What We Learned from the Spurs loss to the Knicks

Mmm. Yep. That’ll do it.

Consider me humbled, basketball gods. You built me up and struck me down just like the old stories promised you would. Beautiful work. No notes.

It’s an awfully nasty beat to get pantsed on national television like that, especially on the heels of a week filled with noise from every corner of the basketball universe declaring that the Spurs had “officially arrived” as title contenders.

Be honest with me for a second. How many podcasts, articles, and TV hits did you devour after that Pistons win? A thousand? A million?

I inhaled every single one. I soaked it up like a sponge. When I ran through the ESPNs and the other usual suspects, I started trolling around in corners of the internet I normally wouldn’t even visit with a hazmat suit. Opposing team message boards. Unsanctioned gambling websites. Barstool podcasts. You name it.

I was out there like a junkie, hunting down any “respected voice” willing to say some version of the same thing:

The Spurs are good.
They’re ahead of schedule.
Wouldn’t be surprised if they made the Finals. Heck, maybe even won it.
Victor is in the MVP conversation.
This might already be Victor’s league.
Stephon Castle should be All-NBA.
Nobody in the West wants to see them in a series.
Best supporting cast in the league.
They don’t really have a weakness.
The lack of postseason experience might actually HELP them in the playoffs.

I even saw someone say this Spurs team had swagger.

Swagger!
The Spurs!

Can you even believe it?

Surely letting all of that go directly to my head wouldn’t come with consequences.

Lo and behold, after a week of pushing the pedal to the metal on the hype train, the wall of consequence arrived on Sunday afternoon to stop me in my tracks.

It was a brutal, punishing affair. You could see that MSG crowd feeding off what was unfolding in front of them. They were giddy. They were ecstatic. They were a mirror image of what I imagine my own face looked like watching Cade Cunningham and friends toss wayward shot after wayward shot at the rim in Detroit the other night.

They were reveling in the experience of watching a paper tiger go up in flames in front of their eyes, shouting “Is this your king?!”

And honestly, they should revel. It’s really fun to do.

I’ll just be over here staring into the abyss if you need me.

Look, this isn’t a hard one to diagnose. None of our stuff worked. The shots weren’t falling. We couldn’t hold onto the ball. Rebounds felt like a foreign concept. It just wasn’t our night. Not overly complicated.

If San Antonio was going to lose, this is how it’s going to happen. And I think we’ve seen enough from them at this point in the season to feel confident that they aren’t going to spiral and play like this every night. The Knicks didn’t expose some secret blueprint for how to put the Spurs away. The Spurs haven’t been infected with the “Bad at Basketball” virus or anything.

A game like this could have happened anonymously on a Wednesday night in Toronto. Instead, it happened on a Sunday Showcase in one of the most famous arenas in the world.

So now, instead of brushing it aside and moving on with our lives, we get to spend a week listening to the same voices we so eagerly slurped up last week teasing out twisted, horrifying refractions of what we heard before:

The Spurs are still fun, but they’ve clearly shown they aren’t ready yet.
Shame they didn’t make a move at the deadline.
Probably still a year or two away.
Victor still has a lot to learn.
This is still very much a veteran’s league.
Castle is going to be great… someday.
The supporting cast still has questions.
Their lack of experience showed.
Turns out they do have weaknesses.
Anyone who supports this team as a fan has a series of moral failings that simply cannot be cured.

You know. The usual stuff.

This is the cycle of the league and the media ecosystem and the regular season in general. You get hot, you get cold. You get praised, you get torn down. We shouldn’t, as a fan base, live and die by the highs and the lows. This is not some revelatory new advice and yet it’s something we probably all need a reminder of from time to time.

The noise doesn’t matter. It’s a sugar high. Empty calories.

We know what we have with this team, and I’m sure they’re going to continue to thrill and delight us in the same way they have all year.

It’s important to appreciate that on our own terms.

Takeaways

• It’s been a weird journey this year navigating what this Spurs team looks like with Wembanyama on the bench. We had that fun stretch where they not only survived but thrived while Victor was sidelined, and for most of the season they’ve been able to keep the ship afloat when our tall captain is indisposed. Lately though, the non-Wemby minutes feel more exposed. Part of that is just how good everything looks when he’s out there, but Sunday was a reminder that against real, physical teams, those short stretches can snowball quickly once the safety blanket disappears. If the goal is a long, sustained playoff run, the Spurs are going to have to find a way to rest him without everything feeling mortal all of a sudden, otherwise you risk arriving deep in May with a beat-up, exhausted superstar who simply had to carry too much for too long. Something to monitor!
• I think the Spurs have mostly done a good job this year matching other teams when they try to run the old “beat the crap out of them” play. But it makes sense that it wears on you after a while, and this one felt like a game where they just didn’t have it in them. The Knicks kept leaning on them and the Spurs looked tired, like they didn’t feel like doing the whole wrestling match thing for 48 minutes. Honestly, fair enough, I wouldn’t either. The playoffs should be a different animal from a motivation standpoint, but the question of whether or not they can handle the relentlessness of that kind of physicality over and over again is basically the only thing I’m worried about for them.
• I absolutely hate that the Knicks now have two signature wins over the Spurs this season. I know it doesn’t really matter and that one of them doesn’t even count, but it still grinds my gears in a way that does not contribute to the easy-breezy, happy-go-lucky persona I try to project out into the world. You guys mostly pick up on that right? How casual, light hearted and fun I am? It’s not weird, it’s cool. I’m cool.

WWL Post Game Press Conference

– You’re cool?

– I’m cool!

– All the coolest people usually make a declaration that they are cool.

– Right, yea. Like you have to announce your coolness to the world, otherwise, how would anyone know?

– What are they supposed to do? Just pick up on it based on how you present yourself to the world? That seems crazy.

– You’re right, it does seem crazy. When I think about cool people in the world, think about Steve McQueen stopping mid-car chase to turn to the camera and say, “Just a heads up, I’m extremely cool.” I think about Miles Davis putting the finishing touches on Kind of Blue, adjusting his sunglasses, and filing a notarized statement confirming his coolness. I think about David Bowie breaking character on stage just to clarify, “This Ziggy Stardust thing? It’s cool. I’m cool.” I think about Michael Jordan doing that commercial with Spike Lee, turning to the camera at the end and saying, “By the way, I’m a cool guy, just so you know.”

– And now you join that distinguished lineage.

– Exactly.

– Very cool.

– I know!