When your favorite team steps outside its comfort zone and cuts ties with a few major contributors of a championship team for a big-time free agent, it gets a lot easier to scrutinize everything that happens on the court, whether you’re watching or not.
Perhaps a better way to put it would be that every box score, every player’s single game +/-, and every Danny Green 3-point miss become opportunities to completely overreact.
Last week’s Spurs-Blazers game was only the second I’ve been able to watch this season (and I missed the entire 3rd quarter because my DVR failed me). I spent the entire first half trying to pick apart everything that wasn’t as good as I wanted it to be based on the offseason moves.
How could LaMarcus Aldridge miss that? Am I a fool for buying into the midrange jumper? Are they really just going to let C.J. McCollum do this all night?
Thankfully, by the middle of the 2nd quarter I finally realized how boneheaded my thinking was, and I started enjoying Spurs basketball again. And when I started simply enjoying Spurs basketball again, it became beautiful again.
Admittedly, a lot of that beautiful game came with one or two members of the first team sitting on the bench, but it was nice to see the first team start to gel. It was nice to see Green knock down corner 3s, nice to see Tony driving in the paint, nice to see Aldridge play unfazed by the (overblown) drama surrounding his first game back in Portland since leaving after last season. Best of all was seeing Tim Duncan sit the entire fourth quarter, playing the role of cheer captain while his team shut down every mini-run by the Blazers to win the game handily.
So the Spurs are 10-3. On paper that’s good enough for the second seed in the West, behind the 15-0 Golden State Warriors. But I have one question for this team…
How is San Antonio going to fare when the schedule gets harder?
The Spurs opponents to-date are now a combined 66-97 in this still-young season. Against teams with a losing record, the Spurs are 6-1; against teams with a winning record, the Spurs are 3-2.
Look, you play who’s on the schedule that given day, so I’m not saying going 10-3 against a mostly poor set of opponents is a knock against the Spurs, I’m just curious how the work-in-progress first unit is going to stack up against other top-tier teams in the league.
[Editor’s note: We’ll know soon. In the next seven days, the Spurs play Dallas (3rd in the West), Atlanta and Chicago (3rd in the East).]
Personally, I think San Antonio’s early season schedule works in their favor, because a few bouts of miscommunication won’t sink the team in a game against Philadelphia or Brooklyn. But against teams like Cleveland (1/14) or Golden State (1/25)? Small mistakes can be the difference between a win and a loss, and I don’t think I can possibly overstate the importance of Ws when playing in the Western Conference.
I’m encouraged by what I’ve seen on the court between the Spurs’ starting five. Obviously, in a vacuum, those are five guys who excel at the sport of basketball.
(Edward A. Omelas, San Antonio Express-News)
Aldridge looks happy and says he feels like he’s part of a family. His teammates say Aldridge has been a great fit, too. Aldridge doesn’t seem worried about the time it will take to fully adjust to San Antonio basketball, and more importantly, neither does Pop.
What we’re witnessing right now is a team that is still coming together, but taking care of business at the same time.
It’s easy to forgive a season-kickoff road loss to a fired up and incredibly talented team in Oklahoma City. After essentially losing last season to injuries and firing their head coach, you knew the Thunder were going to come out swinging – and boy did they. It’s less easy to forgive a road loss to the Wizards with a day off before, but those games will happen, and as long as they don’t happen often, the Spurs are going to be in a familiar place next April.
And by then, I’d expect to see a cohesive team that (hopefully) hasn’t had to utter the phrase “it’s a process” to reporters after shootaround for at least two months. Until then, there’s going to be basketball, some of it beautiful, some of it questionable, but none of it worthy of an overreaction.
