Season 51, Game 78
San Antonio 110, Los Angeles Clippers 113
45-33, 4th in the West
Season 51, Game 79
San Antonio 112, Los Angeles Lakers 122
45-34, 5th in the West
Lost in the chaos of a drama-filled season – in which the leading headline has mostly been about a guy who isn’t even playing basketball right now – is a tale of two teams.
One team, plays in San Antonio, wears a color combination of black, silver and white, and more importantly, carries a sense of pride and responsibility. This team is good at basketball and while they may not be the best team in franchise history, is at least fun to watch. At their best, they are probably good enough to be the 3 seed in the Western Conference. In reality, they are a good basketball team.
The other team mirrors the first team in some aspects. You can see the resemblance, such as the same color combination of the jerseys, but the differences are also glaringly obvious. Completely removed from the confines of a familiar ATT Center, they wish to be nestled closely by a supportive fan base and comforted by some good home cookin’. This “other” team plays in the opponent’s home arena. This team is a bad basketball team.
The San Antonio Spurs have always had their ups and downs, but this year has proven to offer more than its fair share of headaches. Their Jekyll and Hyde approach to basketball this year has been nothing short of compounded frustration in what has arguably been the most frustrating season in Spurs history.
And in 48 hours, after seeing Dr. Jekyll run through a couple of playoff teams on the south-east side of San Antonio, the Spurs surrendered to Mr. Hyde. They promptly dropped – wait, strike that…blew – two games to the Los Angeles Clippers and the Los Angeles Lakers.
I could recap these games in a traditional sense and try to get into an analytical breakdown of why the Spurs couldn’t beat two non-playoff teams, but honestly, we are kind of past that point. Both games should have been won, easily. Both games offered second half leads for the Spurs. Both games offered late game opportunities which could have covered the embarrassment. And in both games, the Spurs failed to get the job done.
The team looks night and day different on the road and it’s not really explainable. The Spurs have always struggled to find points, but defense has been their calling card. Not so much in the first game in the city of angels. The Clippers game might have featured some of the worst 4th quarter basketball we’ve seen all year. Sure they only had 12 turnovers for the game, but the Spurs had defensive breakdown after defensive break down and were just flat-out atrocious.
You think it was bad on your TV? I paid $70 to watch that nonsense in person. I should have asked for my money back.
The Lakers game was not much better. In fact, in a lot of ways it was worse. Kyle Kuzma is pretty good. He’s not that good. I’m in the LA television market, so I’ve seen roughly 25-30 full games of KK. Since the end of Kobe, the Lakers fan base has been begging for a new star. They thought it might be Julius Randle, then maybe Brandon Ingram. Then the Lonzo Ball thing came and went. Believe me when I tell you: they love Kuzma here in Southern California.
He’s far and away the best player on that team, even with Ingram healthy. But last night, the Spurs made him look like an All-Star. And they let Josh Hart and Tyler Ennis run amok in the 4th and Overtime as well. Even LaMarcus seemed to have his hands full with Brook Lopez and Ivica Zubac. There’s really no excuse for that.
One bright note is seeing at least a workable lineup. Popovich finally sat Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker at the end of games, who have been awful since they called out the most-talented player in the history of the franchise for his toughness (sorry, my patience is wearing thin with these two dinosaurs). Rudy Gay finally got some crunch time minutes and DeJounte Murray got a couple big buckets in the Laker game that kept them afloat. But alas, it wasn’t enough.
I don’t know what kind of air they are pumping into the vents of the team plane or what these visitor locker rooms are feeding during the pregame meals, but the Spurs have to fix it fast. With three regular season games to go, this has gotten ugly and far too close for comfort. And we haven’t even mentioned the Kawhi stuff. You’re going to have to listen to our podcast this weekend for that.
Trace and I predicted on the SDP last week that the Spurs would finish 5-2 in their last seven and we assumed that meant wins on the back to back games in LA, a definite loss to the Rockets and another to either the Blazers or the Thunder. Shows how much we know.
The Spurs have had a bad year. It just is what it is. Bad basketball. Bad public relations. Bad player management. Bad rotations. Bad roster. Just bad, bad, bad (that’s the kind of analysis you all came here to get, right?). And if they don’t figure something out here in the final 144 minutes of basketball remaining in the season, then it could be a very bad off-season as well.
Saturday night, the Spurs head home to face Portland in what could be a pretty great first round playoff series, assuming the Spurs get there.
*facepalm
Go. Spurs. Go.
