Momentum is a fickle deity. It blesses without warning, abandons without apology, and rarely announces its intentions until it’s already halfway out the door. San Antonio enters tonight’s match-up in Phoenix
still trying to convince the rest of the league (and perhaps themselves) that their recent stretch of competent basketball is something sturdier than a passing breeze.
Thus far, these Suns are not the type of team you want to face when you’re unsure of your footing. In a surprising turn of events, they’ve built themselves into a balanced machine of half-court cruelty: precise, slow-bleeding, and methodical. They’re 10th in net rating (11th in offensive rating, 12th in defensive) and 9th in both Effective Field-Goal Percentage and True Shooting Percentage.
The Spurs, meanwhile, no longer continue to exist in that strange liminal zone where potential and performance glare at each other across a chasm they haven’t yet learned to cross. De’Aaron Fox’s return has given the offense a head, a spine, and (most nights) a pulse. Even over the last three games, the Spurs have still been top five in the NBA in both offensive and net ratings.
His downhill pressure forces teams into rotations they’d rather not make, especially late in the game. Yet Fox’s influence has a way of revealing the rest of the roster’s inconsistencies. When he’s blazing, everything hums. When he’s not, everything moves in fits and starts.
This Phoenix team will test that cohesion, having soundly thumped them in their last match-up. They’ll force San Antonio to execute, to defend multiple actions deep into the shot clock, and to survive long stretches where nothing comes easy. On the other hand, the Spurs have been proving they can win the ugly games, even without Wembanyama, Castle, and Harper.
You can almost sense the Spurs teetering on the edge of perpetual coherence. The rotations have tightened. The spacing isn’t as tragic as it was in October. Even the defensive miscues feel more like growing pains than baked-in liabilities. This is a team beginning to figure out what it wants to be. What it can be.
Whether that counts for anything in Phoenix is another matter entirely.
San Antonio Spurs (11-4) vs. Phoenix Suns (10-6)
November 23rd, 2025 | 7 PM CT
Watch: FanDuel SW | Listen: WOAI (1200 AM)
Spurs Injuries: Dylan Harper – Out (calf), Stephon Castle – Out (hip), Jordan McLaughlin – Out (hamstring), Victor Wembanyama – Out (calf)
Suns Injuries: Grayson Allen – Out (quad), Rasheer Fleming – Questionable (ankle), Ryan Dunn – Questionable (wrist), Jalen Green – Out (hamsting)
