{"id":307260,"date":"2026-05-24T19:58:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-24T19:58:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/307260\/"},"modified":"2026-05-24T19:58:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-24T19:58:10","slug":"its-time-for-the-spurs-to-make-adjustments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/307260\/","title":{"rendered":"It\u2019s time for the Spurs to make adjustments"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fraternizing with the Enemy, my series-long conversation with Cray Allred of the Daily Thunder<\/a>, continues with the Spurs down 1-2 heading into a Sunday night matchup with a ton on the line.<\/p>\n

After running out to a 15 point lead, the Spurs were outscored by 30 points in about 45 minutes. After the game there were a multitude of ideas tumbling through my head, and when I woke up I found that the tangle of thoughts had been kindly organized into several discrete easily numerated actions. So I decided to make a list.<\/p>\n

J.R. Wilco\u2019s Realistic Dos and Don\u2019ts<\/p>\n

Prioritize Fox\/Harper\/Castle in PNRs with Wemby<\/p>\n

Feed Wemby when he\u2019s close to the hole<\/p>\n

Stay on the ground on SGA fakes<\/p>\n

Get the ball to Wemby on the move<\/p>\n

Leave guys alone on the three point line (unless you are Wemby, and it better not be Caruso)<\/p>\n

Turn the ball over so much<\/p>\n

Just stand around at the three point line<\/p>\n

I call this list realistic because I\u2019ve only chosen things that the team has already demonstrated that it can do against the Thunder. What do you think of the list and what is your reaction to Game 3?<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a pretty good list. I\u2019m riding pretty high after that win, but I know that there are several of those correctable items that San Antonio coukd very well fix. After Game 2, I was prepared for an energy and momentum swing to boost the Spurs at home. It clearly did for those first five minutes, but I couldn\u2019t believe it evaporated before the second quarter was finished.<\/p>\n

I would guess a mixture of exhaustion, inexperience, and personnel are to blame for the Spurs falling apart after that 15-0 burst. Fox and Harper could get healthier. San Antonio can get Wemby moving to his most effective. And the home crowd+postseason desperation could put the wind back in their sails.<\/p>\n

What I am less sure of: whether more disciplined defense on Shai will actually slow him down. As he did in the first two rounds, he\u2019s mastering the most aggressive and attentive defensive looks as the series goes on. San Antonio might lay off more and foul less, but that doesn\u2019t mean he won\u2019t punish them with more buckets. Give SGA an inch and he\u2019ll take a mile, whether that\u2019s room for his jumper, illegal limbs in his airspace, or freedom for his teammates.<\/p>\n

Do you think the rest of the series will be dictated more by the bench play, or more by Shai and Wemby?<\/p>\n

Sounds like you\u2019re saying, \u201cExhaustion, inexperience and personnel issues: ladies and gentlemen, it\u2019s your 2025-2026 San Antonio Spurs!\u201d and I\u2019m not even all that sure I can disagree \u2014 assuming that those personnel issues are referring to injuries. Amazing what taking on the defending champs can do to a team, isn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n

And I\u2019m sure you are riding high, I know I was during that 15-0 run. Isn\u2019t it something how when a run extends like that it\u2019s hard to imagine your team ever missing again, or the opponent ever making. And vice versa. It\u2019s the same between games too. Right now, even a single win seems improbable, but that\u2019s considering that only what has happened will happen. Since we don\u2019t know what\u2019s being cooked up, we\u2019re left with supposition which leaves things murky. One thing is clear though, there\u2019s no denying that adjustments are required.<\/p>\n

As to your question, there are two options. Either San Antonio finds a way to make Wemby\u2019s minutes so productive that they can weather any run OKC makes when he rests (see above list), or the bench finds a way to hang with the Thunder in the non-Vic minutes. The odds may be stacked against both of those, but I\u2019d say the first is the most likely.<\/p>\n

What we\u2019ve seen all year is Wembanyama experiencing obstacles before shifting tactics or adjusting mindset or coordinating with teammates, and then going on an epic run that rewrites history books and looks inevitable in hindsight. It\u2019s happened in the micro (during the second half of games to come back from huge deficits) and in the macro (during the post-All Star Break when the team went 37-3 when Wemby played).<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s my question: how much of OKC\u2019s bench play do you think is sustainable through an entire series?<\/p>\n

You teed up my favorite wonky Thunder question, which has been my hobby horse (or dead horse, maybe) all year: whether the role players can hold up throughout the most crucial postseason stretches. OKC has really underperformed on offense in both their 2024 & 2025 runs, particularly from behind the arc. Until now, they\u2019ve been very good in the regular season, and very human during the playoffs–succeding despite shooting variability rather than because of it. This season has been their least reliant<\/a> on three-point shooting as a contender, and I\u2019ve wondered if they were leaning into the two-pointer by design or necessity this time around.<\/p>\n

My working theory: Shai\u2019s midrange brilliance, and their stated premium placed on absolute shot quality over the three-pointer as the best option, has moved their floor and ceiling higher on offense. In past playoffs, the opposing defense could funnel more and more shots to Lu Dort and Josh Giddey. With the development of Jaylin Williams and the addition of Jared McCain<\/a>, the Prince of OKC\u2019s Disney Process, the range of players capable of getting hot when the ball is forced out of Shai\u2019s hands has expanded significantly. So far, at least. I know that the Thunder role players will maintain elite effort and defense. For the first time in forever, I believe they will maintain their shooting.<\/p>\n

I can feel the Spurs fans getting bored, so I\u2019ll move on. Now that we know Ajay Mitchell (out) and Jalen Williams (questionable, but very doubtful in my opinion) won\u2019t be around for at least another game, OKC\u2019s bench and starters are blending together. The reserves won\u2019t be scoring 70+ points again, but they\u2019ll at least keep the scoring advantage against the struggling Kornet and Keldon club.<\/p>\n

And to rejoin your other point: Wemby\u2019s capacity to rewrite NBA history and basketball physics is the true x factor from here on out in my view. If I were you, I would love seeing Wemby and Mitch Johnson dismissing free throw & fouling gripes after these losses to focus instead on what they can do better to get back to winning. NBC showed Wemby warming up with trainers pulling and grabbing him in the post–that\u2019s the right stuff.<\/p>\n

If I thought Fox and Harper were really right, I\u2019d pick SAS to easily even it up in Game 4. With the short rest and big minutes still necessary for the shortened Spurs rotation, I\u2019m bracing for another game going down to the wire. I gotta stick with my pre-series pick of Thunder in 5 as long as it has legs, but I\u2019m prepared to be wrong.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s your pick? And has it changed from what you thought before the series?<\/p>\n

As soon as you ask me for my prediction, I immediately think back to the 2012 Spurs versus Thunder Western Conference Finals when I traveled to Oklahoma City to stay with my sister\u2019s family and cover the games. I was but a na\u00efve editor-in-chief then, (only having taken over PtR in 2012) and had no idea of the heartbreak that was in store for me. San Antonio had won the first two games at home and there was no hint whatsoever of what was about to befall the Spurs.<\/p>\n

They were dominated. For four straight games Oklahoma City showed that they were the superior team. They were more physical and they scored more easily than San Antonio. After being up 2-0, there was rarely a moment in the next four games where I felt comfortable that the Spurs had been able to figure out the new status quo of the series.<\/p>\n

I spent those four games trusting that Popovich would \u201cfigure it out.\u201d After the series and over the next summer I realized that you can\u2019t figure out a way to play differently than you have all season. There are wrinkles you can put in place and adjustments that can be made but playing style is something you prepare through the course of the season, and can\u2019t be changed on the fly.<\/p>\n

These are the thoughts that I was thinking before the series when I realized that I simply couldn\u2019t imagine San Antonio playing differently than they had when they won three games against a mostly-healthy Thunder team. But now that it\u2019s obvious that the status quo of the series is not the same as it was in December, my prediction is entirely based on Game 4.<\/p>\n

Usually, it is the odd-numbered games that define a playoff series in the NBA, but I\u2019m gonna know everything I need to know about the rest of the series in the first 12 minutes of Sunday night\u2018s game. If the Spurs have a different way to: a) handle the physicality, b) contain SGA without allowing role players to go off, and c) consistently create offense, then I believe the series can go to seven games and be up for grabs.<\/p>\n

But if OKC has a sizable lead going into the second quarter, then I would expect the series to be over in five or six games. Forcing San Antonio to take the next step of their development over the off-season and the next couple years, just as the 2012 San Antonio Spurs had to.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fraternizing with the Enemy, my series-long conversation with Cray Allred of the Daily Thunder, continues with the Spurs…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":307261,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[82,84,83,36815],"class_list":["post-307260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news","tag-san-antonio-spurs-discussion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307260","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=307260"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307260\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/307261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=307260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=307260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=307260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}