Finally! After years of grueling disappointment, the Silver and Black played their first NBA playoff game since 2019 last night. It wasn’t always pretty, but the Spurs had some impressive stretches of play and ultimately wore down Portland. What’s more, in addition to the win, San Antonio managed to generate a postseason box score with some notable highlights, as you will see below.
Note: Now that we’re moving into the postseason, the reference period used for grading changes from the set of regular
season games since 2012-2013 to the set of postseason games since 2012-2013. Unless otherwise noted below, this set DOES include play-in games. As of the end of April 19, 2026, this group include 1,129 games.
Factors that Decided the Game
- Overall offensive opportunity was fairly balanced in this game, as San Antonio’s edge in total rebounds (+7) and offensive boards (+3) was more or less offset by their +3 turnover differential.
- While both teams were roughly evenly matched in terms of chances to score, the types of chances afforded to each team differed. For example, San Antonio managed to earn a FTA margin of +7 despite committing two more fouls, whereas Portland has seven more shot attempts (including five more threes).
- The Spurs ultimately pulled away for two major reasons. First, they capitalized on those extra free throw opportunities by shooting 84.21% from the line, resulting in a FTM margin of +6.
- Second, San Antonio had a notably better FG% (+4.76 percentage points) and much better 3P% (+19.14 percentage points). As such, even though the Spurs took fewer shots and fewer threes, they still outscored the Blazers by seven from the field
Rare Box Score Stats
- Although it doesn’t show up in the team box score above, you probably heard during the broadcast that Wemby set the Spurs postseason debut record for points (35) and three pointers made (5). If we restrict ourselves to the set of true playoff games since 1996-1997 (i.e., no play-in games), this is the 207th time that any player (regardless of prior experience) has logged 35+ points and 5+ threes; however, there are only seven other cases during the same period in which a player achieved these thresholds in less than 34 minutes of play.
- This was just the 13th postseason game since 2012-2013 in which the winner earned a +5 3PM margin while attempting at least five fewer threes than their opponent. In other words, this combination happens about once in every 87 postseason games, which is close to once per NBA postseason.
- This game marked the 39th case since 2012-2013 in which a playoff winner had at least four fewer assists and three more turnovers than their opponent (that’s about 3.5% of playoff games during the period). However, most of the other cases were much closer; in fact, there are only four other in which a playoff winner won by 13+ points with turnover and assist differentials as bad or worse.
What are Team Graded Box Scores?
Very briefly, these box scores grade winner-loser differentials for basic box score statistics, with the grade being based on the winning team’s differential relative to other NBA winners during a defined reference period. Think of it like a report card for understanding how a given winner performed relative to other winners. The reference period used runs from the start of the 2012-2013 season to the latest date of play, including only games in the same season category (i.e., regular season and playoff games are not compared to each other).
Data Source: The underlying data used to create these box scores was collected from Basketball Reference. In all cases, the data are collected the morning after the game is played. Although rare, postgame statistical revisions after data collection do occur and may affect the results after the fact.
