What We Learned from the Spurs Game 3 win over the Wolves

The lead never felt comfortable. It was weird. Ungainly. 7-1. Unsightly. 9-1. The offense was ugly. Stilted. 11-1. We were making more shots than the Wolves, sure, but that felt like a technicality.

14-1.

Keldon hit a three. We still looked off. There were five minutes left in the first quarter and the Wolves had one point. I should’ve been ecstatic but I couldn’t get there. It was like they were building a sandcastle right before the tide was about to come in.

18-3.

It just didn’t feel right. This was a trap. It had to be.

Now, Anthony Edwards ripping off 12 points to close the quarter and bring Minnesota back within one? Yeah, that felt terrible. Punch to the gut. Slap to the face. Pick your metaphor, but it felt bad. It also felt correct. 23-22 was an accurate reflection of whatever that first quarter was.

We’ve seen the Spurs win games in the playoffs with their best stuff. When it clicks, even if only for a half like those games in Portland, they look unbeatable. Everything flows downhill, the defense is impenetrable, and the result feels inevitable.

We’ve also seen this team stall out. They settle for jumpers, they get loose with the passing, and they lose their rhythm. The defensive intensity that is usually their superpower can easily tip over into an over-aggressive, wild, unruly beast that causes as many problems as it solves.

Friday night was an interesting test case for a young team that tends to deal in extremes. What happens when the stakes are high, the crowd is going nuts, and the opponent is just crazy enough to think they can beat you? What do you do when you reach into your bag of tricks, come back empty-handed, and still have three quarters left to play?

The answer, at least for one night, was to weather the storm. A performance that could almost be mistaken for a lack of urgency by some of our more anxious fans (hand up) actually turned out to be something closer to an enviable level of control within a particularly chaotic environment.

Because here’s the thing. The Wolves are good. They’re very good. They’re talented and they play hard and they don’t give a single second’s thought to anyone else’s expectations about the outcome of the game. The Spurs are the higher seed? They’re favored to win? Most people are picking them? The Wolves don’t care. They’re here to compete. They’re going to fight and push and claw their way to the top or die trying.

That said, the Spurs are better than the Wolves. They just are. They have more talent. They’re healthier. They somehow even have an advantage in the (oddly specific but currently trendy) Tall French Guy category. Across the board, the Spurs are just better. I think even most Minnesota fans would give a grim nod to that. But none of that matters once the ball is tipped. The Spurs are a better team and they are also, without a doubt, in real danger of not making it out of this series alive. The Wolves aren’t going to let them skip this step on their way up the mountain. They’re going to hold on tight and drag them back to earth. They’re going to force them to reckon with the questions that a team like the Wolves are capable of asking.

“Are you tough enough?”
“Can you win ugly?”
“What happens when the calls don’t go your way?”
“What are you made of when the game stops being fun?”

All night, I kept thinking something was off with Victor. Like he was pressing too much, trying too hard. Why did he shoot that? What were you thinking on that challenge? Stop dribbling in traffic! I was so focused on the things he wasn’t doing that I sort of lost sight of what was really happening.

Victor Wembanyama got his 5th foul with 6:18 left in the game. Jaden McDaniels sank both free throws and brought the Wolves back within one. The Target Center became a swirling cauldron of noise and excitement.

I wanted to puke.

And all that time, while I’m over here alternating between throwing up in the corner and diagnosing his shot selection, Victor Wembanyama happened to be putting together one of the greatest individual performances in NBA playoff history. 39 points. 15 rebounds. 5 blocks. The fifth player ever to do that in a playoff game, joining Wilt, Kareem, Hakeem, and Shaq. His mastery was so effortless, so nonchalant, that I almost missed it. I was watching a historic performance and my main note was “stop dribbling in traffic.”

Go back and watch the Spurs in that moment, though. No one is panicking. No one looks scared. Mitch Johnson doesn’t for a moment consider taking Vic out. He trusted him to adjust accordingly, and he trusted what he was seeing from his team. This wasn’t a situation where the Wolves had broken contain and were charging away from their handlers. This was a team that had its opponent by the horns and, even though it continued to buck, was going to slowly and methodically wrestle it to the ground.

This was a team in control.

Two days ago, after the Spurs dismantled the Wolves in Game 2, a reporter asked Victor Wembanyama about the experience gap. About all the chatter. About what a performance like that said about their inexperience versus everyone else’s experience.

“It says we don’t care,” he said.

Before Game 3, someone asked Mitch Johnson the same question from a different angle — whether the Spurs’ youth was actually an asset in these playoffs. He responded: “Experience used in its best form is very valuable — so is youth and athleticism. But if you flip those, and people don’t use experience to its full potential, then it becomes kind of a hollow world that may not deliver the return people expect from it.”

Now, I don’t know exactly what all that means. But I know it sounds sexy and mysterious. And I also know that on Friday night in Minneapolis, this young, inexperienced Spurs team answered every question the Wolves had the nerve to ask.

After the game, Wemby said: “I’ve really been waiting since I’ve been in the league to live those moments, those high stakes games. That’s what I love. I’m built for this. I love this more than anything else.”

I was worried the Spurs had built their castle out of sand. I’m starting to think they’re made of sterner stuff.

Takeaways

• This is a happy occasion. We’re floating around on the magical bubbles that appear every time the Spurs win a playoff game. Hooray! Honk honk honk! Go Spurs Go! Because we’re all having a good time and in such a good mood right now, I’m not going to focus on the looming suspicion that a missed free throw is going to absolutely break our backs at some point.
• In that same spirit of togetherness and collective joy, we’re also not going to talk about Mitch Johnson’s challenge problem. You know, the problem where he’s bad at challenges? It’s a problem! We’re not going to talk about it!
• Carter Bryant continues to be a revelation. I’d trust him with my life. He seems up for any assignment, any role, any situation, and Mitch Johnson seems to take particular delight in deploying him specifically to annoy the other team. What I love most is that he keeps shooting. He’s never scared to pull the trigger, but he’s also never forcing it. He’s not taking bad shots, he’s just taking shots. No fear. Carter Bryant. Who knew?
• Beyond Wembanyama levitating around the court all night, the combination of Castle and Fox were the two hands on the steering wheel keeping this thing in line every time it threatened to veer off. Steph bore the brunt of Minnesota’s physicality without turning the ball over and distributed the ball efficiently. He took his time. He found the open man. It was a really mature and measured performance from the young man. He only got in one almost-fight! Proud of him!
• Fox was equally impressive in different ways. It would be easy for him to fall into the trap of trying to force things and, for the most part, he’s managed to avoid that. He grabs the reins when necessary, hunts for pockets of space and, above all else, never lets the defense forget about him. It’s all very potent.

WWL Post Game Press Conference

It feels like most members of the Spurs organization are taking some time to get slightly philosophical in their press conferences these days. Is anything on that level speaking to you right now?

Yeah, for sure. I want to talk about how annoying I find Chris Finch.

The Wolves head coach?

Yeah, that guy. I didn’t think a single thought about this man until about five days ago and now, if I saw him on the street tomorrow, I think I’d have no choice but to throw hands.

Why? He seems like a perfectly innocuous character.

He’s wearing Chuck Taylors. And he has these massive beaded bracelets on his left wrist. It’s awful.

Really? That bugs you?

It’s totally out of character for his whole vibe. He’s a 56 year old man with a head full of grey hair. He should be managing an investment portfolio or something. Rocking Chucks and bracelets like he’s trying to be some dimestore Billie Joe Armstrong knockoff out there on an NBA sideline. Coaches used to wear suits. They used to look like Pat Riley. This whole thing makes me sick.

Don’t you wear Chucks? And bracelets?

Yeah, but I pull it off.