurs club in the first round, Coach Pop and R.C. Buford realized that our team needed to get younger and more athletic on the wing. How did Coach Pop and R.C. respond? By making one of the biggest gambles in franchise history, trading George Hill (Coach Pop's favorite player) on draft night for a skinny prospect from San Diego State named Kawhi Leonard. Clearly, the gamble turned into a grand slam as the Spurs unprecedented run of greatness has been extended infinitely beyond the horizon by the arrival and subsequent development of Kawhi into a bonafide superstar. Oh...by the way, the Spurs are now 9-0 against the Memphis Grizzlies (the team who allegedly killed the Spurs' dynasty) in the playoffs since acquiring Kawhi Leonard during the 2011 draft. And if the determination on display last night by the Spurs newest franchise cornerstone is any indication, he doesn't plan on stopping at all. Ladies and gentleman, that skinny prospect from San Diego State has officially arrived. It only took Kawhi Leonard six seasons, an unrivaled work ethic, and the city of San Antonio to become the best basketball player in the world. If you haven't been a part of it, at least you're about to witness. I predict that by the time Kawhi finishes this playoff run, he may have just made it impossible for anyone (no matter how prestigious their expertise) to deny that we got this thing forever, man. He's just that good.
Video Source: NBA, playoff 2017 on YouTube
Featured Image Source: WallpaperSafari
Headline Image Source: Grantland
Three Forward
2015 Western Conference First Round, Game 5
Over - I'm living life right now, man, and this what I'mma do 'til it's over...'til it's over. It's far from over. In One Back (my first blog post of these 2015 playoffs), I predicted that "there are going to be moments of panic and moments of doubt for Spurs fans" during this title defense journey. Man, I wasn't lying. Last night was intense. I have never been to Disneyland, but somehow I feel like I've become a regular visitor after enduring a second roller coaster ride out in Los Angeles in less than a week. My emotions swung back and forth so many times last night that I'm not entirely convinced in the accuracy of what I'm about to report, but somehow, someway the San Antonio Spurs outlasted the Los Angeles Clippers 111-107 at the Staples Center yesterday in Game 5 of the Western Conference First Round series to take a 3-2 lead and put the Clips on the brink of elimination. They say that football is a game of inches. Apparently basketball can be a game of millimeters. There is no question that Bill Kennedy and crew made the correct call in disallowing the tip-in by DeAndre Jordan of a Blake Griffin shot as the ball hung above the cylinder during an opportunity for the Clippers to take a 109-108 lead with 4.7 seconds left in the game, but let's be honest...that was a lucky break for the Spurs. Both teams played determined, focused basketball and both teams were equally brilliant in last night's game. We could just as easily have been the team to catch a bad bounce that would have resulted in us being the ones feeling the heartbreak that comes with facing elimination in a close series. Luck was certainly on our side last night. Having said that, we have absolutely nothing to apologize for. Luck is a part of the equation when two evenly-matched opponents square off. It always has been and it always will be. In the end, luck has a funny way of gravitating to the more deserving team. After squandering the home court advantage that we stole on our last trip to Cali in an uninspired Game 4 performance, the Spurs regrouped and earned the opportunity to be in a position for luck to help us steal it right back in last night's gritty Game 5 escape. It takes remarkable composure to play that well in that environment in that situation. We earned the victory and we earned the opportunity to finish off this series at home. On Thursday night, let's hope we are ready to capitalize on the remarkable opportunity that we earned last night (more on that later).
Okay, campers, rise and shine, and don't forget your booties 'cause it's cooooold out there today. It's coooold out there every day. The player of the game last night was Tim Duncan. What else is there to say about the old man? He never ceases to amaze. Timmy (continuing to upstage Bill Murray in his ongoing portrayal of the Phil Connors character from Groundhog Day) came up huge with a monster 21 points (8-13 from the field, 5-6 from the line), 11 rebounds, 4 assists, 3 steals, and an enormous blocked shot in the guts of the game. With 59 seconds remaining and San Antonio clinging to a 107-105 lead, Blake Griffin got to one of his sweet spots to launch an eight foot leaner (the type of shot that he has been making routinely throughout the series). He was met at the summit by Duncan, who again stripped Griffin after Blake recovered the blocked shot and attempted to reload for another. Boris Diaw snatched the ball after Timmy's strip and J.J. Redick subsequently fouled out of the game trying to subdue Tony Parker. Tony hit one of his two free throws to put the Spurs up three, which proved to be huge in keeping the Spurs at an advantage once clock management became a factor in determining the outcome of the game. It can't be overstated how consequential Timmy's block was in giving us a 3-2 series lead. In the biggest moment of another huge postseason game, the greatest NBA player since Michael Jordan came through in the clutch...again. Groundhog Day.
As we start preparing for Game 6 tomorrow night back home in the comfy confines of the AT&T Center, let us have the wisdom to remember the horrendous effort we put forth in Game 4 and use it as a teachable moment. Our blowout Game 3 victory baited us into assuming that we had broken the spirit of the Los Angeles Clippers. That assumption proved to be disastrous. We didn't break their spirit then (after winning Game 2) and we haven't broken their spirit now (after winning Game 5). The Clippers are not only capable of coming right back and taking Game 6 in San Antonio, I'm certain that their mindset is such that they intend to do exactly that. Chris Paul, Blake Griffin, and company will not play themselves out of the 2015 NBA Playoffs tomorrow night, we have to go out and execute our most focused basketball of the season for 48 minutes and eliminate them. The assumption that we can just show up and we will win because we are at home and we're the Spurs is as ludicrous as Doc Rivers' assumption that every single member of the basketball viewing public didn't simultaneously roll our eyes last night during his post game press conference when he stated, "I don't complain much." The dream of back-to-back Spurs championships has been a torturously elusive one. Each and every Spurs title defense prior to this year has gone down in flames in heartbreaking fashion. From losing Timmy for the playoffs in 2000, to .04 in 2004, to Manu's foul on Dirk in 2006, to the league admission of a missed foul call on Brent Barry in 2008, San Antonio fans know that we are far from out of the woods when it comes to an opponent as talented as our current one. Tomorrow night, we cannot face the Clippers as a team that we have gotten the better of over the past five games. We must face them as the gatekeepers standing in between a city and its pursuit of a dream. The #BlackAndSilver have a dream to catch for the Alamo City and as deserving as Los Angeles is of taking the next step as a franchise, if we play with one goal and one mind tomorrow night, the Clippers' evolution will have to wait for at least one more year. If the Spurs can channel The Beautiful Game and come together for a single purpose in Game 6, then the Clippers faithful will wake up on Friday and have to come to grips with the fact that they simply just had the dumb luck of running into a dreamcatcher in the first round. Tomorrow, we need to forget about merely chasing this elusive dream. Tomorrow, we need to go out there and start our sprint to catch it.
Featured Image Source: The Hype Factor
Headline Image Source: Yahoo Sports