Douze de faits
2026 NBA Western Conference Finals, Game 7
Kick In the Door - Wavin’ the .44. All you heard was, “Wemby, don’t hit me no more.” Ladies, gentlemen, sisters, brothers, and siblings, it is now official. Like a chestburster shedding it’s skin and replacing it’s cells with polarized silicon in order to become a fully grown xenomorph, Victor Wembanyama has shed the “ascending” and is now simply the greatest basketball player in the world full stop. League MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander didn’t relinquish his perch at the top of the NBA pecking order without a fight. Let the historians record and the bards cantillate the sensational spectacle that was the breathtakingly epic clash between the San Antonio Spurs and the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder in the 2026 NBA Western Conference Finals. It was a war of attrition fought over seven grueling battles and it was closely contested all the way until the bitter end. Even though SGA fought admirably to extend his reign as greatest player in the world in Game 7, scoring 35 points and dishing out nine assists, ultimately after Caron Wallace missed a three down six with 12 seconds left in the seventh and decisive battle and Julian Champagnie soared to snag the rebound before quickly hitting De’Aaron Fox with the outlet who then kicked it ahead to Devin Vassell for the break away dunk and eight point lead with four seconds left that sealed the series victory for the Spurs, there was no question that the changing of the guard of the greatest player in the world was earned by Wemby and it was earned through mutual respect and through trial by fire. The Alien wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.
When the dust settled and the Spurs were the last team standing having just closed out the champs, defeating them 111-103 in Game 7 of the WCF on their home court at Paycom Center in downtown Oklahoma City on Saturday, May 30th in the year of our basketball gods 2026 to extend our season into June, a series that started on the very same court 13 days earlier with the star player of one team winning a most valuable player trophy ended with the star player of the other team winning a different most valuable player trophy that puts an eternal asterisk on the first award that was given before the war was fought. To be fair, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was a deserving recipient of his MVP award based on regular season performance but when the NBA MVP loses in the playoffs to another MVP finalist, that fact will always be remembered and legitimate questions on whether the voters got it right that year will come attached to that part of that MVP winner’s legacy forever. I suspect, though, while those questions are indeed now permanent for SGA, assuming Wemby keeps on his current trajectory, they will become more muted over time for the same reason those questions have become more muted for Charles Barkley (1993) and Karl Malone (1997). People hold it against you less when you suffer that type of embarrassment in your MVP season at the hands of the greatest player of all time. That was the case for Barkley and Malone losing to Michael Jordan (who still remains the goat to this day—the only acceptable name you could put forward to have a reasonable debate on the matter is Bill Russell—you can miss me with that LeBron is the goat nonsense—LeBron has had the best NBA career of any player in any era based on production and longevity but greatness is measured in winning at the highest level and LeBron is 4-6 lifetime in the NBA Finals). If Victor Wembanyama continues on his current trajectory, in 15 years (or so) the asterisk on Shai’s 2025-26 NBA MVP award will have been reduced to a tiny one as it will have born out by then that the embarrassment was suffered at the hands of what will be at that point in the future the new undisputed greatest basketball player of all time 🐐
Back to the here and now for a sec, the debate is officially over on who is the current greatest player in the world. Victor took that title away from SGA because the Spurs defeated the Thunder to win the West and Wembanyama (not the two-time defending regular season MVP) was named MVP of the 2026 Western Conference Finals. He has arrived, indeed. If Vic continues on his current trajectory, the debate over the current greatest basketball player in the world is going to be shut down for the next decade or more. Instead (to the point I was making above about how SGA’s humiliation will age gracefully), we will have a new debate to fixate on if Victor continues on his current trajectory. The new debate will be over how long before Victor Wembanyama earns his place on the NBA pantheon for greatest players of all time with Bill Russell, Kareem Abdul Jabber, San Antonio’s very own Tim Duncan, LeBron James, Wilt Chamberlain, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Shaquille O’Neal, Kobe Bryant, Stephen Curry + how long will it take him to surpass Michael Jordan as the greatest basketball player to ever walk on this planet? This paradigm shift has also arrived and the first notch in Wemby’s “goat belt” can be punched within the next two and a half weeks. If you want start walking down Michael Jordan (and Bill Russell) in the goat conversation, it not only means you need to make it to the NBA Finals a bunch of times but it also means (as Tim Duncan came so painfully close to being the third player to post this type of resume) you need to win it every single time you make it. Based on his Game 7 postgame comments, Victor already gets this and he will be ready to seize the opportunity now in front of him in the 2026 NBA Finals. Case in point, speaking to the press after winning the Oscar Robertson Trophy with his team and the Magic Johnson Trophy individually, Vic observed., “This is the best basketball on the planet that’s being played right now. And the crazy thing is, maybe I’m crazy for that but I want to do that fifteen or twenty more times. Let’s hope it doesn’t become an addiction. Maybe it is already.”
With those preliminaries out of the way, let’s party like it’s 1999 because the San Antonio Spurs are going to our seventh NBA Finals!! And awaiting us is the New York Knicks, the team we beat to win our first NBA Finals in the last year of the last millennium. With this next generation of dynastic talent on the Spurs roster, playing the Knicks and getting to play NBA Finals games in Madison Square Garden (basketball’s Mecca) again is such a full circle moment. It’s also so wild to me to be feeling this aberrantly euphoric sense of anticipation (which is unique to a Spurs’ finals run) for the first time in twelve years. I’m not surprised that we’re here (more just awestruck in appreciation to be once again experiencing such a fleeting revelry in the afterglow of arriving), I am an eternal optimist in my Spurs fandom, after all. Writing Un de fait after being on hiatus from this project for seven years felt like embarking into the unknown much like it felt when I wrote One Down in 2013 but on both occasions I envisioned the blog series taking us on a journey that would stretch into June because in both cases, I had an instinctive supposition this was a year the Spurs could make a run to The Finals. I won’t lie, though, unlike 2013 (when I had the confidence of rooting for a core group of players who done it many times before), considering our youth, it feels surreal that we actually pulled it off on Wemby & company’s first attempt. The 2025-26 San Antonio Spurs are the youngest team to make it to the NBA Finals since the 1976-77 Portland Trail Blazers. In other words, this is a once every 50 year outlier and since I’m forty-seven that also means that the 25-26 Spurs are the youngest team to make it to the NBA Finals in my lifetime and in all probability will remain the youngest team to make the NBA Finals for the rest of my lifetime which is mind-blowing. Perhaps a more apt comparison than 2013 (when I first started writing about every Spurs playoff run) to how surreal this moment feels is in fact the aforementioned 1999 run to the NBA Finals. (Also, before we continue (just to name it out loud), another reason to limit the comparison between now and 2013 strictly to the similarity of embarking into the unknown with writing the Black & Silver blog series for the first time—or first time in a long time—is 2013 proved to be the necessary exposition in a two-part story with the 2014 redemption title being the resolution. This journey we are on 2026 is undoubtedly a standalone origin story.)
Now back to the year where I pulled an all-nighter the night before seeing a first run screening of The Matrix in a movie theatre and as consequence, fell asleep 45 minutes in and missed everything else the first time I ever watched the dopest movie made during my formative years (no joke). In other words, back to 1999. It’s so poetic that it’s once again the New York Knicks. It’s so poetic that it’s once again a new crop of Spurs playing their first NBA Finals in the Garden. It feel so incredibly fresh. And it’s that newness of it being the first time we are experiencing it (or in this case the first time with this new generation of players) that creates its own “pinch me, this can’t be real” temporary plain of existence that is simply phantasmagoric. Perhaps the hint of imposter syndrome that comes with doing something for the first time adds an extra ingredient to elevate the provocation of the moment. As similar as this euphoric dream state I’m momentarily floating through feels to ‘99, the imposter syndrome ingredient is even more pronounced this time around because this team is way younger and way newer than the first squad that ever put Larry O’Brien in a boat parade on the San Antonio River. Tim Duncan, our 22-year old superstar and best player was young and new at the same time that Bill Clinton was establishing Pride Month by presidential proclamation, but the rest of the 1999 title team was a veteran ball club. (Happy Pride, San Antonio 🌈) Did I mention that the ‘26 Spurs are the youngest team in 49 years to make the NBA Finals? Yeah. I think it’s safe to say I’m floating on cloud nine in an incomparable way. I can’ t wait to get this thing started. But before we can, we still have some more house keeping to do on that immortal team performance in Game 7 of the 2026 WCF.
Seven players scored in double figure for San Antonio in Game 7 of the Western Conference Finals and all seven of them scored in the fourth quarter (we call that the seven and seven) as OKC was tightening the screws hoping to make us crack. This was a complete team effort to hold the champs at bay. As predicted in Onze de faits, Wemby played with determination and force setting the tone from the jump. His first bucket of his first-career NBA playoff Game 7 was an homage to his pantheon mentor Tim Duncan—an 11-foot bank shot to settle down the thunderous crowd. The Alien went on to hit step back threes, volleyball spike a layup attempt by the MVP into the first row, cram right on Chet Holmgren’s lifeless face (to name a few highlights), and played a steady, effective up-for-the-moment game finishing with a team-high 22 points, seven rebounds, two assists, and one endearingly emotional response to winning his first conference title and MVP trophy. The second leading scorer was Julian Chanpagnie with 20. Jules stayed in rhythm dropping the Thunder off for a back-breaking six triples on 6-10 from deep. Hitting six threes to help end a title defense in a Game 7 in the title holder’s own building takes such a NY street ball mentality. Now, the kid from Brooklyn gets to take that cutthroat fearlessness and give his hometown ball club a little something with it in the Garden. Also predicted in the last post, all three of our star guards stepped into the moment of opportunity provided by a Game 7 and seized it with contributions that totaled 43 points, 14 assists and 13 rebounds. I think it’s safe to say Wemby got the help he needed from his buffet menu of sidekick mega-talented all-world guards. The iconoclast Stephon Castle had 16 points, six rebounds and six assists while once again making SGA have to work hard for everything on the other end. De’Aaron Fox (our Iceman 2.0) had been struggling with his shooting after returning to the series in Game 3 from the high ankle sprain he suffered in the second round against the Minnesota Timberwolves but thankfully his cold-blooded sniping returned just in time for Game 7. He hit timely buckets to thwart OKC’s momentum in multiple key stretches in the decisive contest on Saturday night. De’Aaron’s calming veteran presence was absolutely critical to our Game 7 success. Overall, the two-time all-star scored 15 points (on 6-12 from the field and 3-7 from deep) and five assists. Last but not least among our three-headed guard trio, the prodigy Dylan Harper also made some of the clutch-est plays a 20-year-old rookie has ever made this deep into the playoffs in NBA history. Dylan had 12 points (on 5-8 shooting including two massive three pointers), three assists, and seven huge rebounds including two of the most important offensive rebounds of the second half where we went on to score critical points off those rebounds. I said we needed big performances from all three of our star guards in Game 7 to have any shot at knocking out the champs and predicted we would get them so it was really satisfying to see it come to fruition. The Slash Brothers and “Unc” were spectacular on Saturday night.
The last two remaining Spurs players of the seven who scored in double figures in Game 7 were our two longest-tenured players, Keldon Johnson and Devin Vassell who both put up eleven points. KJ was able to shake off his up and down postseason so far to come up with a sixth-man-of-the-year-level performance in the fourth quarter with the game in the balance scoring eight of his 11 points on two massive fourth quarter threes in a row (to bookend a Cason Wallace three on the other end) and then scoring a transition bucket later in the frame. Deven played a steady all-around game with stingy defense to help Steph with the MVP (creating two steals) and his series-ending emphatic dunk to seal our seventh trip to the NBA Finals is a play I will never forget. Ironically, the player of the game was not any of the “seven and seven” Spurs. The player of the game was Luke Kornet. Congratulations, Luke. I don’t even have to go back and do the research to know that you have set the record for the least amount of minutes played in earning a Black & Silver player of the game honor. The most underrated free agent signing of the 2025 NBA offseason logged a whopping six minutes of game action in his award-snatching performance and put up the jaw-dropping stat line of two points on 0-3 shooting and four rebounds. Unless you just came out of a coma, you already know why Luke earned player of the game honors. (And if you did just come out of a coma, thanks for immediately turning to theLeftAhead as your trusted news source for catching up on what’s been happening in the world.) Luke may have very well saved our season with his divine intervention of a Isaiah Hartenstein fast break dunk attempt. I can’t emphasize enough how massive that play was in swinging what could have been a four or three point OKC deficit to an eight point Spurs advantage with six minutes to play (after Steph his a midrange jumper on the other end after the block). Luke’s block was the highlight of our entire season so far and it may prove to be the biggest NBA playoff block since LeBron James’ chase down block of Andre Iguodala in Game 7 of the 2016 NBA Finals. One thing is for sure, it will be forever memorialized in Spurs playoff lore. Watching it never gets old so I’m just going to leave this right here below for you to enjoy on repeat as many times as your heart desires.
We wouldn’t be providing a comprehensive retrospective on the best playoff series of the decade so far without saying goodbye to some of the OKC villains who (because every chapter in the blog series is organic and each post is written under varying degrees of “time crunch” pressure depending on length of time between games and other outside demands on my attention) didn’t get the Black & Silver coverage over these past seven posts that they deserved. Let’s start by saying goodbye, Alex Caruso. You will not be missed. Your performance was at times chaotic at times brilliant and at times borderline dirty but it was also almost outcome-altering. So good riddance, Caruso. I’m glad we don’t have to see your pale face again until next season (lol). When the Thunder were up 3-2 in the series through five games, one could make a reasonable argument to have Caruso as the front runner for MVP of the 2026 Western Conference Finals. Many pundits were also prematurely trying to give the two-time champion a place amongst the greatest role players of all-time. (Settle down, NBA punditry. Alex Caruso has a long way to go to get in the same conversation as Robert Horry.) Thankfully, Caruso’s out-of-nowhere 31 point (including eight three pointer) off the bench Game 1 performance came in a loss and when the lights got brightest, The Bald Mamba couldn’t rise to the occasion going only 1-6 from deep (and 3-14 overall) in Game 7. We also need to say goodbye to you, Isaiah Hartenstein. Peace out, you ogre. Watching you play football by committing 55 fouls a game on Wemby (knowing the refs will only call four or five of them) because you can’t stop him playing actual basketball was a camp performance in a flop of a movie series that I’m thankful we don’t have to view again. Last but not least, goodbye, Jared McCain. It would have been extremely frustrating if the reason the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder advanced back to the 2026 NBA Finals because of Daryl Morey’s idiocracy. Your inclusion in this good natured ribbing is purely circumstantial, by the way. I think you’re a great shooter and I love watching you play. It just would have been extremely frustrating if you had swung this series simply because the Philadelphia 76ers were too cheap to keep you around and too dumb to realize your value. Thankfully, you didn’t. Well folks, that’s all the goodbyes we need to make to OKC villains from this epic series. Not to pile on but we don’t need to say goodbye to you, Chet Holmgren. Thanks to the Vulcan death grip that Victory Wembanyama has on your soul, you never bothered to show up for the 2026 Western Conference Finals in the first place. And on that note, it’s onward to getting ready to watch the San Antonio Spurs play Game 1 of our seventh NBA Finals tonight back home in the comfy confines of the Frost Bank Center. I am overcome with joy and excitement and can’t wait to get this thing rolling. The #BlackAndSilver have the opportunity to crush a lot of dreams and guarantee it becomes at least 54 seasons that New York Knickerbocker fans have been waiting to celebrate a title. The 1999 nostalgia is going to be fierce with this match up. Just like 1999, we are still the better team and we are still the team with a 22-year old superstar who is the best player in the series. In the intervening 27 years since this Finals match up last occurred, we have won five world championships and established ourselves as one of the greatest franchises in all of pro sports while the Knicks have mostly been in the wilderness. I’m happy the Knicks are finally back to relevance but the more things change, the more they stay the same. We are still the franchise that has been hanging banners in the rafters ever since 1999. We are still D.R.E.
P.S. Congratulations to our old friend Jeremy Sohan for winning his 2025-26 NBA Championship ring.
Featured Image Source: Medium
Headline Image Source: Sole Retriever on Threads
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
Deux de faits
2026 NBA Western Conference First Round, Game 3
The Guillotine - It’s an embarrassment of riches but one that I’m not the least bit embarrassed about. Was lottery luck an ingredient in our elite roster construction? Sure; but so was hitting on selecting quality players later in the draft, fleecing mismanaged franchises in one-sided trades, and making savvy free agent signings. Not to mention we’ve had all of these other ingredients other than luck in the pot before even factoring in that we’ve cooked and seasoned the stew with our second-to-none player development program. So, no; I’m not the least bit embarrassed that, even though we had the nearly unprecedented good fortune to have selected two, four, and one in the last three NBA drafts respectively, our squad is so deep and talented that we have the riches to witnesses two of our youngest players, a 20-year-old rookie and a 21 year-old sophomore, impose their will on a playoff game at a first team all-NBA level on a night where our actual first team all-NBA 22-year-old superstar watches the game from the bench in vibrant street clothes while still in the protocol for returning to action from a concussion. We’ve earned the right to not be embarrassed. You make your own luck. To quote a former (and probably future) pharmaceutical sales representative, “Fortune favors the bold.”
On Friday night in Rose City, the San Antonio Spurs (sans our franchise player) competed in the most hostile environment that most of our young core has ever experienced and past the test with flying colors boldly defeating the Portland Trail Blazers 120-108 to take a 2-1 lead in our Western Conference first round series and immediately snatch back the home court advantage that we’ve spent the past seven months earning. After learning less than 90 minutes prior to tip that Victor Wembanyama had been ruled out of Game 3, we knew we were going to need to buckle in for 48 minutes of grinding against a no-longer-overmatched gritty opponent. Tell the UFO hunters to stand down. There will be no sightings of an extraterrestrial doing otherworldly things against inferior earthlings in the PNW on this particular 60 degree pleasant Spring evening. But for any blood sport enthusiasts, you can tell them there will certainly be a dog fight.
The Blazers set the tone early in the first quarter but luckily, as his teammates struggled to get acclimated to the hostile road environment, Stephon Castle was more than willing to match Portland’s physicality and intensity. Steph bulldozed and bullied his way into the paint over and over again throughout the first half getting buckets or getting free throws or getting his teammates open looks, neutralizing the rowdy Portlandian hipster weirdos in the sellout crowd, and keeping the visitors in striking distance to the tune of 19 first half points and a tremendous amount of poise for a 21-year-old second-year player. (I tease our friends in Portland out of love. Portland is one of my favorite cities in the United States. I spend a lot of time there and know many amazing people who live there. I’m really happy they also have a competitive basketball team that is in the playoffs for the first time in a long time but since they ended up being our first round match up, a little lighthearted razzing over the next couple of weeks is fair game.)
While the 2024 NCAA Champion was the primary reason the Blazers (along with their raucous Moda Center crowd) were unable to create much double-digit separation in the first half, he had a running mate. (A running mate who he coincidentally just so happens to co-own a fast food chain with.) White Castle was in the building last night serving deliciously fresh responses to every Portland first half run (withstanding the expected desperation of an opponent who understands they need to seize this opportunity to grab another game with Wemby out) and getting us to the halftime locker room only down six, 65-59. Luke Kornet (as he has been so far this entire series) was as poised and effective on Friday night as you would expect someone who was a rotation player on a championship team two years ago to be during the April portion of the postseason. 20-5 as a starter this season heading into the game, Luke’s activity on both sides of the floor complimented Steph’s bully ball in keeping us close enough to prevent the first half Blazers avalanche that felt on a knife’s edge of beginning the entire first 24 minutes. Kornet even drained his first three pointer of the entire season with 10.2 seconds left in the first quarter. Clutch shot in a critical situation.
Coming out of the locker room to begin the second half, Portland continued to execute at a high level and their intensity did not relent. It was clear they understood their path to the second round went from “you might need to squint to see it” to relatively open the instant Victor’s face hit the hardwood on Tuesday evening but losing a non-Wemby home game could almost certainly not be a pit stop if they wanted to keep the path open. They played ferociously after the break building their six point lead to 15 when they led 82-67 with 5:09 left in the third. At this point in the game, I must admit, I was begrudgingly beginning to try to start to process the possibility that this may just not be our night and our group may not be capable of restoring order to this series until Wemby is able to rejoin it. But even though these thoughts were admittedly in my head, I still believed we had more than enough time to walk this game down. My faith may have wavered but it didn’t abdicate. I knew we just needed one player to inject some nuclear fusion into our offense and ignite the type of brilliant, electric explosion that could flip the game. And to my absolute unadulterated pleasure, on the very next possession… a star is born.
With 4:48 remaining in the third period of his third-career playoff game, Dylan Harper drained a corner three point dagger that detonated a fulmination so magnificent, those of us who witnessed it will never be able to fully remove the imprint of it from our retinas. Blazers lead 82-70. On the next Spurs possession, Harper pump faked and then drove right past Donovan Clingan and beat Deni Avdjia to the rim with force laying the ball up with his left hand on the right side of the bucket. Blazers 84-70. Later in the period he boarded a Drew Holiday missed corner three and went coast to coast to draw a foul on Jerami Grant. Although he split the free throws and missed a runner in the paint on the very next possession, It was clear his confidence was through the roof and he had the mindset required for one individual player to take over a playoff game. Blazers 84-78. With a minute and a half left in the frame, he cleverly swooped in to secure a lose ball that Scoot Henderson was in better position to grab (after Carter Bryant fumbled away his own offensive rebound) and fired it out to a wide open Keldon Johnson at the three point line. Bottoms. Blazers 85-81. (More on Keldon later.)
On the next possession, he was in position to grab the offensive rebound and go up strong off the glass for the put back when De’Aaron Fox smoked a layup off a baseline drive. Grown man bucket in the paint for the still-too-young-to-legally-be-served-alcohol-could-be-college-sophomore. Blazers 85-83. After Jerami Grant missed an elbow three on Portland’s next trip up the court, Dylan once again swooped in for a rebound that this time, Robert Williams was in a better position to grab and while attempting to ignite the break, drew a foul on Toumani Camara. And this time at the charity stripe, he drilled both free throws while also jawing with Camara throughout the sequence (presumably over the last foul call). Man, oh man, this is exhilarating. The number two overall pick in the NBA draft has the swagger to stand up to one of the toughest defenders in the entire league because, at the end of the day, in Dylan’s mind, “I already know you can’t guard me.” Tie ball game.
Now in the final minute of the frame, Scoot Henderson made a strong move on Harper for a layup (seemingly wanting to intentionally upstage the hottest player on the court) but, unable to resist involving himself in the extracurriculars started by Camara, immediately drew a technical for barking obnoxiously in Dylan’s face. After Julian Champagnie made the T and Fox nailed a cold-blooded jumper from the midrange, the Blazers had the last possession of the third. As the final seconds ticked down, an over-exuberant Henderson attempted to isolate Harper at the top of the key and drive him right. Off-balance, he could only muster a rushed floater which Dylan blocked into the front row with unapologetic utter disgusting disdain. 18-3 San Antonio run to end the third quarter fueled by a second-generation basketball prodigy. Spurs 88-87.
Portland in possession to begin the fourth quarter, Harper disrupted the first attempt, a Scoot(er McGavin) driving floater that missed so badly, Time Lord was gifted the rebound (a recurring theme in this series so far) that he fired right back to Henderson for an easy uncontested lay up. Not to be outdone in the budding duel, with Scoot guarding him, Harper lost contact with him floating to the corner as Fox was probing and drained another cold-blooded corner three in the eye of a rotating Holiday right in front of the Blazers bench before turning to remind them who was in control of this game. This kid’s dripping with moxie. Spurs 91-89. Gliding up the court in transition two possessions later, Dylan crossed over a six-time All-Defensive team honoree like he was hanging in Rio de Janeiro on holiday and then immediately spun back the other direction with the grace of a figure skater into a straight line drive for another crafty left-handed finish at the cup. We want to thank you for flying with us. Spurs 93-91.
After a mini-cold stretch during which the Blazers scored four straight to regain a two point lead on buckets by Shaedon Sharpe and Holiday, the February Kia Western Conference Conference Rookie of the Month was once again the fastest to a loose ball, tipping a shot that Julian had heaved from nearly half court in desperation with the shot clock running down over to Carter who hot potatoed it to Keldon who swung it right back to Dylan to raise up and drain yet another soul-snatching three over Holiday. We know you coulda stayed home, just cried and cussed. Spurs 96-95. Back down at the other end of the court, a quickly losing steam and clearly overmatched Scoot Henderson forced another erratic fadeaway in the paint (and realized in mid air he brought a water gun to a duel). Bryant easily blocked the shot without even leaving his feet. In true Jordanesque fashion, New Jersey’s finest was not done proving his point. With Henderson checking him in the right corner and the shot clock running down on our ensuing possession, Dylan Freaking Harper blew past “Scoot” driving baseline then rose like a phoenix on the right side of the rim sailing past Time Lord like he was frozen in place only to rock the cradle now on the left side of the rim and yam with the fury of a thousand suns and the contempt of man you should now and forever know you should never scorn right on William’s grille. Ladies and gentleman, your player of the game. We got the guillotine, you better run. Spurs 98-95.
Dylan Harper’s brilliant, electric explosion as a star had not just walked the game down, it chased the game down like a mall security guard with too big an ego over too pathetically small of an amount of power pursuing a teenage shoplifter like they had just committed felony aggravated robbery and officially flipped the game for good by the 8:13 mark of the fourth quarter, turning a 15 point deficit into a three point advantage. All told for Game 3, Harper had 27 points (9-12 from the field, 4-5 from three, and 5-6 from the line), 10 rebounds, three assists, one steal and one block with only one turnover and an eye popping team-high +25 in 30 minutes. With this performance Friday night, he became the second youngest player to score 20+ points off of the bench in an NBA playoff game (bested only by the late Kobe Bryant in 1997 at age 18) forever cementing his career-high scoring evening in basketball lore as “The Dylan Harper Game.”
Other players joined the 2025 second overall pick’s coming out party down the stretch to help seal the seemingly improbable #BlackAndSilver comeback victory. Stephon Castle, the leader in the clubhouse for player of the game at halftime, book-ended Dylan’s detonation by going on a personal 7-0 run immediately following Harper’s dunk over Time Lord to increase the Spurs advantage to double figures, 105-95, with six minutes left to play. Castle finished his stellar evening with 33 points (10-18 from the field, 3-4 from deep, and a critical 10-11 from the line), five assets, two rebounds, and a steal in 34 minutes. Combined, The Slash Brothers racked up a staggering 60 points (63% from the field, 78% from deep, 88% from the stripe), 12 rebounds, eight assists, two steals, and one block becoming the first duo 21 or younger to both score 25+ in an NBA playoff game since Kevin Durant and Russel Westbrook in 2010. Throw in the 18 points, six assists, and four rebounds De’Aaron Fox gave us in an uneven performance and you’re talking about 78 points, 16 rebounds, and 14 assists of production by San Antonio’s three-headed monster guard rotation. While our all-star guard didn’t deliver the '“carry the team on his back” performance I had called out in Un de moines we were going to need from him, he did hit some key “closer” buckets down the stretch to help seal the game and, to his credit, the threat he poses as a first option offensive weapon forced the Blazers to park Camara (their best defender) on him for almost the entire game which opened up the opportunities for Castle and Harper to cook lesser defenders all night.
Speaking of Stephon, White Castle combined for one more sick lob dunk down the stretch when Luke hammered down a Steph pass over the top of none other than “lord, did he have a hard time” Robert Williams to increase the Spurs lead to 13 with 4:43 left to play. Kornet finished his night with 14 points, 10 rebounds, two assists and two blocks in 30 minutes of action helping increase his record to 21-5 as a starter on the season. Carter Bryant, trusted by Coach Mitch Johnson to play key minutes down the stretch, came up with some big defensive plays in crunch time but had his highlight of the night earlier with a ridiculous step back three right smack dab in the middle of the Dylan Harper third quarter explosion. While our other 20-year-old rookie’s stat line of three points, six rebounds, four assists and three blocks looks somewhat pedestrian in the box score, Bryant’s impact went well beyond what was quantifiable playing harassing, disruptive defense every second of every minute he was on the floor and serving as a small ball offensive hub at times en route to a second-only-to-fellow-rookie-Harper +17 during his highly impactful 23 minutes. Speaking of impactful contributions that didn’t necessarily pop out in the box score, I want to also give some shine to the heart and soul of the Spurs, Keldon Johnson. KJ only had five points, five rebounds, three assists, one steal and one block in Game 3 but his relentless intensity and infectious energy were crucial to the comeback and indicative of why he deserved the magical moment he experienced just 48 hours earlier back in San Antonio.
On Wednesday, April 22nd, 2026, Keldon Johnson was named the 2025-26 NBA Sixth Man of the Year. (With the dark cloud of uncertainty surrounding Wemby’s injury, I didn’t want this incredible news to get overshadowed so even though I hadn’t yet finished the last Black & Silver post when I first heard about KJ’s career-redefining achievement, I decided to punt on highlighting it then so it could really be spotlighted under better circumstance i.e. hopefully following a Game 3 win. Glad that gamble worked out.) The longest-tenured Spur received the news watching the broadcast of the announcement at home surrounded by family and friends. He was summoned to The Rock at La Cantera later that afternoon to hold court with the media but upon arrival, he was surprisingly greeted by his teammates and coaches in the most heartwarmingly festive way imaginable. Yee haw! One of my favorite Spurs players since the minute he arrived in San Antonio as a 19-year-old late first round draft pick in 2019, I could not be more thrilled for the eclectic mixtape curating, boombox blasting ball of energy extroverted cowboy from South Hill, VA.
The fact that a former team leader in scoring for an entire season (2022-23) was willing to sacrifice for the good of the team by accepting a bench roll (as more and more bluechip talent was trickling into the roster) and now that sacrifice has been immortalized in the annals of NBA history is so freaking cool. Johnson joins hall-of-famer Manu Ginobili (2007-08) as the only San Antonio Spurs players to win the award. One of my favorite moments in Keldon’s career (to date) was when he scrapped and clawed his way onto the 2021 United States Olympic team roster at the last minute after some higher profile stars withdrew due to injury. Having been brought to Las Vegas during Team USA’s training camp to scrimmage against the Tokyo-bound squad as part of the USA Select team, Johnson all of a sudden got the unexpected call from USA + San Antonio Spurs Coach Gregg Popovich to get his ass on the plane with them at the very last possible minute. While only playing sparingly, KJ did have a role in winning Team USA’s fourth consecutive Olympic Gold and he got to do it right alongside the coach that was so instrumental to his development. Watching the two of them celebrate that accomplishment together was quite special. Seeing the love Johnson received from his teammates on Wednesday in honor of his highest individual career achievement was equally special. Now, Keldon can place his newly-earned John Havlicek Trophy on a mantle right next to his 2021 Olympic Gold Medal. (He might very well still add another prize to that mantle this summer.) Well done, KJ. I can’t imagine a player more deserving of this type of honor than you.
This afternoon, we’re back at it less than 40 hours after the conclusion of the Spurs’ biggest come-from-behind playoff victory since Game 5 of the 2014 NBA Finals. Victor Wembanyama’s status for Game 4 is still unknown as I’m completing this post (just as it was on Friday) but the difference now is, rather than finding ourselves in the urgent position of needing to wrestle back control of the home court advantage for the series, we have the opportunity (with or without Victor) to march right back into the Moda Center and all but extinguish any hope of a Blazers series upset by stopping down all of the remaining light that this fun, scrappy, resurgent Portland season has provided to the Pacific Northwest through the aperture that is our state-of-the-art, magnificent, overwhelming, embarrassment of riches, jaw-dropping talent. If we play Game 4 this afternoon in an even more hostile environment but with same intensity, focus, and swagger that we played with on Friday night, our talent should ultimately overpower the opposition and win the day like it already has on 64 other prior occasions this campaign. Based on our winning percentage this season, there is a three out of four chance that my head will hit the pillow happy tonight. There’s been a great many similar nights these past seven months where I’ve drifted to sleep fully content while triumphant Wembanyama or Castle or Harper highlights are replaying in my mind showcasing the breath of our young core’s talent. It’s about the most effective sleeping medication a chronic insomniac could ask to be prescribed and one that I’ve been given a glutinous supply of this year. In case you’re wondering, I’m not the least bit embarrassed about it.
Video Source: ESPN Australia on YouTube
Featured Image Source: Mubi
Headline Image Source: NBASpurs on Reddit