The San Antonio Spurs have skilled two heartbreaking losses over Tremendous Bowl weekend. First, the sport with the Hornets and now a 112-111 loss to the Orlando Magic. You could possibly argue that they need to have received each video games by greater than single digits.
The Magic have been faster to 50-50 balls, abused the Spurs on the offensive glass, and dominated them within the paint. Sound acquainted? These are the identical points that allowed Charlotte to take dwelling a win on Friday. The Magic outscored the Spurs 56-34 within the paint and grabbed 13 offensive rebounds in opposition to the Spurs. Sure, Orlando is a much bigger, extra bodily workforce, however these points can’t come up in back-to-back video games.
You can also make plenty of excuses for the Spurs proper now. The rodeo highway journey is difficult. It’s even tougher to combine one other key piece in De’Aaron Fox throughout that stretch. It’s clear that Victor Wembanyama is coping with some form of sickness or conditioning challenge that has him wanting a lot completely different than he has for almost all of the season. They’re limping to the All-Star Break with simply two video games left to go.
Whereas all these factors are legitimate, they don’t make up for the truth that San Antonio has dropped to thirteenth within the Western Convention behind the Portland Path Blazers and discover themselves three video games out of the ten seed. The Spurs’ play-in desires are slipping with this stretch of unhealthy play, and it could be time to rethink expectations for this workforce.
The brilliant aspect – San Antonio has two key constructing blocks, two potential lottery picks in a loaded draft, and younger gamers like Stephon Fort, Jeremy Sochan, and Devin Vassell who’ve made enhancements this season. Sure, this stretch of play is irritating and hurts their probabilities of making a playoff push, however the Spurs are nonetheless higher than final yr and are in a major place to enhance transferring ahead.
Takeaways:
Orlando is likely one of the greatest defensive groups within the NBA. They make their hay with size and physicality on the wings and inside. Jonathan Isaac created so many points for the Spurs’ guards by clogging driving lanes and pressuring on the ball. When Jalen Suggs performs it’s even tougher for groups. I believe the Spurs can attempt to emulate plenty of what the Magic do defensively transferring ahead. Discovering lengthy, athletic wings who could cause havoc defensively to play alongside Fox and Wembanyama seems like a powerful roster-building purpose.
Harrison Barnes is essentially the most enjoyable Spurs position participant since? His first-quarter explosion was a pleasure to look at. He had 18 factors on 6 three-pointers popping out of the gate. Then it felt like he by no means discovered photographs within the recreation move. That is doubtless a credit score to the Magic adjusting. It will have been good to see just a few extra performs drawn up for the recent hand after such a superb begin.
I’ve seen some complaints concerning the play name on the ultimate possession of the sport. Look, if you will get a guard to change on to your 7-foot-4 huge man in a excessive publish isolation, I believe you’re taking that consequence 9 instances out of ten. Possibly Wembanyama must discover a higher go-to transfer there, however the logic behind getting him the ball there may be sound. There may be in all probability a a lot completely different consensus across the play if the ball goes in.
Vassell has turned issues up a notch within the final two video games. He’s thrived within the “third choice” position with extra defensive consideration given to Fox and Wemby. He’s been in a position to spend extra time coming off screens, nailing photographs within the mid-range and from three. He’s extra aggressively getting downhill. His 25-point evening was tremendous environment friendly as he shot 11 of 14 from the sector. It will be nice to see extra of this from him transferring ahead.
Fort is a beast. He will not be a whole participant but, however he makes extra grown-man strikes to the rim than half of the roster. As soon as he finds his contact on photographs outdoors of the paint, he’s going to be an issue on a night-to-night foundation. He needs to be the Rookie of the 12 months favourite now and has the potential to be a very good participant for a very long time.
San Antonio has to discover a technique to get Fox transferring downhill. Within the final two video games, it’s appeared like if he’s not getting out in transition, he’s settling for jumpers. That requires extra zoom motion to get him coming off a dribble handoff or creating straight-line drives off excessive choose and rolls. Some form of offensive creativity to get your new star concerned would do them plenty of favors offensively.
