JEFF McDONALD
Spurs Insider
Unlike the Boston Celtics, the Spurs didn’t require a six-hour, cross-country flight to re-stabilize their season. There was no tense team meeting, no clear-the-air, clean-yourplate team dinner.
When the Spurs returned home from a 1-7 rodeo trip last month, their playoff hopes in peril, there were a handful of instructional film sessions, one footing-finding practice, but no fingers pointed.
If there was any added sense of urgency, each player found it individually.
“If you want to go to the playoffs, you’ve got to win,” All-Star big man LaMarcus Aldridge said, summarizing the Spurs’ mood to begin March. “I think everybody sensed that. I think guys are starting to figure it out now.”
What a difference a month makes.
The Spurs have followed a fallow February with a March that has found them still undefeated, riding a season-best six-game winning streak and having solidified their place in the Western Conference playoff bracket.
With a five-game lead over ninth place Sacramento, missing the playoffs is no longer an immediate danger for the Spurs. Now the task becomes jockeying for the best seed possible, or at least the most favorable firstround matchup.
The Spurs awoke Thursday having snuck to sixth in the West, half a game ahead of Utah and the Los Angeles Clippers. The reality is those three teams likely will swap places by the day between now and the end of the regular season.
If nothing else, the past two
weeks have given the Spurs the confidence — again — to know they belong in the playoff hunt.
“We can beat anyone in this league,” swingman DeMar DeRozan said. “We always show up against the best. We just have to be consistent. We have to treat everyone we play like they are the No. 1, No. 2 seed.”
That hasn’t always been a successful endeavor for the Spurs throughout this roller coaster of a campaign.
If the NBA playoffs were an invitation-only event such as the NCAA Tournament, the Spurs’ résumé would drive the selection committee crazy.
The Spurs own victories this season over every team currently in the Western Conference playoff field, as well as the top five teams in the Eastern Conference.
They also have lost to Chicago and New York, two of the bottom three teams in the East, as well as six of the seven teams out of the playoff picture in the West, including a 16-win Phoenix club.
“We’ve got to go out and play the way we do against the top teams versus everybody else,” DeRozan said. “It’s been a struggle. It’s a consistency that’s been lacking. It’s a side of us we definitely have to be better at. Especially if we plan on making it to the playoffs and being successful in the playoffs.”
With the Knicks in town Friday at the AT&T Center, the Spurs have a chance to show how far they have come since February.
A dispiriting 130-118 loss at
Madison Square Garden on Feb. 24 still represents the nadir of their season.
Behind a season-high 27 points from unheralded secondyear guard Damyean Dotson, as well as big games from other not-quite NBA luminaries Kevin Knox and Emmanuel Mudiay, New York enjoyed its highestscoring game in regulation since April 11, 2018.
The Knicks broke a franchiserecord 18-game home losing streak at the Spurs’ expense, after which coach Gregg Popovich labeled his team’s defensive effort “pathetic.”
New York used the victory over the Spurs to spark a renaissance of sorts. Two nights later, the Knicks beat Orlando 108-103, earning its first winning streak of any kind since November.
They are 0-7 since, and own the NBA’s worst record at 13-55.
“They play with nothing to lose,” Orlando’s Aaron Gordon said after that game. “When they get confidence and start making shots, they feel like they can play with anybody.”
In Tuesday’s rematch, the Spurs’ top aim is to keep the Knicks from gaining that irrational confidence. They can do this by playing defense.
Since slinking out of Madison Square Garden, the Spurs have improved significantly on the defensive end. Only one of the Spurs’ next seven opponents scored more than 105 points.
“It’s good if we can keep it around 100,” Popovich said. “That’s difficult to do in the league these days, so if you’re in the vicinity, that’s pretty good.”
Since returning from the AllStar break, the Spurs have tied for the third-best defensive rating in the league, allowing 104.6 points per 100 possessions in that span.
“We got back to playing better defense, just getting back to the basics,” said Aldridge, who is averaging 27.6 points and 10 rebounds in March. “We’ve put together solid wins, so we just have to keep it going.”
The best part of the Spurs’ winning streak has been the breadth of teams they have beaten.
Four of those teams in that stretch are headed to the NBA playoffs next month, including a Milwaukee club that arrived in San Antonio with the league’s best record.
The Spurs also have won road games against moribund squads in Atlanta and Dallas.
Finally, perhaps, the Spurs are learning the lesson that victories against the dregs of the league count just as much toward their playoff chase as victories over the elite.
Friday against a New York team that hasn’t won in March, a Spurs team that hasn’t lost in March has a chance to put that into practice again.
“We’ve been pretty inconsistent. That was always our struggle,” DeRozan said. “It’s been great to see the consistency lately. It gives us the confidence to pull these games out, because they are just as important as any other games. Going into the playoffs, you have to have that kind of mentality, being resilient and being able to pull out wins.”