How do you smother the criticism that your wins are empty-calorie conquests?
Smother a team with legitimate conference championship aspirations.
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Not too long ago, the San Antonio Spurs throttled the Utah Jazz by 37 in a game they had led by 44. Naturally, a blowout on that scale gets the attention of a lot of people. Huge margins catch eyeballs. It’s human nature.
Monday night, the Spurs didn’t win by 37. They didn’t lead by 44. They won by “only” 14.
Only.
Yet, they served notice that if anyone is expecting a letdown or a lull, it doesn’t seem likely to emerge anytime soon. The Golden State Warriors are 26-1 in these final days before Christmas… and they have a definite fight on their hands at the top of the Western Conference.
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The Indiana Pacers are one of several teams in the Eastern Conference (it feels like a dozen) which are trying to emerge as the primary contender to the Cleveland Cavaliers for one of the two spots in the NBA Finals. Rusty and ragged in their first three games, the Pacers abruptly turned around and began to play up to their capabilities in subsequent weeks. Paul George, most of all, began to carry himself as a superstar. This is why Indiana has a puncher’s chance at the Cavs, and owns the ability to make a relatively deep run next spring.
The Spurs could have won Monday night’s game in so many ways and failed to make a loud statement to the league. On many NBA gamenights, the winners and losers aren’t necessarily the top stories; what often matters is the manner in which teams rise or fall or reveal their personalities.
If the Spurs didn’t reveal much by hammering the Jazz by 37, they revealed a lot more in the way they dispatched the Pacers.
You can write it off as a bad night — just one of those games — but if Kawhi Leonard is on the job, it becomes a lot harder to dismiss Monday night’s events in such a cliched fashion.
It’s not “just one of those games” when Leonard, quite possibly the best on-ball defender in the NBA today, locks down a player of Paul George’s caliber. PG-13 was rated “I” for impotent (or ineffective, take your pick) in the face of Leonard’s world-class defense. A 1-of-14 shooting night from the field robbed Indiana of any real chance in this contest. Perhaps George might have made a couple more shots over the course of the evening, but that merely would have resulted in an eight-point loss for the Pacers instead of a 14-point decision.
San Antonio encountered a test… or at least an opponent which offered the promise of a more demanding game than what the blowout-happy Spurs have typically experienced in recent weeks. What could have been a rigorous challenge instead turned into yet another night when Kawhi and Gregg Popovich and the rest of Team Alamo were able to so calmly and methodically dispatch the Pacers on the basis of a swarming defensive effort.
Decisive wins against bad teams represent the kinds of feats good teams certainly need to achieve, if only for the ability to rest starters. Yet, those results often lead to levels of fawning and excitement which exceed the actual substance of the achievement itself.
Monday, the Spurs actually did something which merits an extra measure of praise and an added degree of respect. San Antonio played a team (Indiana) and a star (Paul George) which demand added attention. That the Spurs so alertly and steadily took away the Pacers’ offense is a genuine indication of how dialed in this team is at the defensive end of the floor.
If previous wipeouts of bad teams created more excitement around the Spurs than what seemed appropriate at the time, Monday’s comfortable win over Indiana should serve as an authentic indicator that yes, San Antonio really is as good as that glossy 24-5 record would suggest.
