Season 50, Game 41
San Antonio 122, Minnesota 114
32-9, 2nd in the West

This game seemed to follow a familiar script for the Spurs this season: a high-scoring first half (read: poor defense) followed by a tough, defensive-focused second half to secure the win.

That first half really was something. The teams combined to score 138 points and shoot 52 free throws. I thought the game might never end. Every Wolves possession ended in points or in foul shots (and then points). These poor defense-first coaches must have been frustrated beyond belief.

The good news this season is that the Spurs have the offensive firepower to keep up when these games become scoring exhibitions. While the team defense can still be tops in the league, the team no longer depends on that defense for survival. So while the Wolves scored an unseemly 71 points in that first half, the Spurs were right there with them at 67.

The second half looked a lot more like the Spurs we’ve accustomed to. Minnesota scored a mere 43 points (9 in the final 2 minutes when the game was mostly out of reach), only got 11 FTAs, and were outplayed and outworked in every facet. The Spurs’ offense still thrived, putting up 55 points and looking completely in sync.

Kawhi–as is becoming normal–put on a show. He scored 34 points, his 4th game in a row scoring over 30. Kawhi is anything but a natural scorer, to see his game evolve in this manner is exciting. He’ll never be a offensive freak of nature, like a Durant or Harden. To watch Leonard is to watch a student who has completely mastered a craft from thousands upon thousands of hours of study and practice.

There’s no shame in that. Wiggins serves as a natural foil for Leonard. Wiggins has all the natural athletic gifts to be a tremendous basketball player. (Kawhi is often a comp people like to make for his potential.) However, it is still undecided if he’ll ever reach those levels, despite starting from a better position than Kawhi. Wiggins, thus far, is a great scorer, and not much else. Kawhi, on the other hand, started with everything else, and turned himself into a great scorer.

The contrast is made even more stark because the two guard each other, and Kawhi more or less drinks his milkshake on both ends of the court. The Wolves only hope Wiggins develops into half the player that Kawhi has made himself into.

In a larger context, this game represents the overarching theme of the Spurs’ season: great skill, great potential, inconsistent performance. The team still struggles to play complete games. While they still win most of their games (duh), they often are closer in the end than they need to be.

So if we look on the bright side, the Spurs enter the midpoint of the season on pace for 64 wins and still with tremendous room for growth. The players are still figuring things out on the court, and the staff is still figuring out who fits where. This team has much more flexibility in years past with their roster. The second half of the season will be spent figuring out what the best combinations are and which players offer the best opportunities for victories on a nightly basis.

If I’d been told before the season that after 41 games, the Spurs would have 32 wins, I’d have been ecstatic. But like most of us, now I’m greedy. I love watching this team and I want to see them truly compete in the playoffs. Seasons like this–teams like this–are special. I want to squeeze every last drop out of it.

The Nuggets come to town Thursday night.

Go Spurs Go.

Photo credit: Eric Gay AP

Season 50, Game 40
San Antonio 105, Phoenix 108
31-9, 2nd in the West

January has been a weird month for the Spurs.

So far, they are a middling 4-3 in the first 15 days of the new year. Those 3 losses in 15 days account for one-third of their entire losses for the season. However, they’ve lost those 3 games by a combined 7 points, and had a chance to win each game in the waning moments.

On the other hand, their 4 wins have come by a combined 113 points (about 28 points per game). They’ve been completely demolishing teams.

Which is the real team?

Smarty pants advanced stats would tell us that margin of victory (MOV) is often a better indicator of future success than actual record. So posting a +106 in 7 games for an average MOV of +15.1 would seem to indicate we’re just fine. When the team is on, they’re nigh unbeatable.

And losing in the manner they’re losing – while utterly frustrating and dispiriting to the fan – shows that even in the losses, these games are essentially coin flips. Coin flip games often come down to a few lucky breaks, a few miscues, energy, and focus.

That’s what stands out the most in these losses: the lack of attention to detail, focus, preparation, and respect. For example, in January in the 3 losses, they are averaging 21.3 assists and 14.3 turnovers per game, or about 1.5:1 assist:turnover ratio. That’s not very good. In the 4 wins? 31.8 assists to 10.5 turnovers, or about 3:1. That’s good. (Tony Parker on the season is at 3.4:1, so the team as a whole is close to its starting PG.)

Turnovers and assists are about as good an indicator we have in the box score for energy, focus, and preparation. Let’s look at a more subjective example:

In Saturday’s loss to the Suns in Mexico City, the Suns started the game out 11-4 in the first 3 minutes. Pop called a timeout, did a wholesale line-up change, and the Spurs quickly got back into it. Starting the second half, the Spurs were up 7. In the first minute of play, the Suns scored 5 quick points to cut the deficit to 2. Again, Pop called a timeout (didn’t make line-up changes this time), and coming back into play, the Spurs got back into it.

What’s the point, you ask? In about 4 minutes of play, the Suns had a 12-point advantage in a game they won by 3 points. So during the other 44 minutes, the Spurs lead the game by 9 points.

Basketball is a game of runs, so it’s easy to pull out any one stretch of scoring and highlight it as ‘the reason’ that game swung. I only point out these two stretches because they happened at the beginning of each half, which points to a lack of preparation and discipline and focus. It’s a 48 minute game; 4 minutes at the start of each half can indeed cost you the game.

The game in general was a bit sloppy in both directions. The Spurs looked very out of sorts, especially early. They were not only turning the ball over, they were doing it in spectacular (and sometimes comical) fashion, often throwing ‘passes’ to nobody in particular. They got it together to make the game competitive, but their were just too many miscues at too many critical junctures to ever seize control of the game or get back into it once control was lost.

As I said before the game, this had trap game written all over it. They flew into Mexico City on Wednesday for a Thursday game. Mexico City is at 7,382 feet elevation. Phoenix had been there the whole week and already played a game there. Since this was a focal point of the NBA, there were more demands on the players’ time than normal. This was an easy game to lose, and they lost it. Credit Phoenix: they played hard and never stopped coming. Their youth and athleticism has given us trouble in two previous games, and it finally caught up to us.

I’m not worried about this one loss. I’m not even worried about the 4-3 record in January. The wins show me a lot more about the fiber of this team than the losses do. It’s January, and this is where the NBA season becomes a grind. Silly losses will happen.

My concern is giving away too many of these easy games. This is a soft part of the schedule, and the Spurs would do well to bank as many wins as they can to secure the 2-seed. Houston isn’t going away, and the Clippers will start to make a move again soon.

While the losses don’t indicate how well the Spurs will be playing in April and May, they might affect where they’ll be playing. And against whom. As we’ve seen in the past, that can be as important as how the team is playing. The Spurs have a great opportunity to get the 2-seed and make a run to the Conference Finals. Once there, anything is possible. I’d hate to see a lack of focus and preparation in January derail the team’s fortunes in April, May, and beyond.

The Spurs return home to face the Timberwolves on Tuesday. If the rest of January is any indication, they should win big. (Knock on wood.)

Go Spurs Go.

Featured photo credit: ESPN