Twelve games into the season, the Spurs sit at 8–4. If they keep that pace, they’d finish with 56 wins and 28 losses – strong enough for home-court advantage. Not bad, is it?
Not bad indeed. But the Spurs
may not win twice as many games as they lose. The good news is: they don’t have to.
In the last two seasons, 49 wins were enough for the sixth seed in the West; the season before, 44 wins did the job. Landing somewhere between 44 and 49 feels doable for this team.
A likely first-round opponent could be the Golden State Warriors – incidentally, the team they’ve just lost to twice in a row at home. If those were playoff games, the Spurs would basically be gone. So let’s look at last night’s matchup through a playoff lens.
Takeaways
- Lack of adjustment: The Spurs didn’t take Steph Curry seriously on Wednesday – and they didn’t take him seriously last night either. Why wasn’t their best defender on him consistently? Why didn’t they send double teams more frequently? Why was De’Aaron Fox, of all people, the one trying (not especially hard, to be fair) to guard Curry when he got hot late in the third quarter? However you frame it: when a 37-year-old goes off for 49 points in back-to-back games, the coaching staff has some growing up to do.
- Fox probybly won’t “grow” any further; he’s an ace on offense and a major liability on the other end. In the opening three minutes alone he died on two screens, lost Curry twice (and several more times later) and let Draymond Green blow by him. Come playoff time, Fox is going to be an instant target.
- Looking only at the box score, both Fox and Wembanyama had good offensive games: 24 and 26 points on 21 and 22 shots. The question is whether they maximized each other. The answer: it’s good, but there’s room for improvement.
- The pick-and-roll between the two – widely seen as a potential league-best weapon – isn’t happening particularly often. Still, per Statmuse, the Spurs’ offensive rating has jumped by six points, from 112.3 to 118.3, since Fox’s return. One reason: Wemby has averaged 8.3 three-point attempts over his last four games, up from 3.1 in the first eight without Fox, and he has hit 42 percent. That’s excellent.
- Even so, the Spurs are experiencing growing pains. Fox and Wemby could probably do more to involve their fellow starters – but Castle and Vassell also need to involve themselves more. The duo played 67 combined minutes but took only 16 shots. Good things happen when Castle drives; good things happen when Vassell shoots from deep. Neither leaned into their strengths often enough last night.
- On the positive side, Champagnie provided a scoring punch off the bench and continues to be a play-by-play darling. The Spurs have been better with him on the floor than off all season (and the season’s before the current one), and his on-court plus/minus has climbed to +7.2. He’s on a ludicrously cheap contract, but if this continues, the Spurs should make it a priority to keep him in Silver and Black well beyond that deal.
- Still, the future of the Spurs is spelled with one name: Victor Wembanyama. Draymond Green trying to get under his skin is as predictable as sunrise, but the way Wemby handled it was pure class. And maybe, in a future playoff matchup, he won’t allow Green to box him out on the final possession.
