The Portland Trail Blazers end their 2025-26 season with a 114 – 95 loss to the San Antonio Spurs on Tuesday night. The Spurs never trailed in the game and were clearly the better team this evening and throughout the series. Deni Avdija led the Blazers with 22 points while De’Aaron Fox had 21 for the Spurs. Victor Wembanyama had 17 points, 14 rebounds, and 6 blocks.
No messing around from San Antonio in this one. They continued right where they left off on Sunday in Portland, dominating proceedings
from the opening tip. San Antonio went up 12-2 early due to 83.3% shooting and stifling defense on the other end. After a timeout the Blazers offense got unstuck a tiny bit, but not nearly enough to close the gap. Julian Champagnie and Stephon Castle did much of the damage in the first quarter, the former putting up 11 points including three buckets from deep, while Castle had eight points on 4-5 shooting. When the Blazers penetrated they had a small amount of joy, especially when Victor Wembanyama wasn’t on the floor. When they tried their luck from beyond the arc. They predictably had little success. 2-12 for 16.7% is all you have to know. The quarter ended 36-24 in favor of the Spurs, with Portland managing some defensive stops as the quarter closed to help keep the game relatively close. Wembanyama had only two points for some bizarre reason, a result simultaneously encouraging and terrifying depending on how you want to look at it.
It was time for the Blazers to come out strong for the second quarter and make a game of it. Except that didn’t happen. While there were certainly some defensive breakdowns for the Blazers, their defense wasn’t abjectly bad. Rather, the Spurs were hitting everything, including well-defended, fall-away threes. At one point they were shooting 70.3% from the field and 50% from deep, leading by as many as 29. A little burst at the end of the half for the Blazers helped them cut the deficit to 20. The Spurs headed to the locker room with a 65-45 lead, supreme confidence, and a barely-called-upon superstar in Wembanyama, who had seven points on 100% shooting.
After halftime the game got a bit ugly and slow, something that should have worked to the Blazers advantage —except it didn’t. Staggeringly bad shooting from deep for Portland meant that they couldn’t attack the lead. At one point in the third quarter Portland was shooting 16.7% from deep and 35% from the floor. It got a bit better from there, but the best they could do in the third was keep the arrears around 20 points.
A hard foul by De’Aaron Fox on Avdija that the latter took exception to kept things exciting for a bit. Teammates got between them, so the only result was a technical foul on Avdija, and perhaps some motivation for next season.
Portland made one last comeback attempt with about 10 minutes to go. Consecutive threes from Donovan Clingan, Jrue Holiday, and Sidy Cissoko suddenly and unexpectedly cut the lead to nine, forcing a Spurs timeout. San Antonio responded but couldn’t deliver the knock-out punch. When Stephon Castle fouled out with 4:36 to go, there was at least a tiny glimmer of hope left. But the Spurs, led by Fox on the offensive end and Wembanyama on the defensive end, were able to finally seal the deal over the last three minutes. They will now move on to face the winner of the Denver Nuggets – Minnesota Timberwolves series.
Blazer of the Night
We’ll give it to Deni Avdija and his 22 points, but honestly the Spurs were so dominant that no one for the Blazers really caught the eye. It’s not every day you give the Blazer of the Night award to someone who finished with a plus/minus of -20, but points were hard to come by for Portland and Avdija got some.
Stat of the Night
Portland was 11 of 47 from three while San Antonio went 12 of 30. That’s right, the Spurs had 17 fewer three-point attempts and yet scored 3 more points than the Blazers from deep.
What We’ll Remember
After my hypnotism appointment, hopefully nothing. Honestly though, Portland was outmatched, and they still had the heart and desire to fight on until the end. While there will be a lot anguished talk about the state of the Blazers this offseason, they made real strides on defense and in the win column since the season began. At least at times, this could be a fun team to watch. Here’s to continued improvement next season.
Up Next
Blazer’s Edge will debrief and analyze the season in the coming days, plus look forward for opportunities for Portland to improve in trades, free agency, and more. Stay with us throughout the off-season for plenty of content and discussion!
