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. 👽🏰🦊
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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
Sept de faits
2026 NBA Western Conference Semifinals, Game 5
Helicopter - Isn’t it lovely when you call your shot in a blog post on what’s about to happen in a basketball game and then everything you predicted comes to pass pretty much exactly how you predicted it? I’m not necessarily saying you can find me right here levitating above all of the prognosticators, pundits, and so-called experts (who get paid handsome sums of money to do this for a living) even though I’m squeezing this project into every spare minute I can find (outside of the 60 to 80 hours per week I’m currently dedicating to building the labor movement) and I’m doing it strictly for my love of the craft of writing, my love for the game of basketball, and most of all, my devotion to the San Antonio Spurs. What I am saying unequivocally, however, is my pedigree and track record speak for themselves. I know this project went on hiatus for seven years (more or less) so If you don’t believe me, peep the back catalogue. Or if you don’t want to bother, that’s fine too. I’m not writing for clicks (this blog series isn’t monetized) or to be in competition with the virtuosos (game recognize game) or to receive acclaim for my erudition (my cup is full from the occasional glance of affirmation I get from my cat). I’m completely secure in the quality of my work. I’m writing because I’m an artist and therefore I must. I’m writing to connect with a deeper consciousness. I’m writing for permanence. And I’m writing about the San Antonio Spurs, specifically, because I’ve been obsessed with this team since the age of eleven and as Twain advised, “write what you know.” I’ve thought about Spurs basketball every day for the past 36 years. You’ll be hard pressed to find a bigger or more knowledgeable fan and you’ll find it nearly impossible to find one who writes like this. I write when the San Antonio Spurs are in the playoffs for myself because it brings me joy. Whether or not it gets read and appreciated by other people now or at any point in the future is immaterial. For me, I’m right here levitating either way. It’s up to you to decide for yourself whether or not one of the most prolific Spurs writers and historians of an entire generation has been right here hiding in plain sight.
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On Tuesday night, Victor Wembanyama, his elbow and the entire city of San Antonio took the declaration that the Spurs don’t lose two in a row to frost bank, vanquishing the Minnesota Timberwolves 126-97 ✅ As predicted, coming back from the shot heard ‘round the world ejection in Game 4, Wemby was a colossal combination of amped up and locked in from the opening tip scoring 16 points and grabbing five rebounds in the first five minutes of the game ✅ The ascending greatest player in the world went on the have one of his most dominant performances of the series posting an imposing 27 points (9-16 from the field, 2-5 from deep, 7-9 from the line), 17 rebounds, five assists, and three blocks. Wemby had the play-of-the-series so far with just under five minutes left in the fourth when he pump-faked his fellow French national team mentor and friend Rudy Gobert out of his shorts before dropping a dime to Julian Champagnie for the lay with Rudy spun out in the completely wrong direction. (Don’t forget to watch the Dylan Harper reaction 😂 I love that Dylan Harper meme faces are now a thing.) With a plus/minus of +24, it’s safe to say that while seeking atonement, our superstar achieved exactly that. Vic was special in Game 5 ✅ The Timberwolves made their runs but after jumping on them 24-9 early, we pretty much led wire-to-wire. Minny squared the game once in the second half at 61-61 with 7:51 left in the third but never got a lead and then fell quickly back into a double-digit hole from which they never escaped. In the blink of an eye, that double-digit hole was 30. On Tuesday, the #BlackAndSilver played our brand of basketball, imposed our will on the opponent and stamped Game 5 with another emphatic home W. Proper trajectory for the series resumed ✅
Speaking of that run the Wolves made to start the third quarter, the one that enabled them to tie the game at 61-61, the player of the game was Stephon Castle. After outclassing Minnesota for most of the first half, we went cold down the stretch of the second quarter and as a result, what should have been a 20+ point lead at the break was only 12. So when we came out of the locker room slower than an NBA investigation into Kawhi Leonard-Steve Ballmer-Aspiration salary cap circumvention and the drought continued for several minutes while the Wolves kept making shots, it was safe the say we were once again facing some real adversity. You know, the type of adversity our lack of playoff experience is supposed to require us to buckle under. Minnesota is a hard-nosed, credentialed playoff mainstay with an eye on a third straight trip to the Western Conference Finals. The entire history of basketball says the moment they caught us at 61 in the third quarter of Game 5 on our home court in a 2-2 series, they had us. Our lack of experience was supposed to be our undoing in that moment. Instead, it was baptism by the fire and fury of a 21 year-old second-year iconoclast who doesn’t have the experience and just doesn’t care.
To give all credit where it’s due, the response to Ayo Dosunmu’s bucket that tied the score at 61 started with a momentous triple by Julian from a Wemby assist. That small crack of daylight allowed every Spurs fan to exhale but also, that was all Stephon Castle needed to bulldoze down the door. On the next Minnesota possession, Steph spring-boarded over Gobert to snag the rebound and immediately drew the fourth foul on Jayden McDaniels (the Wolves best perimeter defender). He then brought the ball up the court on the left, drove right around a double-screen set by Julian and Victor and (with Anthony Edwards guarding him) crossed over left into a lightening-quick spin back right for a running four-foot bank shot. This ridiculous display of speed and power put the Spurs back up five. Minny got an open Terrence Shannon Jr. corner three on their next possession which missed but Gobert snagged the offensive rebound. Vic was out of position to guard him at the rim but Keldon Johnson wasn’t. KJ swooped in to block the dunk attempt and knock the ball off of Rudy. After receiving the inbound from the turnover, Castle sprinted back up the right side of the court, threw the ball into Wemby in the post but continued cutting to the basket with unrelenting determination. Vic dropped it back off to Steph who spring-boarded again off of two feet like he was shot out of a cannon for a power dunk. 7-0 run San Antonio.
Dosunmu hit a floater over Julian to temporarily slow the barrage but before the Wolves could fully set their defense after the made basket, Steph was back at the top of the key taking Shannon off the dribble with a behind-the-back dribble into a runner that sat up gently on the rim before falling through. Julian stole the ball on the next Wolves possession and got it back to Castle on the break. He initiated some ball movement that kept the defense off balance and resulted in a Keldon drive into a bully ball lay-in at the basketball. Before the Wolves knew what hit them, and at the exact moment that NBA history would’ve have informed the basketball gods that it was time to command the Spurs to collapse due to our lack of experience, Stephon Castle aka the iconoclast led the Spurs on an 11-2 run that restored a nine point advantage and, for all intents and purposes, put the game away for the way too young playoff novices. Steph finished the night with 17 points, five assists, and four rebounds but it was his dominance in this critical stretch that earned him player of the game honors. I think he showed the entire NBA punditry where they can shove their ideas about how informative the San Antonio Spurs lack of experience is in assessing our chances of winning it all. (By the way, if you thought we were going to go through this entire season of Black & Silver without discussing Kawhi Leonard’s tree planting philanthropy, you were sorely mistaken.)
While the young team seeking to restore the moniker “Titletown, TX” (as soon as exactly four weeks from today) has overcome every encounter with adversity we’ve come up against in the 2026 NBA playoffs and past every test so far, we haven’t seen a greater test to-date (and one fraught with a higher likelihood for new adversity) than the test we face tonight at the Target Center back in Minneapolis. Closing out the seventh-seeded Portland Trail Blazers at home was one thing. Closing out the team that has had more recent playoff success than any of the remaining other than the champs and doing it on the road on their home floor is going to be an entirely different challenge. The Minnesota Timberwolves are not a candidate for, “One, two, three…Cancún!” They are going to come out ready to play tonight relishing the opportunity to still flip this series on it’s head one more time (and prove the so-called expert narrative accurate that we do have to take our playoff lumps first before we can compete for a championship). As much desperation and resiliency as we can count on Ant Edwards and his band of stone-cold competitors to play with tonight, I am extremely confident we can get this thing done in six if we can match their energy and physicality because there is no arguing that from a talent standpoint, Minnesota is overmatched. Knowing the mindset of Victor Wembanyama and the co-star Stephon Castle that Vic says he wants to play with for the next fifteen years (in other words, knowing the mindset of Area 51), matching the home team’s energy and physicality will not be an issue tonight.
I think I’ve sufficiently conveyed my Spurs fandom bonafides enough already in this post so to balance it out, I will admit there is one gaping hole in my portfolio for the 2026 playoffs. Because I live in Colorado, one of the areas I’m currently lacking is that I don’t get to be in SA experiencing this incredible run with my favorite city in the world. All told, I lived in San Antonio for 16 years and was living in the city for most of the Tim Duncan-era (up to and including the 2014 championship). I moved to Denver in July of 2014 and have been following the team mostly from afar ever since. Back at the beginning of April, I attended the Saturday afternoon epic regular season duel between Nikola Jokic and Victor Wembanyama at Ball Arena. The Nuggets squeaked it out 136-134 in overtime but, despite the loss, it was one of the greatest regular season games I have ever attended. For weeks after that, I assumed we would get a chance at revenge in the second-round of the playoffs against the team that was maintaining and eventually secured the third-seed down the stretch of the regular season. My hopes of seeing The Alien battle The Joker for as many as seven games (and having an opportunity to see another Spurs playoff game in person, something I haven’t gotten to do since Game 5 of the 2019 first round matchup between Denver and San Antonio) was squashed by this very same “too dangerous to every be counted out” Minnesota squad. As mentioned in Deux de moins, I personally know plenty of Timberwolves fans and (because, living in CO, I root for the Nuggs any time they are not playing the Spurs), I distinctly remember them laughing their way all the way into this second round matchup with us after eliminating Denver in Game 6 of the last round. Tonight, I fully expect the better team to do exactly what we don’t have the experience to know that we aren’t supposed to do and in the process, remind Wolves fans that the same thing that made them laugh will make them cry.
Featured Image Source: peermusic
Headline Image Source: Sports Illustrated
Trois de moins
2026 NBA Western Conference Semifinals, Game 4
Lucky Again - They certainly were. When I deployed some tongue-in-cheek humor to poke fun of the way Minnesota Timberwolves head coach Chris Finch has been working the refs in the 2026 NBA Western Conference Semifinals against Victor Wembanyama and the San Antonio Spurs in Six de faits , it was supposed to be light-hearted and all in the good fun of providing protean depth to our Black & Silver coverage of the series. I actually think Finch is a really good coach (and seems like a decent enough guy) and I don’t begrudge him that it’s obviously a critical duty for any NBA coach to “work the refs” in order to gain every advantage possible during a playoff series. That being said, from the way he was outlandishly complaining after a Game 1 win that four or five of Wemby’s playoff record 12 blocked shots were goaltending (only one was, not four or five) to the way he was having a Game 3 temper tantrum over the officiating (even though for the third game in a row, his team was getting the lion’s share of the calls), the fruit was hanging so low that it was pretty much my duty as a writer to do a fictitious bit about it. I endearingly dubbed him The Sniveler (and a bunch of other nicknames) for his over-the-top obnoxious pleading to have the refs help him and his players do something they were incapable of doing on their own…slowing down the ascending greatest player in the world. On Friday night, Game 3 crew chief Tony Brother’s response to Finch’s antics was to try to fight him. Never could I have ever imagined that two nights later, Game 4 crew chief Zach Zarba’s response to Finch’s antics would be to oblige. (Aww drats! The Sniveler strikes again!)
With 8:39 remaining in the second quarter of Game 4 on Sunday, Victor Wembanyama was ejected for a flagrant offensive foul (penalty 2) called on an elbow that he never would have swung if Zach Zarba, James Williams, and Brent Barnaky were properly doing their jobs. Before I go any further, let me state (as an enormously biased Spurs fan) that a flagrant 2 and ejection was the right decision (in a vacuum) for what Victor did in sizing up Naz Reid and then violently swinging his elbow to deliver a vicious shot to Reid’s neck. Furthermore, Victor having that momentary lapse of judgement was unacceptable regardless of what the other team was doing (and what the refs weren’t doing). He let the team down. He let the city down. He let Spurs fans everywhere down. I know he also let himself down more than anyone else. This will be a valuable learning experience and a mistake he is extremely unlikely to repeat but because championships are often won on the most excruciatingly razor-thin of margins, it’s possible that Wemby’s momentary lapse of judgement could cost us a shot at one should we fail to advance out of this series.
While I fully expect our superstar and the entire team to bounce back and overcome Vic’s self-inflicted adversity, only time will tell how big of a set back the shot heard ‘round the world will prove to be. Thankfully, it was announced yesterday morning that Wemby will not be further punished with a suspension or fine and will be available for Game 5 tonight back home in Frost Bank Center. I fully expect our MVP candidate to dominate the overmatched Wolves (whose only demonstrated solution for slowing The Alien down is to turn basketball games into a UFC matches) with his most prolific playoff game to date. I can only image how frustrated Vic is with the Timberwolves, the officials, and most importantly himself. Knowing Wemby, he will vent that frustration by letting his game do the talking tonight. He’s going to be such a colossal combination of amped up and locked in when the ball is tipped that it will be shocking if Game 5 isn’t a repeat of Game 2’s wire-to-wire blowout. Speaking of shocking, while now two days later…I still can’t shake how jarring it was to witness the most poised 22-year old you could ever hope to meet make that ferocious + calamitous of a mistake and just as shocking to then (even though you knew it was coming) see him be disqualified from an NBA playoff game. It was so out-of-character, it didn’t feel real. It felt like watching some contrived AI video created by a Minnesota fan who typed, “Hey ChatGPT, create a video demonstrating the only possible way my Timberwolves can defeat the vastly superior San Antonio Spurs in Game 4.” It was so menacingly surreal it felt glitchy like it was happening in an anxiety-inducing dream state. It was truly jarring.
Now, back to the officiating and Chris Finch. In the process and immediate aftermath of Wemby craftily snagging an offense rebound in what would prove to be his final sequence of Game 4, he was fouled by Naz Reid and Jaden McDaniels multiple times each. Zach Zarba and company just stood there with their whistles swallowed presumably listening to Chris Finch’s sniveling voice in their heads whining something like, “it’s not fair that he’s so much better than us, you gotta give us a fighting chance, you gotta let us play football when we’re guarding him.” Had the referees blown the whistle on the blatant McDaniel’s shot to Wemby’s head (or any of the other infractions), there is a zero percent chance that Victor would have still swung that elbow. While it’s true that Wembanyama’s retaliation was malignant, it’s also true that is was an instinctual basketball play he made in the flow of the game and not one something he would have attempted had the play already been blown dead. It’s not in his character. Victor made a terrible choice but from a position he should have never been put in. Zach Zarba, James Williams, and Brent Barnaky owe the San Antonio Spurs and Spurs fans an apology and should strongly consider going on self-imposed unpaid leave for the rest of these playoffs for a dereliction of duty. Likewise, Chris Finch owes the entire basketball viewing public an apology for taking the art of “working the refs” so far, he’s made a mockery of the spirit of the game.
For the second time in the 2026 playoffs the player of the game was an electric 20-year old rookie from Franklin Lakes, NJ. Despite San Antonio losing our best player to an ejection with more than two and a half quarters left to play, Minnesota still almost (quite literally on an Ayo Dosunmu full court Hail Mary catch up three with 9.8 seconds left) fumbled away the it-would-be-so-completely-demoralizing-to-lose-to-the-Wembyless-Spurs-and-go-down-3-1-the-series-would-basically-be-over must win game and it was in large part due to the stellar play of Dylan Harper. Just as he did in a road playoff game without Victor in Portland in the previous round, the 2nd-generation pro baller played like NBA royalty and a seasoned vet in Game 4 pouring in a team co-leading 24 points (on an uber-efficient 8-11 from the field, 1-1 from three, 7-7 from the line) along with seven rebounds, three steals, and an assist. Dylan led the way in giving us a shot to steal the game which is, if we’re being truly honest, all we could have asked for given the circumstances. The Timberwolves escaped the Target Center with a split and despite San Antonio outscoring them by 38 for the series through four games, we’re all even at 2-2. Minnesota has life but hopefully not for long. If we come out tonight and play our brand of basketball, we will resume the proper trajectory for this series by imposing our will on this opponent and stamping Game 5 with another emphatic home W. If we do that, as I fully expect us to, tomorrow will mark the four-month mark since the last time the Spurs have lost two games in a row. The ascending greatest player in the world will be back tonight (with a few scores to settle) and Chris Finch’s only solution for stopping him remains hoping to recruit a few zebras to help his Minnesota Timberwolves play eight on five. Don’t expect even that to be enough tonight. In order to slow down this alien and the way he will utilize his craft to exact revenge in the Frost Bank Center throughout Game 5, Chris Finch and company are gonna need a helicopter.
Shot Heard ‘Round the World
Vic threw an elbow
Spurs don’t lose two in a row
Take that to frost bank
Written May 2026 in Aurora, CO
Six de faits
2026 NBA Western Conference Semifinals, Game 3
Choosin’ Texas - Fighting out of the blue corner, representing Minneapolis, MN by way of Cambridge, OH with a record of 26-25, known for his slippery, rule-bending maneuvers, it’s the one they call Mr. Squeaky Wheel aka The “Woe Is Me” Machine aka Captain Wet Blanket aka The Bellyacher In Chief, it’s the challenger, The Sniveler…CHRIS FINCH. (Booooooo!!!!!) Fighting out of the red corner, born, raised, and hailing from Norfolk, VA with a record of 32-0 including 19 knockouts, known for the meanest “I wish you would” face in the history of the sport, it’s the one you run away from if he opens the door when you arrive to pick up his daughter, he’s the future mayor of his hometown and maybe yours too, he’s the undefeated, undisputed Heavyweight Champion of the World, The Bone Crusher…TONY BROTHERS (Ohhhhhh!!!!)
On Friday, all of The Sniveler’s whining and complaining about the refereeing in his Minnesota Timberwolves second round playoff matchup against the San Antonio Spurs finally hit a tipping point when 30-year veteran official Tony Brothers got so fed up with Chris Finch’s antics that he blacked out and bucked up to the six-year-and-been-running-his-mouth-at-the-refs-since-day-one gasbag of an NBA coach. With 5:09 remaining in the fourth quarter of a tightly contested game, The Bellyacher in Chief stomped up and down on the court like a petulant child because it took Tony Brothers three seconds longer to grant him a timeout than he wanted. His expression of his frustration would have been understandable if this were happening in the final minute of a clutch playoff game but it was a complete overreaction with more than five minutes left to play. His problem wasn’t that those three seconds were crucial, his problem was that he had absolutely no answer on either side of the court for Victor Wembanyama that night.
Venting your frustration that a 22-year-old is eating your lunch exclusively at the referees as if it’s somehow their responsibility to help you do the thing you and your team are incapable of doing on your own (slowing down the ascending greatest player in the world) was in and of itself a mistake but venting it one too many times at this particular referee, Norfolk’s finest…Tony Brothers, that was a death wish. Luckily for Captain Wet Blanket, when The Bone Crusher started charging at him, Timberwolves reserve guard Bones Hyland and assistant coach Pablo Prigioni stepped in the hold Brothers back before he reached Finch. Their quick reaction was a wise ass-saving decision. (You see what I did just there, right?) Otherwise, Mr. Squeaky Wheel was about to be flat on his back, knocked out cold. Perhaps this will serve as a warning, one Chris Finch would be wise to adhere to moving forward; there are only three constants in this world: 1) Death 2) Taxes 3) Don’t mess with Tony Brothers.
Thanks to the quick reaction heroics of Hyland and Prigioni, play resumed with Finch on the sideline rather then on a stretcher but ultimately, there was no amount of home-cooked whistles the referees could have provided to Minnesota to offset Wemby’s sheer determination to win on this particular Friday. On this particular Friday, Victor Wembanyama composed a masterpiece and then performed it to the tune of 39 points (13-18 from the field, 3-5 from deep, 10-12 from the line), 15 rebounds, five blocks, one assist and a steal in leading the San Antonio Spurs to a 115-108 Game 3 victory and 2-1 series lead on the road at the Target Center in Minneapolis in our Western Conference semifinal matchup with the Minnesota Timberwolves. Considering that the team that wins Game 3 in a best-of-seven NBA playoff series that is tied 1-1 goes on to win the series 74 percent of the time, Wemby couldn’t have picked a better time to have a signature winning playoff performance. Home court advantage for the #BlackAndSilver over the Wolves reclaimed. Balance and harmony in the Milky Way’s galactic order restored. (More on this later.)
Vic was stellar the entire night but especially as the tension ratcheted up down the stretch of the hard-fought back and forth contest scoring 16 points in the fourth quarter on the biggest stage (to-date) of his young NBA career. While assassin-like in some of his clutch-time heroics including a pair of dagger threes and a peach of a tasty assist for a Dylan Harper layup out of the triple-team, the player of the game’s play of the game was undoubtedly when he backed down Rudy Gobert (on the next possession after the Harper assist) juked and spun into such a beautiful fade-away jumper that was like a dream shaken out of the Houston-based Hakeem Olajuwon magic big man factory. On this particular Friday, Victor Wembanyama was simply breathtaking. He’s been telling us all season long that when it finally came time for him to get to play in the high-leverage stakes of the NBA Playoffs, he was going to have something to say. Consider his statement soundly delivered. During a postgame interview with the NBA on Prime crew, he issued a couple more for good measure: “I’m built for this” and “we don’t got the experience but we don’t care.”
The American public spent much of Friday pouring through documents looking for confirmation that aliens exist. While the evidence in the documents may have been inconclusive, confirmation came later that night anyway in downtown Minneapolis, MN. Not only do aliens exist, they will crush your soul if you make the mistake of rooting for their opposition on the basketball court. Game 3 was an epic battle of wills between two tough-minded, gritty, physical basketball clubs and their edifying cities + passionate fanbases. It was hard-fought to the bitter end. The difference, when it was all said and done, was that San Antonio had The Alien on our team and Minnesota didn’t. For seven percent of the American public, what Wemby did on a basketball court in the Twin Cities on Friday night is shame because it took their previously extremely rare experience of believing you witnessed an alien life form (and their sense of belonging to that niche community) and made it a universal experience (and global community for everyone). The Alien is here on Earth conducting his affairs in plain sight for all to see. Unfortunately for Timberwolves fans, he’s currently in Minneapolis and is planning another invasion of the Target Center for this evening. It’s clear by now that in the 2026 NBA playoffs, Victor Wembanyama is operating from a higher plain of existence and to pay homage to the last bonafide generational prospect to enter the league prior to Wemby, “we are all witnesses.”
(Note to the NBA punditry on this NBA Draft Lottery Sunday: if you’re using “generational prospect” to describe every top prospect to enter the draft every single year, I don’t think you comprehend what the word “generational” means. Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving, Anthony Davis, Luka Dončić, Zion Williamson, Cooper Flag, and AJ Dybantsa, to name a few who have been given this label, are not generational prospects. LeBron James was the generational prospect for the last generation. Victory Wembanyam was the generational prospect for this generation. Full stop.)
While nothing has changed with the danger the Minnesota Timberwolves pose as a wounded animal, the San Antonio Spurs now have them corned and this evening presents an amazing opportunity to get them back in their cage. We can expect them to come out scratching and clawing like it’s an elimination game because for all intents and purposes, it probably is. While Minnesota has the toughness and experience to climb out of a 1-3 playoff hole in a vacuum, when factoring in just now banged up their roster currently is, it seems like a pretty tall order. We should expect that Anthony Edwards and company are going to fight for their playoff lives tonight and consequently, it will require a sharper more determined effort by the Spurs tonight than it did on Friday for us to beat them. We should also expect The Sniveler Chris Finch to parlay narrowly escaping a Tony Brothers beat down in Game 3 (and the pity party that followed) into squeezing a few extra calls for the home team out of tonight’s officiating crew. In other words, we should expect to have to overcome an avalanche of adversity to remain undefeated on the road in the 2026 playoffs. That being said, I’m extremely confident that we can grab another victory at the Target Center tonight if we play our brand of San Antonio Spurs basketball. Given Minnesota’s terrible injury luck and the current health of their roster, it’s an objective fact that San Antonio currently has the better team in this series. Objectively speaking, Minnesota was extremely lucky to steal game one. Had they not, this thing would already be over. If we play like we’re capable of playing tonight, we won’t allow them to be in position to get lucky again. We also know, however, if the Wolves are somehow able keep the game close so that its outcome is still in the balance down the stretch of the fourth quarter, we have a superior being on our roster who we know we can trust was built for thriving in that type of situation. Victor Wembanyama has been proving it since first contact.
Featured Image Source: Rolling Stone
Headline Image Source: talkSPORT
Cinq de faits
2026 NBA Western Conference Semifinals, Game 2
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.
* * *
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.)
* * *
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.
Featured Image Source : The Honey POP
Headline Image Source: TODAY
Deux de moins
2026 NBA Western Conference Semifinals, Game 1
Dog Days Are Over - There I was. At a hotel restaurant bar in Park City, Utah. Nearly surrounded by Minnesotans. Minnesotans to my left. Minnesotans hovering behind the couch I was sitting on. Thankfully no Minnesotans to my immediate right but definitely a few periodically wandering by on my right being sure to make me aware of their disruptive presence. What kind of Coen Brothers dark comedy situation have I managed to get myself into this time? Normally I find Minnesotans perfectly lovely. I enjoy the Twin Cities and their people every time I visit and considering that I have tremendous admiration for the way they taught our nation how to effectively fight back against fascist ice occupation, authoritarianism and oligarchy with their January 23rd “No Work, No School, No Shopping” general strike, I welcome their company in almost any situation. This, however, was the rare exception. This was not normal. This was Game One of the NBA Western Conference Semifinals between my San Antonio Spurs and their Timber Wolves.
The conference I was in Park City to attend was my labor union’s district meeting so it just so happened to also have a large delegation of attendees from The Land of 10,000 Lakes because of course it would when that is where the Spurs’ opponents for the playoff matchup taking place during my trip also reside. When a Minneapolis-based friend proposed that we watch Monday’s game together when we first saw each other at the conference on Saturday, I reluctantly agreed. As regular readers of this blog series know by now, I’m superstitious about the environment in which I watch Spurs playoff games. Since I can’t attend the games in person often (living in Denver), I prefer the quiet comfort of watching the game at home in a controlled environment to the social interaction of watching the game out in public but since that wasn’t an option for this particular game during this particular road trip, I didn’t want to be that antisocial lame-o who declines the rare opportunity to hang socially with some cool peeps (even if they happen to be Wolves fans) and watches the game alone in his hotel room.
We were able to reserve the couches and entire seating area in front of the biggest TV screen in our conference hotel’s restaurant and (other than the Peacock stream getting occasionally blurry or hung up) it proved to be an excellent social environment to watch the game in mixed company. (The “One Dollar Wings” special they were serving for the evening didn’t hurt either.) From the opening tip, the smack talk was bouncing back and forth from the opposing camps like a ping pong ball. Luckily, there were a few other Spurs fans in our party but we were significantly outnumbered by Wolves fans. Add on top of that that I am widely known throughout the my labor union’s district as the biggest San Antonio Spurs fan in the entire organization, most of the incoming fire was directed at me personally. That incoming fire wasn’t immediate, though. The Wolves fans didn’t have a lot to say while watching Victor Wembanyama block two shots in the first minute of the game and a third less than two and a half minutes in. It wasn’t until Minnesota pulled out the first real lead of the game going up 14-8 halfway through the first that the Minnesota cackles also started getting the upper hand in the chatter. It didn’t take long for the Spurs to bounce right back and for me to start asking my Wolves-supporting friends, “Can you remind me which is better: zero championship rings or five championship rings? I’m having a hard time remembering.” At the end of the first quarter, Minnesota had a one point lead but I was most definitely holding the slight edge in the smack talk.
My wings arrived at the beginning of the second quarter. Normally, I don’t like eating during any Spurs game much less during a Spurs playoff game (remember, I’m superstitious) but between arriving in Park City on Friday, going to the gym & attending a staff meeting & participating in a “Game Show Experience” team building event & dropping a May Day labor track playlist on Saturday, attending sessions & going to the gym & a banquet & DJing karaoke at the conference on Sunday, attending workshops, coordinating a campaign’s recognition fight, finishing Quatre de faits, and going to the gym on Monday, I hadn’t had time to eat at all that day and much at all since arriving in Utah so because of the fact I was starving plus I couldn’t resist the bargain of the restaurant’s “One Dollar Wings” special, I decided to throw caution to the wind by ordering food to eat during the game. If you weren’t already aware, let me be the first to inform you that it’s harder to maintain the upper hand in a verbal sparring match while constantly having a mouthful of food. On top of that, after Minnesota had extended their lead back up to a six point 29-23 advantage a little more than a minute into the frame, I was seriously second-guessing my decision to eat during the game and irrationally tying it to having a negative impact on the Spurs’ performance on the court. Luckily, the block party was reconvened at that point and persisted throughout second quarter (with Wemby recording four more along with Harrison Barnes and Devin Vassell each getting one) allowing us to claw our way back to a 45-45 tie at halftime of this tightly-contested defensive battle. Heading into the break, I was relieved that my meal ultimately hadn’t generated the negative impact I was superstitiously fearing it might but I also knew I was going to need to resume filling my mouth with witty barbs instead of tasty wings during the second half in order to reestablish my advantage over the Wolves fans in my viewing party in the smack talk department.
The trend of a tightly-contested defensive battle held in the third quarter. The natural “feeling each other” out quality that most series openers embody was devolving quickly into a straight up rock fight. Every time San Antonio inched ahead on the scoreboard throughout the period, Minnesota responded to draw back even or occasionally go slightly ahead themselves. Similarly, the back and forth between Wolves fans and Spurs fans in our group was intensifying from lighthearted banter to emotionally-charged reactions to the constant swings in momentum. The refereeing and which team was benefiting more from the calls being made inevitably started becoming a focal point for debate during the third quarter as it was becoming increasingly clear that this game was going down to the wire and every single good or bad, made or missed call could have a real impact on the outcome. From my perspective, Minnesota was getting away with being allowed to be ultra physical on defense while benefiting from ticky tack calls on offense resulting in them being gifted a parade to free throw line during the period. I was of course letting my Twin Cities’ friends know my opinion unequivocally as this was playing at and then roasting them when they weren’t taking advantage to the tune of seven missed free throws in the Third. “Y’all do realize you are allowed to put the ball through the basket when you get to shoot without anyone guarding you, right? That’s why they call it a free throw.” I was in pique form laying down the proverbial shit-talking gauntlet when Dylan Harper snagged a defensive rebound and then went coast-to-coast to score and put us up five with just over a minute left in the frame. Ultimately, I was pleased with the position we were in up three at 72-69 heading into the fourth. During the commercial break I was pretty careful to balance the duel goals of continuing to remind my Minnesota friends what’s what but without going so overboard that I risked inviting bad karma for my cause. I was cautiously optimistic that we were going to keep trending forward by jumping on them early in the fourth to extend the lead and in doing so, put both the game and the opposition’s “howling” to bed for good. Unfortunately, I would quickly realize that was just wishful thinking.
The jabbering in my left ear had been incessant all night but it hit a fever pitch when, after continuing to trade punches back and forth for the first six minutes of the fourth quarter, the Timberwolves went on an extended run to achieve the biggest lead of the night, a nine point advantage, when Julius Randle hit a 13-footer to put his side up 97-88 with 3:41 to play. The Minnesota delegation in that Park City, Utah hotel restaurant was brimming with overconfident barbs, most of which were directed at me personally. “Look, I think Ted is going to cry” or “You can see it in his face, he’s throwing in the towel and ready to concede defeat” or “Aren’t the Spurs the supposed to win at home? Are y’all trying to give up home court advantage?” In the moment, I was personally embracing their overconfidence and ridiculous accusations as 1) I was happy to allow them to be the ones to bring on the bad karma for their smack talk veering into overexuberance 2) I knew there was still an eternity left in the game. My intuition was accurate. As we all know by now, the San Antonio Spurs responded with a furious rally down the stretch to put ourselves in position (down two with six seconds left and the ball) to attempt a game-winning three pointer at the buzzer. As you might imagine, the Timberwolves fans got awfully quiet while this was unfolding and were noticeably sheepish while they were realizing they might in fact lose a game that they had prematurely already put in the win column in their own minds.
On a night where we were not sharp offensively (we were clearly rusty from five days off), and where Minnesota benefited from the officiating more than we did on balance (Stephon Castle, one of our three most important players, fouled out with 3:20 to play after falling victim to some questionably soft calls that the referees weren’t calling against the Wolves on the other end of the floor), and where Victor Wembayma (who receives the player of the game honors for setting an NBA playoff record for most blocks in a playoff game with 12 and coupling that with 15 rebounds) couldn’t get anything going on offense (5-17 from the field, only 1-2 from the line and a disastrous 0-8 from downtown), Julian Champagnie, our best three point shooter, had an opportunity to win the game at the buzzer. Given the circumstances, I was more than happy to be in that situation and have that opportunity. When the shot was in the air, I was convinced it was going in. Of course, it rimmed off and the Minnesota Timberwolves fans erupted in an explosion of celebration, bragging, and smack talking that attempted to mask their relief that they were lucky to escape and also one that I’m confident they will come to regret as the series progresses due to the aforementioned bringing of bad karma upon themselves. After it hit me that the game was over and we had lost, I just sat there on the couch staring at the TV processing what had happened and listening to outlandishly overconfident trash-talking over a victory that deep down, my friends from the North Star State know they were lucky to escape with.
Had Julian’s shot gone in, the narrative these past 48 hours would have been how the battle-tested back-to-back Western Conference finalists melted down in the final minutes of Game 1, blowing a nearly insurmountable lead down the stretch to the young, inexperienced team from South Texas. They know how close they were to that reality and they also know how, given the Grand Canyon level depths below our potential the Spurs played on Monday night, Game 1 was more of a must-win for them than it was for us. That win was crucial for them having any chance to win this series. (By the way, for the record, Timberwolves Head Coach Chris Finch can miss me with his sore-winner complaining about some of Victor’s blocked shots being goaltending as if we all didn’t see with our eyes that Minnesota benefited the most from the whistle on Monday.) For us, it was a learning experience that I fully expect us to bounce back from tonight with the fury of a ten thousand suns so that by the time we board a plane tomorrow, those ten thousand lakes up there are completely dried up by the drought that is Victor Wembanyama’s date with destiny and his continued journey towards inevitability. In the end, I’m glad I had the experience of watching Game 1 in mixed company. In all seriousness, I was able to enjoy watching the game with some really cool people and have a memorable experience even though it didn’t break my way in the end. The back and forth smack talk was all in good fun and there is a cool little invention called a cellular telephone through which we can keep the dialogue going over the next two weeks. The Minnesota Timberwolves and their fans haven’t won anything yet and getting the upper hand through opening statements has never once sealed a victory at trial. We have plenty of deliberating still to come. While I’m glad to have watched Game 1 socially, I’m also relieved that I’ll be watching Game 2 tonight in the comfortable controlled environment of on my couch in my living room at home (the Spurs are 4-0 this year in the playoffs when I watch the game at home and 0-2 when I watch it somewhere else). Here’s to getting back to basics tonight and getting back on track. When the verdict is handed down at some point in the next two weeks, I fully expect us to be the one’s making the closing statement and earning the ultimate right to talk that talk.
#GoSpursGo
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