Season 48, Game 64
San Antonio 125, Cleveland 128 (OT)
40-24, 6th in the West

Sometimes you play a magnificent game and run into an individual player that transcends and invalidates it.

The great conundrum of basketball is that it is simultaneously the most team-oriented game and the most individualistic game. By virtue of there only being five players per team at any time, one person can more greatly affect the end result than in most any other team sport.

The Spurs can play possibly there best game of the season, and Kyrie Irving can shoot that performance right into a loss. It happens. As the cliche goes, you just tip your hat to them and move on.

We can bemaon the missed free throws all we want (and we should for just a moment). Chasing missed free throws is a fruitless endeavor. Tony missed one in the first quarter; should we retroactively complain about that? Yes, if Kawhi makes one of those last two, the Spurs win this game. He doesn’t; they didn’t. It doesn’t diminish how great the team played.

And they were great. Over the last few weeks, this team has changed right before our eyes, and they look like the team of the last few years, with the superb ball movement, the swarming and stifling defense, the precision, execution, and calm under pressure. I think both teams were using this game to make a statement, and it was yelled from the rafters in full voice: these teams are serious title contenders. The Hawks and the Warriors are still the prohibitive favorites, and the whole may be too deep for even the Spurs to come out of in this loaded West. But after last night, nobody should be surprised to see these two teams playing in June. (And what a series that would be.)

Kawhi and Tony continue to be All-World performers, and the rest of the team continues to be in lock-step behind them. Duncan continues to defy time and age, making those of us sitting at home watching him who are younger wonder what they are accomplishing with their lives.

Despite the final numbers and the flames shooting out of Kyrie’s hands (and, to a less extent, LeBron’s in the OT period), the defense looked pretty solid, particularly in the second half. The Leonard-Green pairing is one of the best wing defense tandems in the league, and the Splitter-Duncan tandem one of the best in the paint. To paraphrase Parker after the game: if it takes that kind of shooting to beat this team, they’re in a pretty great place.

The Spurs won this game in all but name. There are no moral victories, but this wasn’t really a defeat. The Spurs showed us something, and they showed the rest of the league something.

It’s March; the Spurs are coming.