First things first: The San Antonio Spurs certainly look like the real deal this season.
Their 21-5 mark would lead the NBA in most seasons, but the Golden State Warriors are not “most teams.” The Dubs are not doing what is generally done in “most seasons.” It’s San Antonio’s rotten luck that the Warriors fired Mark Jackson and have become this good under Steve Kerr and Luke Walton in such a short period of time. Without the renaissance which is blossoming in Oakland, the Spurs would be unquestioned title favorites.
Moreover, they ought to deserve such status. Let that much be clear, especially for any Spurs fans reading this piece.
However, after Monday night’s 118-81 thrashing of the Utah Jazz (it was a 44-point game early in the fourth quarter), plenty of people on #BasketballTwitter oohed and ahhed about this game, pointing to it as an indication of just how scary the Spurs have become.
It is on this particular point that the brakes need to be applied.
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Let’s first start with the fact that the Jazz were playing the back end of a road back-to-back. They played an overtime game the previous night in Oklahoma City. They fell flat in that overtime after doing so well on defense for the first 45 minutes of that contest against the Thunder. The Jazz emptied the tank on Sunday night; they had nothing left for Monday, especially in light of playing overtime. Young teams might have more explosive legs, but they are not as adept at managing the rigors of schedule difficulties. These realities of NBA life were very much in evidence on Monday in San Antonio.
Second, let’s mention that the Spurs, as well as they’ve played on defense this season, have a teacher-versus-student advantage against the Atlanta Hawks, the team they throttled this past Saturday. The Spurs benefited from the fact that Gregg Popovich knows what Mike Budenholzer likes to do, and how he likes to do it, gave San Antonio a unique tactical advantage against the Hawks. Pop was able to deploy his players in ways that maximized his team’s chances. Being able to rest Tony Parker on Friday — because his team was hosting the lowly Lakers — fed perfectly into the Saturday plan in Atlanta, against a Hawks team immersed in a rough stretch of its season.
The Spurs are doing nothing less than what they’re supposed to, and they certainly are putting their stamp on a defensive plan and identity. In many ways, the Spurs are turning back the clock a decade while not surrendering the offensive excellence they cultivated a few seasons ago, when Pop decided they had to reinvent themselves at the offensive end of the floor.
It’s all very impressive.
However, let’s not allow a game against a struggling young team — in the midst of a nasty travel situation, following a deflating overtime loss — to somehow represent the heart of San Antonio’s very successful 26-game start to this season. Let the Spurs’ achievements and adjustments to exist (and be praised) on a larger level.
Monday night’s game should not be held up as a representative standard.
The 2015-2016 schedule is backloaded for the Spurs and the other Western Conference contenders. The Golden State-San Antonio-Oklahoma City trio will play a lot of games in February, March and April, and it’s only then that we’ll have a much better idea of where these three teams stand in relationship to each other.
It’s easy to view the Spurs as a defensive death machine right now. Clearly, Pop has his roster defending the bejeezus out of most opponents.
Let’s just wait to see how the Spurs defend when they play Russ and KD, and tackle Steph and Draymond and Klay and Iggy.
That doesn’t seem like an unreasonable request.
You don’t have to get off my lawn; just don’t jump up and down too much about what the Spurs did on Monday night.
Save the stomping on the manicured grass for next spring, as much of a killjoy notion as that might in fact be.
