Has it really been almost nine years? Yes, that’s how long it’s been since my most recent personal playoff climax. Sure, the Spurs made the playoffs in 2018 and 2019. But those series can’t even remotely compete with what happened in the early hours of May 10, 2017 (May 9 in the US).
I had my first team in those days. Not in the Wembanyama sense, but in the sense that it was a team I built and led to serve a German industry giant — seven days a week in a two-shift system. German industry giants aren’t particularly friendly with their suppliers, so it was a tough job. But maybe that contributed to us, as a team, being an extremely tight unit.
I don’t miss the job I did back then, but I miss being so close with my coworkers. The good thing is — I’m still in touch with some of them. And one of them has even become a true friend.
When he started working for us, I quickly told HR to make it a priority that he not leave. After all, it’s hard to find people willing to start working at 5 in the morning or 2 in the afternoon. And very few were as good and as reliable as him.
Other than work, we quickly bonded over sports — mostly soccer. But of course, he had to listen to an awful lot of Spurs talk during our shifts together, as well as during our visits to the pub after work.
When the Spurs matched up with the Rockets in the 2017 playoffs, my colleague was aware that there might be a shift (ot two) in which I would arrive after 5 a.m. (I made the shift schedule, so I made sure I was working with him at the time.)
On May 10, 2017, I was indeed late. It was Game 5 against the Rockets — and the game went into overtime. Which was why I wasn’t at work at 5 o’clock in the morning. I arrived almost an hour late — about 20 minutes after Manu had blocked Harden.
I was all smiles when I came into the office. And the first thing my colleague said to me was: “Ginobili, ey?” He had followed the game via the live ticker.
Now I’m asking myself: Am I only a few weeks or months away from another such moment? Well, if last night’s game against the Raptors had been a playoff game, the Wemby block on Pöltl would have been one of those moments.
Takeaways
- For the second time in a row, the Spurs were able to rely on their starting shooters: Devin Vassell and Julian Champagnie combined to go 8-of-13 from deep, after going 12-of-19 against the Pistons. Shooting north of 60 percent is absolutely unsustainable, but it goes to show how single games — or even two in a row — can be won from beyond the arc.
- For the second time in a row, Victor Wembanyama was expertly defended by strong, nineties-style big men whose body types — and, in particular, arms — remind me of guys like Dale Davis. Maybe even more so than Jalen Duren, Collin Murray-Boyles — in limited minutes — gave Wemby all sorts of trouble. After the seemingly foregone conclusion not to have Wemby defended by traditional big men, this could be an interesting development — or maybe just a coincidence, since those body types are rather rare in today’s NBA.
- Murray-Boyles is a great defender, as is Scottie Barnes (his late-game steal on De’Aaron Fox was flat-out wicked), and the two might become one of my favorite non-Spurs storylines to watch in the coming years. Still, the best defender on the court was Wemby. The five blocks — some of them top-notch highlights — are one thing, but his presence alone is quite another. As Nate Duncan and Danny Leroux reported earlier today on their podcast, the Raptors, with Wemby on the court, took only five shots inside five feet — and 16 shots in the upper paint.
- Castle’s confidence: After airballing a free throw in the second quarter, Stephon Castle had one of the worst corner-three misses I’ve seen in a while. Did he fold? He did not. Instead, he made two huge threes later in the game. The confidence this man has at age 21 — wow.
- Despite Castle confidently converting two threes, he wasn’t part of the closing lineup, because the Spurs have another confident young guard in Dylan Harper, who finished the game instead. This is an interesting decision, particularly with regard to playoff crunch time: Coach Mitch Johnson doesn’t seem willing to play more than one non-shooter (at this stage, I consider both Castle and Harper as such) in those situations. While I believe this to be the correct decision, it’ll be interesting to see how Castle — if he’s the odd man out — handles it.
- It was probably also the right decision to have Harper on the court in crunch time, since he clearly was the Spurs’ best creator. He scored an efficient 15 points and had seven assists with only one turnover. Both Castle and Fox scored less efficiently, and they combined for only six assists — but also three turnovers each.
- Speaking of Fox, I remember an interview in which he voiced his expectations about his role this season: “Create for myself and for others” — he said something along those lines. In a sense, that is what he does. I sometimes wonder, though, if the creation duties he has are enough to satisfy his expectations.
- His role, compared to the one he played for the Kings, has quite clearly diminished. Last night, he had one of those fill-in-the-blanks games that have become his signature this season. He had to endure possessions in which he didn’t get the ball. On the other hand, he started the game as if the Spurs were his team — and it’s a good thing he did, because the guy whose team it actually is didn’t score until the third quarter.
- A final note on former Spur Jakob Pöltl: I haven’t seen him play all that much since he left the Spurs, and all I had heard or read about him recently was that he has one of the worst contracts in the league. Okay, I’m glad the Spurs don’t have to pay him a guaranteed $96 million through 2030, but Jakob still looked like a very capable NBA center out there last night. And since he doesn’t rely on athleticism all that much, let’s hope he can give the Raptors some value for the rest of the decade. I like Jakob — and I always will.
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