SAN ANTONIO — “Whatever we do, we gonna do this s*** together!” – Keldon Johnson
A few minutes before tipoff of Game 2 against the Trail Blazers, the entire Spurs team and coaching staff formed a huddle near half-court, with the backdrop of adoring fans, cheering and congratulating Victor Wembanyama on his first-ever unanimous Defensive Player of the Year award.
Roughly 30 minutes later, with a little over a quarter of basketball played, that same huddle formed, only this time off the basis of confusion, trepidation and angst. Moments earlier, Wembanyama, in an attempt to drive to the basket while being defended by Blazers guard Jrue Holiday, got his feet tangled up and hit the ground — the velocity so high that his face planted directly into the floor before briefly bouncing off the surface.
For a moment, Wembanyama lay motionless on the ground before resting against the stanchion in an attempt to gather himself. In some ways, the Spurs’ hopes and dreams laid there with him. He would later be followed to the locker room after leaving on his own power before being officially ruled out with a concussion and entered into protocol. Per NBA rules, there is a 48-hour mandatory recovery period from the onset of a concussion before a player can be evaluated by a team physician or athletic trainer for a return to action.
Right then and there, San Antonio’s unspoken horrors manifested: the worst-case scenario of Portland’s physicality, a game plan in need of a major audible and an unknown postseason territory without Wembanyama.
“Give a lot of credit to Portland, the staff, the game plan and their players,” Spurs head coach Mitch Johnson said following San Antonio’s 106-103 loss. “There was a level of fatigue there that kicked in, in terms of the intensity of the game and the output in minutes the guys had to play. And that’s a playoff game. That’s what it’s gonna feel like.”
Victor Wembanyama’s scary fall shifted the tone of the night and left the Spurs staring at an uncertain series.
To the Spurs’ credit, even without Wembanyama, there was an admirable effort on the defensive end of the floor. San Antonio held Portland to just 76.1 points per 100 half-court possessions, one of the best defensive outputs both in the regular season and playoffs. They also won the rebounding battle despite going small for large portions of the evening, won the transition battle and held the Blazers to just 34 percent from 3 and 43 percent from the field overall. “We didn’t give up 150 or anything like that,” Johnson added. “I thought the guys actually fought their butts off, did a really good job.”
The problem with silver linings, however, is that a dark cloud frequently accompanies it. San Antonio, a top-half team in 3-point rate, attempted just 24 shots from behind the arc — including just four corner 3s for the NBA’s most proficient corner shooting unit — converting only seven(!) of them. A team in the Spurs that finishes nearly 70 percent of shots at the rim only saw 44 percent go down. In the fourth quarter, Stephon Castle and De’Aaron Fox combined to shoot a woeful 2-for-10 from the field, the majority of which came in a hotly contested back-and-forth final minutes with the game hanging delicately in the balance. Devin Vassell finished with 16 points on 16 shots, missing all five of his 3-point attempts including the final chance at forcing overtime.
Moreover, San Antonio committed the one cardinal sin in a playoff series against an underdog: give them momentum, life and a chance. Portland, which has performed as one of the NBA’s top-10 defenses since Feb. 1, presented its deck of why this series is anything but over. The Blazers, led by the defensive grit of Holiday, Toumani Camara and Scoot Henderson, are as pesky of a trio as any around the league, able to use their abundance of physicality and lateral quickness to crowd the airspace of even the quickest opposing guards. Donovan Clingan and Robert Williams III are about as shrewd of a frontcourt one-two punch as there is around the Association, not only because of their ability to protect the interior but because of their snarl, soft touch and uncanny nature of their in-between game. What once appeared to be a breeze of a first-round series now has all the makings of a grueling, risky marathon.
As the entire city of San Antonio awaits Wembanyama’s immediate next steps, the Spurs coaching staff will reconvene to determine how to avoid letting go of the rope altogether in what will surely be a deafening Moda Center for Game 3. The Spurs are quite familiar with playing without Wembanyama, only being outscored by a single point around 2,000 minutes this season. Their ability to remain even-keeled with Portland in non-Wembanyama minutes nearly brought them over the finish line on Tuesday evening and will certainly be at the forefront of any Game 3 preparation.
“We’ve played tough games without him,” Castle said about the prospect of Game 3 without Wembanyama. “Obviously we want everybody healthy and to have him on the court, but I’ll get whatever five guys we have on the court. We’re gonna play like ourselves.”
(Within that game plan will certainly come some tough decisions. San Antonio’s most-played lineup without Wemby in Game 2 — regular starters plus Luke Kornet — were outscored by seven with a -46.7 net rating. Playing four guards alongside Kornet swung the pendulum to a +66.7 net rating in four minutes. There’s also the question of whether or not rookie Carter Bryant, who deputized as a small ball five, can withstand that much pressure and physicality of the Clingan/Williams tandem on the road.)
Still, some tough questions remain. How did San Antonio’s elite defense allow Henderson — who has played in just 30 games all year and scored more than 25 points twice — to command the show like that with a game-high 31 points? How can the Spurs replicate Wembanyama’s vertical spacing and gravity, the centripetal force of their inside-outside balance, spacing and efficiency? What happens when Wembanyama, who literally forced Portland to adjust their line of offensive — and defensive — thinking, is not there to save the day? (San Antonio allowed 117.4 points per 100 possessions without Wembanyama this season, which would rank inside the bottom ten among NBA defenses.)
“It’s really the same game plan,” Castle said. “Most of their offense ends in guard-to-guard screening or one-on-one dribble drives. So being able to contain the ball still be able to help each other. Obviously, we can’t make up for what Vic is for us defensively, but you’re trying to do it as a team. Stay in shifts for each other, communication and rotations.”
