There hasn’t been a lot to study from the San Antonio Spurs’ 10-game successful streak. A lot of the video games have been towards tanking or shorthanded groups, and the outcome was determined earlier than halftime. With solely a handful of video games left earlier than the playoffs, there have been murmurings of concern that the younger crew hasn’t confronted sufficient adversity earlier than the video games actually begin to rely.
The Spurs confronted loads of adversity of their 136-134 loss to the Denver Nuggets. Regardless of main for 87% of the sport, San Antonio couldn’t execute in clutch time, letting go of a 6-point lead with a minute and a half remaining, permitting Denver to pressure time beyond regulation and ultimately safe the victory.
A number of foolish errors beat the crew. Victor Wembanyama and Julian Champagnie failed to speak in the event that they have been switching screens, which led to Aaron Gordon getting a wide-open dunk after each Spurs defenders went to protect Jokic. De’Aaron Fox fumbled the ball whereas making an attempt to go between the legs on a jumper over Jokic, and mishandled his dribble, forcing an errant shot. They have been too sluggish to get into their units, making it arduous to run offense. In fact, there was the blown quick break between Fox and Devin Vassell that will have tied the sport in time beyond regulation.
It could have simply been the common season, however with the Nuggets preventing for the third seed, this felt like a playoff recreation. The Spurs discovered that in a high-stakes recreation, there’s one other stage of basketball perfection they have to attain to win a championship. They must execute late within the recreation when the stress goes up one other stage. The gamers and the teaching workers have to search out methods to get their greatest gamers the ball in advantageous conditions to attain, even when the opposing crew is honing in on them. Then, it’s on these gamers to make huge performs.
The excellent news is the Spurs discovered this lesson with out there being precise playoff stakes. They’ve 4 extra video games to proper the ship earlier than it actually counts. Saturday’s loss confirmed them there’s one other stage they have to get to in the event that they need to contend.
