If any part of you was still wondering whether the San Antonio Spurs were truly ready to skip all the traditional steps and win a title in their first postseason with this core, you just got your answer. Yes, they’re ready. They might not do it. There’s still a long way to go. But they’re ready.
Facing elimination for the first time in these playoffs, and for much of the roster the first time in their careers, the Spurs put on an absolute clinic on Thursday in a 118-91 win over the Thunder to even what has become a classic Western Conference Finals at three games apiece.
Game 7 is Saturday night. It can’t get here soon enough.
Until then, let’s take stock of what we just saw from a team that began this series with the youngest starting lineup in conference finals history. Victor Wembanyama, Stephon Castle and Dylan Harper combined for 63 points, 21 rebounds and 15 assists in putting together, as a trio, a basically perfect game.
Do not take that for granted. Wembanyama is 22 years old. Castle, in his second season, is 21. Harper, a rookie, is 20. These guys are supposed to be in the absolute infancy of their NBA development. At the start of this year, anyone would’ve called it a huge step for the Spurs to simply make the playoffs, and here they are, in a back-against-wall conference finals game, putting the screws to the defending champs like a bunch of 10-year vets.
Of course we have to talk about Wembanyama first. After laying an egg in Game 5, he did everything he had to do to lead his team on Thursday. He was aggressive from the outset; it’s probably not advisable for Wemby to begin his night with three of his first four shots from 3 and then work in from there, as opposed to vice versa, but the bottom line is he attacked aggressively, didn’t hold the ball and try to back down from the 3-point line against stronger defenders, just saw his shot and took it. And when those first few fell, it was on from there as he finished with 22 of his 28 points in the first half.
Total superstar stuff. In a game this big, don’t leave it to anyone else to get the ball rolling.It was the latest confirmation that Wembanyama is cut from the right stuff. Call it the clutch gene. Good old-fashioned guts. Whatever description you want to use, you know it when you see it in a player. There was no way he wasn’t going to step up in this game, and once he set the tone, it was no accident his teammates followed.
The Spurs were all hot from 3 to start, which served a few purposes. Obviously it put points on the board and got the Spurs out to a 13-point first-quarter lead, but in taking the first quality shot available rather than trying to crash recklessly through OKC’s stout defense (Castle kept really kept his inner Russell Westbrook contained Thursday night), it also lessened their turnover risk.
And that paid off big time. At the end of the day, a shot, any shot, is better than a turnover, and the Spurs walked that fine line between aggression and control masterfully all night. They wound up with 13 turnovers for the night, which is still a good number, but they were under 10 before garbage time. That is a great number in any playoff game, let alone when facing elimination against a team like OKC.
The Thunder are straitjacket defense. They entered this game creating an average of 17.4 turnovers per game in these playoffs as a defense. San Antonio, which has struggled mightily to hang onto the ball in this series, cut that number basically in half during the competitive portion of the game when, theoretically, the nerves should have been at their highest.
Castle, who coughed up a conference finals record 20 turnovers through the first two games of the series and basically plays like a human wrecking ball, only committed one on Thursday. Same for Harper. Honest to god, any team in the league would be thrilled to have even one of these two young stars, and the Spurs have both. With Wembanyama. Got all three of them in three consecutive drafts with the No. 1, No. 4 and No. 2 picks (this can’t happen anymore because of the lottery reform, which you can read about here).
Right now, it’s all about these Spurs taking yet another monumental leap in their meteoric NBA growth spurt. Let’s go back to the turnovers. Or lack thereof. Of course this was a major factor in the Spurs winning this one, perhaps mostly because it allowed them to set their defense all night (a big part of SGA’s struggles, which are officially concerning), but big picture, the statement this kind of poise, in this kind of game, against this kind of opponent, makes about a team being led by three guys under the age of 22 is loud.
Everyone in the NBA heard it. It’s one thing to be talented as a young team. It’s quite another to have this kind of collective moxie to go with it. Hell, De’Aaron Fox is San Antonio’s most seasoned starter by a mile. If anyone was going to be dependable in a moment of this magnitude, conventional NBA wisdom would’ve suggested him, but he finished with five points on 1-of-9 shooting. It was the kids who carried the day.
Devin Vassell (25 years old) shoots with the conviction of prime Klay Thompson. To call the way he came out burying 3s early in this game fearless would be an understatement. Julian Champagnie, also just 24 years old, couldn’t make a shot to save his life early in this series but got hot in Game 5 and carried it over in San Antonio’s tone-setting first quarter.
You thought the Spurs might be in trouble when, despite their shooting the leather off the ball in the first half, OKC was somehow within seven at halftime? Like maybe they were about to start pressing, playing not to lose rather than keeping their foot on the gas while the been-there-done-that experience of the Thunder was about to start squeezing the youthful nerves to the surface? Think again.
Vassell stuck a 3 to start the second half, and San Antonio outscored OKC 32-13 in the third quarter while holding the Thunder without a single point over a span of seven minutes and 28 seconds, the longest scoring drought for a playoff team in any playoff game since 2019. Game over.
All of these little victories are championship steps. Taking care of business as the favorite, as the Spurs did in the first round against Portland. Bouncing back from a series opening-loss to the Timberwolves, who had advanced to two straight conference finals themselves, and then winning Game 5 in a 2-2 series. Facing elimination for the first time on Thursday.
These are the steps most teams take over a period of years. One at a time. The Spurs are taking one giant leap in one postseason, accruing experience and victories at the same time. There’s still another massive one to take by winning a Game 7 on the road, but even if they don’t, the verdict is officially in. This is a championship team. The same can be said of the Thunder and the Knicks. Only one of them can be left standing in three weeks. But the Spurs are ready. Game 6 was the biggest test that anyone on this team outside of Harrison Barnes has ever faced on a basketball court. And they passed it with flying colors.