<\/p>\nBest of Wembanyama’s regular season block party<\/p>\n
If you met Victor Wembanyama at the basket this season, there was a pretty good chance your shot was getting blocked.<\/p>\n
However, it\u2019s his play on the defensive end that is critical to their title dreams. Having Wembanyama hanging out in the paint, surrounded by high-level physical defenders such as Stephon Castle, Dylan Harper and Champagnie, gives the Spurs a championship defense.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the difference is, a lot of those young teams, their defense isn\u2019t where it needs to be,\u201d De\u2019Aaron Fox said of why the Spurs are different. \u201cAnd I think \u2014 especially with Vic in the lineup \u2014 we have one of the best defenses in the league. So I think that\u2019s something that we can hang our hat on.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a young team \u2014 as a team period \u2014 there are times where, especially in the playoffs, that you just can\u2019t make a shot. And we have a team that, while we don\u2019t go on many droughts like that period, but if you do go on those droughts, we feel like we have a defense that we\u2019re able to withstand that.\u201d<\/p>\n
San Antonio had the third-ranked defense in the NBA this season, and, more importantly the fourth-best half-court defense (which matters more as the game slows down in the playoffs).<\/p>\n
Spurs put in the work<\/p>\n
That defense is where it is \u2014 and these Spurs are where they are \u2014 because this team may be young, but it has put in the work.<\/p>\n
Champagnie is a great example. He entered the league out of St. John\u2019s as a knockdown shooter, but it was Gregg Popovich who sat Champagnie down and told him in no uncertain terms his defense needed to get better if he wanted to play.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn short, and TV-friendly [language], he told me that I have a niche, which is being able to shoot, but it\u2019s gonna be useless if I can\u2019t play defense,\u201d Champagnie said. \u201cSo that was kind of the message, he pushed to me and told me to play harder, put more effort into that end of the floor. Be more physical and be more nasty. That was the word he used, nasty.\u201d<\/p>\n
Champagnie put in the work in the G League, which continued when he started getting a chance with the big club. That work ethic was part of the team culture. Champagnie saw the work Keldon Johnson, Devin Vassell and other longer-term Spurs players put in \u2014 work he saw Wembanyama put in from Day 1.<\/p>\n
Did Champagnie always feel that the work he was putting in on the defensive end would pay off?<\/p>\n
\u201cAbsolutely not,\u201d Champagnie laughed. \u201cMan, when I first got here, I had no clue. I was going through a bunch of workouts, and I\u2019m like, \u2018Man, I don\u2019t know if I\u2019m gonna be able to do this.\u2019 Like, this is a whole different step from college\u2026<\/p>\n
\u201cI took it personal. I said, \u2018All right, well, if I want to play, I got a guard.\u2019 That\u2019s what Pop told me. So I kind of how I took it, but I didn\u2019t think that it would pay off, honestly. Truly, at first, I was like, I don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n
Spurs have leaders<\/p>\n
Playoff basketball is like ordering from a completely different menu than the regular season \u2014 the drilled-down focus on matchups, the physicality, the exposure of weaknesses that can be hidden during the regular season. One of the premises of why teams need experience to win in the playoffs is just familiarity with that menu, what to order and how everything works.<\/p>\n
San Antonio believes it already has those guys.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we are young, but we do have a lot of leadership,\u201d Dylan Harper said. \u201cVeteran guys that have been there, like HB [Harrison Barnes], Kelly [Olynyk], Luke [Kornet]. You know them guys have been on the biggest stage and won, so, I mean, just kind of lean on them, but also just staying true to us and not letting experience get get in the way of our main goal.\u201d<\/p>\n
De\u2019Aaron Fox is another one of those veterans with a little postseason experience. What playoff lessons is he trying to pass along to the young core?<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have to play hard because everybody plays hard. It\u2019s a little bit more physical, the refs swallow their whistle a little more,\u201d Fox said. \u201cIt can get into your legs if you\u2019re not able to keep that type of intensity and even raise that intensity, and then, you know, go back on offense and still make your shot.\u201d<\/p>\n
There are reasons the Spurs may not win a title this year, starting with the fact that the Thunder and Nuggets are in the West and both are title contenders in their own right. Just don\u2019t tell the Spurs they are not ready, that teams don\u2019t come out of nowhere to win a title.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s out of nowhere,\u201d Champagnie told NBC Sports. \u201cI think we\u2019ve been putting the work in. We\u2019ve had a lot of long summers, especially this past summer was super long. So I don\u2019t want to say it\u2019s like out of nowhere. I think we put the work in for it. I think we deserve it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"San Antonio\u2019s players and staff have heard it all before. How they are too young. How experience \u2014…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":254012,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[82,84,83],"class_list":{"0":"post-254011","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-antonio","8":"tag-san-antonio","9":"tag-san-antonio-headlines","10":"tag-san-antonio-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=254011"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254011\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/254012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=254011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=254011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=254011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}